MWEB Uncapped hosting launch produces surprising results

I think my reaction may be typical for this market segment:

free for the first year.
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That bit above says to me "no guarantees". It's not like bandwidth that is vanilla flavoured wherever you go, once you choose a hosting provider, it's alot more difficult to change later if you want to. That's one bit.

Secondly, the DB offering is TINY, most people want hosting with DB, even (or sometimes more especially) in the SME/home market (for CMS style systems). So this freebie might not appeal to very many.

The schlep of moving hosting providers requires a compelling reason to do so.
 
I suspect another reason is the inferior support offered by MWEB hosting.

I submitted my application form and all documentation on the Friday, 17th March (long weekend too), so I knew I'd have to probably wait till mid following week. I followed up on 23rd March with @MWEBGuy on Twitter on who to be fair, was quick to reply and forward the message to my sales rep. I received a call later that day from my rep who told me I'd have to wait it out, as the application had been sent through to their hosting/domain department and sales could no longer assist. I gave it another 2 days and then contacted @MWEBGuy again, who was unfortunately only able to get my sales rep to contact me (and couldn't do anything) rather than the hosting department.

I eventually sent my rep an e-mail on the 29th March (2 weeks since signing up) asking them to cancel my application, and I am yet to even receive a reply to that. If MWEB would like to investigate why this took so long and why I received such piss poor service, I'm happy to forward all e-mails, reference numbers and relevant info to QA.
 
zamrg said:
I suspect another reason is the inferior support offered by MWEB hosting.

I submitted my application form and all documentation on the Friday, 17th March (long weekend too), so I knew I'd have to probably wait till mid following week. I followed up on 23rd March with @MWEBGuy on Twitter on who to be fair, was quick to reply and forward the message to my sales rep. I received a call later that day from my rep who told me I'd have to wait it out, as the application had been sent through to their hosting/domain department and sales could no longer assist. I gave it another 2 days and then contacted @MWEBGuy again, who was unfortunately only able to get my sales rep to contact me (and couldn't do anything) rather than the hosting department.

I eventually sent my rep an e-mail on the 29th March (2 weeks since signing up) asking them to cancel my application, and I am yet to even receive a reply to that. If MWEB would like to investigate why this took so long and why I received such piss poor service, I'm happy to forward all e-mails, reference numbers and relevant info to QA.
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This unfortunately has been my exact experience with MWeb for many years.

With all respect, it is like trying to business with a deaf and slightly retarted toddler.
 
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@Mweb, after 3 calls ....one wonders about service!

After 3 calls & 2 emails (one sent from their online form and one directly to their sale department), I decided to call their sales team to get the answers to these questions.

Q. Where's the shared-hosting hosted?
A. Cape Town server centre (Parow)

Q. Will the price remain @ R19pm
A. For the 1st year (she repeated herself)

Q. What will it be after that?
A. We haven't been informed. :wtf:

Q. Is it a contract?
A. No, its free for the first year :wtf:

Q. How long does it take to setup?
A. 72 hours.

Huh, like wtf? Totally confused here! So ..if I'm a new customer, I'm won't be bound to any contract but I will be screwed when they decide to alter the price after 1 year since I'm "domain locked" (its an effort to change your domain you know :whistle:) and with this service??

After reading this specially the part that says

"Anybody can benefit from Uncapped Hosting, but MWEB ADSL (excluding 1 Gig R29 ADSL) customers enjoy the added advantage of free Uncapped Hosting for one year.",

and

"Free for first 12 months (excl. 1 Gig ADSL). Subject to Acceptable Use Policy.
Prices include VAT. Visit www.mweb.co.za for full terms and conditions that always apply. E&OE"

I could only but be confused with their offering.

Think I'll stay @ RSAWEB ....less confusion!
 
"If you are interested in this product contact us now by either calling 08600 32000 Alternatively you can walk into one of the MWEB retail stores"

i was going host a site with them just to check it out but after reading the above on their website i couldn't be bothered anymore. it just screams 'red tape' ....
 
Roadrunner said:
This unfortunately has been my exact experience with MWeb for many years.

With all respect, it is like trying to business with a deaf and slightly retarted toddler.
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100%

I instead decided to register the domain myself and go with a paid GridHost option for this project. I registered online, paid via EFT/PayFast and their billing system (WHMCS) created my account and gave me access to cPanel instantaneously. I really wish MWEB would jack up their process and move from manual activation to an automated system like WHMCS.
 
zamrg said:
100%

I instead decided to register the domain myself and go with a paid GridHost option for this project. I registered online, paid via EFT/PayFast and their billing system (WHMCS) created my account and gave me access to cPanel instantaneously. I really wish MWEB would jack up their process and move from manual activation to an automated system like WHMCS.
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Wanted to move my overseas hosting to Mweb, but also has been 1 week without any reply :(

Not the way to get customers MWEB - FAIL
 
webhosting.info need to update their IP range they check on for their hosting data
 
jasweb said:
Wanted to move my overseas hosting to Mweb, but also has been 1 week without any reply :(

Not the way to get customers MWEB - FAIL
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People who still thinks that emailing a South African company and getting a swift response should go without the service. Pick up the @$%^ phone. Its faster and you get what you want immediately.
 
I am an MWEB subscriber, I filled in the online application, they phoned me back the next day to check then emailed me the forms. I sent them off and within two days my domain was registered. I am having some trouble with the database but not sure if it's due to my error or if they have something wrong.

The way I understand it is that it's free for a year for MWEB subscribers then after it's R19. I didn't see anywhere that said R19 just for the first year.
 
Some more sterling research by mybb... Not.

I thought it was strange that mweb didn't add even 1 domain over the month, I went to the webhosting.info site, to see how they gathered data, and it says

>> The entire data set currently consists of all COM, NET, ORG, BIZ, INFO Domain Names.

So .co.za isn't counted. The Mweb R20 uncapped hosting comes with a free co.za domain, so it's reasonable to assume the R20 hosting users will go for onf those, and that most the sites in question won't be included in the quoted stats.

I think the fact Mweb don't have self-service hosting is really lame, but this kind of uninformed, ignorant report is even lamer.
 
Unfortunately the R19/month just isn't enough for me. I'm paying R29/month to host 3 domains with plenty of space and unlimited email addresses. Granted, it's internationally hosted but I get decent service (from GridHost) and my support tickets are always answered within an hour or two within reason.
 
Vlad said:
"If you are interested in this product contact us now by either calling 08600 32000 Alternatively you can walk into one of the MWEB retail stores"

i was going host a site with them just to check it out but after reading the above on their website i couldn't be bothered anymore. it just screams 'red tape' ....
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+1 if they had a simple signup procedure I would of signed up... At first I assumed that that would add a simple signup page after a few days, but after visiting their site 2 or three times I gave up..
 
mh348 said:
+1 if they had a simple signup procedure I would of signed up... At first I assumed that that would add a simple signup page after a few days, but after visiting their site 2 or three times I gave up..
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if only..... it's a 9 page application form (including TOS) that needs to be faxed or e-mailed, together with a scanned copy of one's ID and a document proving residential address - archaic much?
 
AcidRaZor said:
People who still thinks that emailing a South African company and getting a swift response should go without the service. Pick up the @$%^ phone. Its faster and you get what you want immediately.
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I've been hosting with Hetzner since 2000 and contacted them 99% of the time via email. They've always responded within 12 hours and also contacted me telephonically on numerous occasions. On the occasions that I phoned them they requested an email, I do the same with my clients, then the conversation is on record.
 
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