What a mess !

[12noon]

Here's a story about the mess i've made of things.

This time last year i paid for web hosting and a domain name, both from the same hosting firm. At the time i thought that i was paying too much money, but would get a good service for what i was paying for.
Anyway one year later and for the first time, i used all my bandwidth within a month. I had a look on the hosting firms website, to see how much it would cost to get extra bandwidth, only to find out that i needed to pay for my next years worth of hosting. I thought i should look around and see if i could get cheaper hosting with more bandwidth.
Anyway i found another host and decided to pay for it. I then found out that because my domain name was about to expire, i couldn't move my domain name over to the new host. So i renewed my domain name for another year and still can't transfer my domain name because of the rules.
What a mess.
I've now got my website on a host that i've not paid for and only have one week left and is out of bandwidth. i've got a domain name that i've paid for, but can't transfer it and i've paid for hosting with a new firm that i can't move my website over to because it wont work using web forwarding.
I'll be pulling my hair out over the next few weeks trying to sort this out.
BTW i've made a back-up of my website and database.
 
And the lesson i've learned is not to wait until the last minute.

[Allin1Joe]

What "rules" are you referring to in regard to transfering your domain?  Honestly, there shouldn't be any.  Your domain should be yours, and you should have every right to transfer it wherever you want.  Of course, it doesn't always work that way, but....

As for the bandwidth issue .. at least you found out before you renewed for another year.  Hopefully, your new company has an easy "overflow" path for when you go over in bandwidth.

And please, after you have been with the new company for a couple of months, give some feedback on them in the feedback forum.

Thanks, and best of luck with your new hosting company!

[12noon]

You cannot transfer a domain if :

The domain has already been (registered or transferred) less than 60 days ago with another registration company.
Your previous registrar has the name locked for either non-payment, or at your request.
The domain has already passed its expiration date or is about to expire within 20 days.
You do not have access to the registered Admin Contact E-mail for your domain, or the person listed on your domain's Admin Contact email doesn't approve the transfer within 5 days after initial transfer request.

So my domain name was about to expire and now i've renewed it !

[Allin1Joe]

Ok, can you go into your domain and change your nameservers at least?  Leave the domain with their company for now, but point the domain to your new servers.

[12noon]

Thanks, i've just done that.
 
I'm now waiting for my new hosting to start.
I can't upload my data and site until i get my account information including username, password. Hope they send me the email soon. It says it might take 24 hours.

[Allin1Joe]

Great!  Best of luck!!

[12noon]

Well, everything went OK and my site is now working again.
I still can't say much about the new hosting because i've not had it long enough, but here's what i got :-

1000 MB Storage Space
50 GB Data Transfer
high-bandwidth connections
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
Park up to 10 Domains
Unlimited MySQL Databases
Web-based MySQL Management
Personal CGI-Bin Access
Perl 5.6, Python, C, C++...
PHP 4 with Zend Optimizer
Server Side Includes (SSI)
Over 10+ Pre-Installed PHP/CGI Scripts
Configurable Apache Handlers
Definable MIME Types
Automated Tasks with Cron
Full .htaccess Capabilities
Real Audio & Video Streaming via HTTP
Plus other stuff


The cost was $90.00 for the year from OnSmart.net
My old hosting was £100 per year (about $200) and i didn't get half as much space or bandwidth.

[Allin1Joe]

I would suggest a word of caution.  When a hosting company provides that much space, at such a small price(I generally call them "discount hosts", that means 2 things:

1.  They are so large, that their costs are low enough to be able to afford that price.

2.  They are overselling like crazy praying their customers don't use all of their space.

I have even heard stories of discount hosts cancelling service contracts with customers because they are "using too many resources" without any explaination or warning.

Now, this company from a general inspection seems to be Ok.  One trick by discount hosters is to limit the way you use your account, to try to ensure you don't use it all (# of files, bandwidth/day, # of SQL queries, etc).  I don't see any of those limits here.  The only thing flaky was their uptime guarantee...

"OnSmart Network guarantees the service will be available 99.9% of the time for a "99.9% Uptime Guarantee" to any of our customers in good financial standing." 

Guarantees "the service" is a little vague.  I would contact them to ask if it pertains to the server your site is on specifically, or if it pertains to the entire network.  There is a company that does that.  If your server is down a week, your guarantee doesn't kick in because the rest of their network was up, counting toward their uptime calculation.  Sneaky huh?  Also ...

If we fail to meet the 99.9% Uptime Guarantee, the following credits will apply to those who qualify:

95.0% to 99.8% - OnSmart Network will credit back 25% of the monthly fee.
90.0% to 94.9% - OnSmart Network will credit back 50% of the monthly fee.
89.9% or below - OnSmart Network will credit back 100% of the monthly fee.

Customers must request such credit within seven (7) days after Network Unavailability.

So, it's not a "true" 99.9% uptime guarantee, but at least they offer something.

I've done a search on them and haven't uncovered anything recent.  Now, that's probably a good thing since most people complain .. not compliment.  Really the only things left to test are their reliability and their customer service.  The only way to test those is time and experience.

Even if the host has prices of $2/GB($1/GB seems to be the industry average), ALWAYS read their terms of service.  It should be in plain view.  If you have trouble finding it, that's probably not a good sign   High prices doesn't guarantee high quality.  However, the term "you get what you pay for" generally holds true in this industry.

So please, check back with us in a couple of months.  My list of "quality" discount hosts is far too short.  It would be nice to add one to the list.