Is your ISPs email server in Timbuktu?

RetroPedro

RetroPedro

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With the whole hoo-ha of 1 Nov burning out, can we discuss some other important matters? Imho, choosing an ISP is more than just pricing, I consider the following matters also important:
  1. Do you get webspace with your package, and how much?
  2. Is the mail server local or international?
  3. Does the ISP have a help-desk ticket response system?
  4. Do they have a forum message board where users are informed on a regular basis.
  5. Do they have a mail control panel where you can admin your own email addresses.
  6. Do they have a user control panel for admin (accounts etc) and web?
  7. Do they participate on myadsl forums? :)
  8. And then of course, how is their service?

A shining example of all the above is Hetzner. I have been hosting with them since 2000 and what a pleasure. They have friendly, knowledgeable staff, respond quickly to email queries and will even PHONE from Cape Town nogal if they can't solve the problem. Their admin and tech services are excellent and I have never had an email server problem for 5 years!

Only problem is they (wisely) stayed out of the ISP mess. Should be interesting to measure ISPs according to the above measures in the future, what do you guys think?
 
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If local is going to be capped as is currently proposed. Then it makes no difference where your mail servers are hosted. Our current bandwidth pricing unfortunatly effects all of the factors when it comes to web hosting space, forums, etc.

Hetzner from what I've heard are one of the better options in the country, But I'm sorry until an ISP or hosting company can can give me the same value for money as I'm getting for hosting in the USA.. My accounts will stay there at Philex. Where else can you get that for R110 a month.. at least in South Africa.

Maybe one day when our proudly South African telecoms comes to the party
 
IS will only be capping local to 30gig, so it a good point...
Im sure verybody knows i use imagine by now...they have a local mail server...you can administer your email through a web page although an adsl account does not include any (or webspace). They dont have forums, but I have seen them post in these and they do have an online helpdesk/ticketing system...
 
BobTheUglgBunny said:
IS will only be capping local to 30gig, so it a good point...
Click to expand...
Maybe I'm just being pesimestic and also having had the largest amount of **** with IS, though Until everything is in black and white from telkom and this whole thing is finalised with ICASA.. I aint moving ANYWHERE.

The pricing of anyone in South Africa still does not come anywhere close to what you can get in the USA. And of course as I said before.. Latency is what is important to me.. So IS is a no go.. no matter what

Add to that the fact that 60% + of the users will still be SAIX and if things are capped local. Its not going to help them

Out of interest.. What does imagine charge you.. and what would it cost to set up something simular to what I posted above from my current hosting company.. R110.00 ???
 
no idea what they charge for hosting, will have to wait for them to reply...i doubt it though...int hosting will always be cheaper...
 
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Just a few more points on where the email server is hosted:
  1. If your ISP is hosting their mail server overseas and it goes down, they have to try and wake the nightshift operator
  2. If the email server is local you can at least get your email that's already there when International links are down
  3. And as BobTheUglgBunny said, if you're on IS, it doesn't tap your international
 
[*]If your ISP is hosting their mail server overseas and it goes down, they have to try and wake the nightshift operator
Click to expand...
This is probabley why Axxess' mail server has been down since 21:00 yesterday, and it still down.
 
DearHeart said:
Just a few more points on where the email server is hosted:
  1. If your ISP is hosting their mail server overseas and it goes down, they have to try and wake the nightshift operator
  2. If the email server is local you can at least get your email that's already there when International links are down
  3. And as BobTheUglgBunny said, if you're on IS, it doesn't tap your international
Click to expand...
Philex have staff working 24 hours. I usually get an email response back with in an hour, and have phoned all hours of the day and night and they have corrected all they problems... Of which in 7 years.. I've only had one, and that was somebody who hacked my SQL database

By your same reasoning.. If the peering link is down between SAIX an IS and your email is on the other server you wont be able to get your email. and lately.. the Peering has been worse than international..

As to tapping your international.. this is email we are talking about. the average user will NEVER cap themselfs with all their email. Businesses are different I know we have one extra line for only email due to the size of the autocad drawings we send around... I'm still not convinced

EDIT: Oh and I get 30 gigs bandwidth thrown in for free...
 
DearHeart said:
If your ISP is hosting their mail server overseas and it goes down, they have to try and wake the nightshift operator
Click to expand...
Um.... Yes and No

We run with international servers - but they are administrated locally. And they're sitting in a rather large datacentre that has the same size of techies for day and night shifts. You gotta do that if you wanna compete in the international market.
Also sitting in JHB - you are as almost as likely to loose a link with the Hetzner servers in CT as you are to loose connection with international... remember - telkom looks after both
 
does that mean your diginet clients have to use their in bandwidth to collect mail...seems a bit harsh...it also means collecting mail for anyone is gonna be slower...
 
But thats the point.. If local is going to be capped now.. there is NO difference between international surfing and local. As to taking longer.. Email ports are unshapped and run at the best speed possible via local or international. If your using a IS account and your using satalite.. well yeah.. the latency there might cause a problem. Plus have any of you ever hard a problem with your DTSV when there is a big thunderstorm or rain storm, What makes you think this is different with IS

My international mail actually downloads quicker than my local mail at this point.. Still trying to work that one out
 
dsl is a VERY small part of the whole picture firstly...and trust me IS dont use 90cm dishes to uplink/downlink their sat bandwidth, thats the difference
 
Lots of good points guys! As you mentioned Sig_ZA, I AM with Axxess, that's what caused me to start this whole thread :o . Kalvaer, besides Hetzner, I also use Crystaltech for hosting. Also very good support and how can you beat 8 seperate url slots? The whole problem is that right now I'm dealing with a very busy Axxess staff that is trying their desperate best to get a (remote?) email server up and running. So desperate they can't even reply to my emails :( (at least there is a post here)

I think I'm just going to move my own personal domain from Axxess to either Hetzner or Crystaltech, then at least I can deal with the support guys personally :rolleyes:
 
I just dont trust them I've still having a fight with them regarding some issues from 4 years ago.. And again.. i'll say the Latency ... forget it. The costs that I'm saving hosting oversea's way more out numbers any other points i've seen so far.. IS is just a NO go for me no matter what.. Might change .. in maybe 10 years but not now not ever

(Why do I think i'm going to regret saying that LOL)

Hmm Crystaltech.. looks good. I must go through what the over more as well. another reason I went with philex BTW and recommend them to everyone. The have also have a local bank account so you dont have to pay by credit card if you dont want to

EDIT: Actually.. I'll still go with Philex. Just compared the pricing. For the $16.95 a month option (which I'm using at philex now) You get 1000 megs compared to 400, and 5 gigs more bandwidth. There are only 2 FTP accounts with Philex.. but who needs more and you can get more if you want. Everything else looks pretty much the same though
 
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Not the point of this thread really, but out of interest sake, how many concurrent seperate domains can you host with Philex? With Crystaltech you get 8. The main reason I'm using them though is because of Coldfusion, not the bandwidth and diskspace really.
 
Good Question.. I've never needed it so never asked.. but i'll send them an email to find out.

I've also never used coldfusion. What does it need specifically that other servers cant give you ?
 
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