1&1 are possibly the worst host in the world, they give awful advice (That`s if you understand what there saying, its like the united colors of benetton!)

 

They advised on a package, so i upgrading to that, spoke to something else, said i did not need it, so get a different one, tried to cancel the other one, said i could`nt because they`ve already taken payment, it`s for £56!!! Just give me it back!!!

 

e-mailed billing, you need to phone billing, phoned billing, you need to e-mail complaints - they are great initially, but when it comes to actual customer service they are the worst!!

 

Would love to start a website and get loads of people writing there views about 1and1, anyone interested??

 

Apologies about the spelling/poor sentence structure - rage has taken over me!!!!

after re-reading this i could probably get a job at 1&1,

 

so i upgrading to that

 

Who said correct english is dead!!

LOL nice anecdote - thread subject made me chuckle.

 

Sounds like a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing!

they are horrible, the basically made it impossible for me to transfer my domains... now i register with 123 and use whatever hosting i fancy.

Sounds like a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing!

 

Easy enough to guess what it's doing, though... 1&1 have a reputation of being a bunch of w**kers

Would love to start a website and get loads of people writing there views about 1and1, anyone interested??

 

Funny you should say that, there was actually a website once that one of there "ex-customers" made where he recorded every conversation with them, and documented the entire journey of his hassles with them, and it went on for absolutely ages.

 

The telephone conversations with them were really amusing to say the least, but no need to start another website about them, just join in the the many that already exist.

 

I'm surprised people still buy there hosting actually based on what you can find out about them on the web, but I guess being the humble humans that we all are, we love shiny offers and glitzy deals too much..

The title of this thread made me lol . Better you than me though i guess. If it was me that were to do it, i'd probably get labelled a terrorist.

 

I wouldn't go anywhere near 1&1 after hearing such bad things. I suggest you find a new host ASAP.

Funny you should say that, there was actually a website once that one of there "ex-customers" made where he recorded every conversation with them, and documented the entire journey of his hassles with them, and it went on for absolutely ages.

 

The telephone conversations with them were really amusing to say the least, but no need to start another website about them, just join in the the many that already exist.

 

I'm surprised people still buy there hosting actually based on what you can find out about them on the web, but I guess being the humble humans that we all are, we love shiny offers and glitzy deals too much..

 

Money talks! When you spend as much as they do on advertising your cheap offers you're bound to get sign ups by the hundreds!

 

As people find out when you sign up for that "cheap" package it doesn't do what you want and you pay more to upgrade. I always advise people to stay away from the big hosting companies and those that oversell! If you're not sure if a company oversells think of this.

 

A 250GB server with a bandwidth of 3000GB/month is approx 100 quid to rent depending on several facters. If a host is offering 10GB space and 100GB bandwidth a month for 2 quid they can only sell 25 packages before they have allocated all the diskspace - that'll net them a whole 50 quid a month, 50 quid less than the server costs them. Thats before you go into all the other costs of running a hosting company.

 

Rant over lol

 

Cheers

Rob

I was planning on searching google for "how to make pipe bombs" but then thought of the hassle of making them (i`m not very good with my hands, plus buying TNT may look suspicious??) then spending £100,000 (money i don`t have as i am being credit crunched) on flights to india, pakistan, america, berkshire, cuba, china and then performing jason bourne like escapes from the authorities (what i`m trying to say is that they have people all over the galaxy!!)

 

Of course the "pipe bomb" search is a joke, don`t come after me Mi5 or bug my phone!!! i`m not a terorist!!! just angry at the legendary company that is 1&1.

 

I remember reading and listening to the posts on the website a week ago when i had another problem with them. He kept phoning trying to get through to a Mr. Dempsy or something...i`m sorry Sir, Mr. Dempsy is at the toilet, is at lunch (it`s 3:30pm!!) is at a meeting etc etc.

 

Awful!!!

 

Any ideas who i can transfer to?? Someone UK based would be nice...

If you're not sure if a company oversells think of this.

 

A 250GB server with a bandwidth of 3000GB/month is approx 100 quid to rent depending on several facters. If a host is offering 10GB space and 100GB bandwidth a month for 2 quid they can only sell 25 packages before they have allocated all the diskspace - that'll net them a whole 50 quid a month, 50 quid less than the server costs them. Thats before you go into all the other costs of running a hosting company.

 

Rant over lol

 

Cheers

Rob

 

I wouldn't assume every web hosting company's cost model is like that...

I wouldn't assume every web hosting company's cost model is like that...

Indeed, most of us supplying customers with services don't rent dedicated servers... it eats into profit margins Remember also that 1&1 are not UK based. Their servers are in Germany. Not only does that make round-trip journey time slightly more for UK-based sites, but it also affects the rates at which they get their services and staff!

 

If a host is offering 10GB space and 100GB bandwidth a month for 2 quid

Except that isn't what 1&1 are offering! For £2 they offer 250MB space and 3GB bandwidth. So that's about 1/40th of the sum you quote! I'm not supporting them (I did in fact move away from them some time ago because of considerably poor VPS installations), but your sums are not reflective of the original complaint.

 

To be more precise, IP transit for a provider of that volume is under £3/Mbps/month CDR (95th percentile). That's roughly equivalent to £3/325GB/month or £1/100GB/month. You'll also find that for shared hosting it makes financial sense to invest one-off in a single 2U or 4U server with RAID 1+0 with, say, 1TB total storage and put a larger number of small customers on there. [Note: I dislike putting a large number of customers on one server, and this is where the problems with reliability lie, but if you're just looking at profit, the numbers work on paper.] A large company will purchase hardware like that in bulk (think 100+ larger servers and 500+ smaller servers on one order) so discounts are huge. A large server of that type will be under £1K for them. So with a fully loaded server, they'll make their investment for a dozen or more servers back in one month, then it's significant profit all the way for over 24 months until something fails. One of the largest expenses is power consumption; it's difficult to estimate what they'd pay. Those figures are more accurate than your suggestion but still quite rough. This isn't really overselling either!

 

My point: being cheap is not an indicator of being poor. Providers who purchase large amounts of hardware, software, power and transit get huge discounts which they can pass on to their customers. The problem providers are those who cram hundreds of customers all on one server, giving reliability problems, and don't employ skilled staff to cope with the demand.

It also depends on the agreements you can get with suppliers and if they have a POP (Point of presence) in the data centre your in.

 

Charles mentions about power - A typical rack will come with around 8A of power and depending on where you are located will have an impact on what you pay for power. This is however included in the cost of rack space and any additional power is usually billed per Amp and can usually be found at a price between £10 and £40.

 

The same goes for transit - do you want cheep or quality... You go cheap then you pay for what you get but you will however get economies of scale anyway with most suppliers - the more you buy the cheaper it becomes. Again location plays an important role - if you have servers in docklands transit is going to be at a premium. But its all down to network speeds not price.

 

1&1 also have their own buildings and their own ASN (#8560) - they will peer with different providers and so get a lot of their bandwidth for nothing. If you look here: http://www.robtex.com/as/as8560.html you will see their main peering partners as well as who they use as carriers.

 

It comes down to market share and economies of scale - the more you buy the cheaper stuff becomes. A big company like 1&1 will get stuff quite cheep as they order so much but yes again like Charles said its not about the equipment its how you utilize it - you overfill a server its just going to clog up the routers and switches with traffic etc which will lead to downtime and everything else.

 

Find a host which does not oversell and im sure you will be fine

Again location plays an important role - if you have servers in docklands transit is going to be at a premium.

 

Not quite - transit is very cheap in docklands (cheaper than anywhere else in the UK) and the choice of transit providers is second to none, plus there's also LINX as well.

To be more precise, IP transit for a provider of that volume is under £3/Mbps/month CDR (95th percentile). That's roughly equivalent to £3/325GB/month or £1/100GB/month. You'll also find that for shared hosting it makes financial sense to invest one-off in a single 2U or 4U server with RAID 1+0 with, say, 1TB total storage and put a larger number of small customers on there. [Note: I dislike putting a large number of customers on one server, and this is where the problems with reliability lie, but if you're just looking at profit, the numbers work on paper.] A large company will purchase hardware like that in bulk (think 100+ larger servers and 500+ smaller servers on one order) so discounts are huge. A large server of that type will be under £1K for them. So with a fully loaded server, they'll make their investment for a dozen or more servers back in one month, then it's significant profit all the way for over 24 months until something fails. One of the largest expenses is power consumption; it's difficult to estimate what they'd pay. Those figures are more accurate than your suggestion but still quite rough. This isn't really overselling either!

 

My point wasn't about 1and1 overselling, although reading it it seems to be

 

I was trying to point out badly that with big companies you will often pay less than a small provider but the level of service you get will generally be less. You will more than likely be a number. With a small provider whilst you may pay slightly more because of higher costs you are more likely to be treated as an individual and speak to someone who actually cares when you phone up.

 

I was trying to point out to avoid overselling companies that try to compete on price, especially the smaller ones competing with the giants! At some point you will suffer downtime and a sluggish response from your server. I wasn't trying to point out all the business costs or economies of scale - I was trying to keep it to a simple example. I like simple

 

On a personal note my company does rent servers, on the basis that I do not have a massive backing or bottomless pit of money! Am I expensive for hosting? I don't believe so, nor do I load my servers to breaking point. When I get a customer I like to make sure that I keep that customer - that means good support when they need it, a reliable non maxed out server and a reasonable price. So far I think I'm doing good