So will you go local?

[guest2013-1]

I see from Web Africa's new hosting packages for local transfer etc that it's pretty much affordable hosting some of my sites (if not all my local sites) locally now.

Any of you guys thinking of doing the same?

 

[InnerException]

I'm planning to shift some of the sites I'm managing to local. Awesome prices.
I can only imagine what the pricing for DSL is on their new network if their hosting is so well priced.

 

[guest2013-1]

I'm planning to shift some of the sites I'm managing to local. Awesome prices.
I can only imagine what the pricing for DSL is on their new network if their hosting is so well priced.

Personally I won't get my hopes up But it would definitely appear to be that their local-only bandwidth might be in the same range as IS's local-only bandwidth

Otherwise R29/gb sounds about right, however, I won't be surprised if it's more like R49/gb based on their over usage pricing.

Time will tell

 

[debonair]

Looking at those prices... I guess I could...

 

[tco21]

I would. As somebody pointed out in the initial thread - there's quite a niche there... uhm, here.

 

[Kraai2009]

I have no need currently for local hosting. I stay international, it is still very much cheaper than this offer. However, I guess this is a step forward in the local price war! The question is, how is WA's service and support levels regarding the hosting side? I am asking because I don't know.

 

[ToxicBunny]

I already host a dedicated box at their Data Center... and the support is decent enough.

In my opinion, if my site is intended for local consumption, it will be hosted locally.

 

[Tpex]

I'm planning to shift some of the sites I'm managing to local. Awesome prices.
I can only imagine what the pricing for DSL is on their new network if their hosting is so well priced.

I wouldn't think you would still like WA after that incident with zee.za.net?
Disgusting business practice like that would put me off

 

[InnerException]

I wouldn't think you would still like WA after that incident with zee.za.net?
Disgusting business practice like that would put me off

To give credit where it is due, WA did not really have a choice. As a member of ISPA, they are forced to comply to anything ISPA dictates.
If you are going to add names to your hitlist, choose ISPA

 

[guest2013-1]

I wouldn't think you would still like WA after that incident with zee.za.net?
Disgusting business practice like that would put me off

huh? what happened?

 

[tco21]

IIRC, zee.za.net was one of those free international proxies gone bad.

 

[InnerException]

IIRC, zee.za.net was one of those free international proxies gone bad.

Not at all. Its a local torrent tracker. Its coming back online, but .za.net domain names take forever to propagate.

 

[wikus]

I still don't see those prices competing with international bandwidth prices.

It's still not worth it for small businesses with lots of local traffic to choose local hosting instead of international hosting, unless it will benefit their business.

 

[guest2013-1]

I still don't see those prices competing with international bandwidth prices.

It's still not worth it for small businesses with lots of local traffic to choose local hosting instead of international hosting, unless it will benefit their business.

Give me 1 example

 

[rurapente]

im with Linode in NYC and will keep my stuff there for the fore-seeable future. the package price and bandwidth and control of my own box is is still by far cheaper than entry-level hosting-only packages here.

 

[Tpex]

To give credit where it is due, WA did not really have a choice. As a member of ISPA, they are forced to comply to anything ISPA dictates.
If you are going to add names to your hitlist, choose ISPA

But shouldn't there be a warning before action? AFAIK they just closed it without any warning?

 

[InnerException]

But shouldn't there be a warning before action? AFAIK they just closed it without any warning?

True, but in the end its teaching us to evolve into a much more decentralized tracker. Give me 3 months, and I will have completed a plan that will make tracker nearly impossible to shut down completely (and will be up and running again within 48hrs if they succeed).

EDIT: And I think we've derailed enough for now. We can always continue in the zee.za.net thread. Its what it is there for, after all

 

[wikus]

Give me 1 example

im with Linode in NYC and will keep my stuff there for the fore-seeable future. the package price and bandwidth and control of my own box is is still by far cheaper than entry-level hosting-only packages here.

Not a company, but still a worthy example.

 

[guest2013-1]

im with Linode in NYC and will keep my stuff there for the fore-seeable future. the package price and bandwidth and control of my own box is is still by far cheaper than entry-level hosting-only packages here.

Not a company, but still a worthy example.

Yes but how much bandwidth do your websites actually use?

And if they're web applications that help run the company (like a CRM system or an online accounting system.... even an online POS system)... most likely the company is already running those things on an intranet already instead of having it on the web.

AND EVEN WHEN the CRM system (as the only example that pops into my head that a company would need to use), if the company is South African based with several branches, it would be cheaper to host those branches ADSL lines on local-only bandwidth (stopping people from using it for things like YouTube and wasting money) and have the CRM software hosted locally at a data center, on a server, on local bandwidth.

Seriously, how much traffic do you guys pull a day? A week? A month? For just a simple company website?

Okay, let's take it a bit further, let's assume your company has a login where someone can check their accounts. (Which means someone either works on the websites daily to update or files get synchronized somewhere down the line to update the accounting package/module of your website where someone can come in and download an invoice or check their account status)

How much bandwidth do you *think* you'll use for something like that? (Please note I'm currently involved with several websites, vanilla flavored to the ones that you login for information and can search database of over 11000 items/contacts etc with over 14000 users)

Please, give me a real world example.

Sure, overseas is still cheaper. 100% correct. Awesome. *Noddy Badge*

But what REASON do you have for keeping it there? Forget for a minute that the WA packages announced are for shared servers for a second. I'm sure they'll have a dedicated server package out soon... but based on the pricing of R11 - R20 / gb of bandwidth used...

Compare it to the R200-300/gb we used to pay a few years back, making it ridiculous to host within our own borders, even a simple website for a company that *might* do 500mb a month...

Can you really give me a real world example with data saying "My company websites pulls over 300gb in data each month and it's certainly cheaper hosting overseas than it is here!"

Please do.. I really want to be enlightened by you both...

 

[wikus]

If you use little bandwidth, sure it will be cheap but who wants to be limited to 2Gb or whatever stupid limits are on these accounts.

Lets say a company decides to put up a simple website (company info, product info, contacts, etc. with a smallish database) and they explore their hosting options.

They sure as hell won't put up a dedicated server for starters (whereas they would use local bandwidth anyway) so shared linux hosting is their best bet.

Let's say they are bargaining on using 20GB of traffic initially since they have a fair amount of users and they want to host a few PDF documents on their site. They also want the few employees they have to be able to download a few documents using FTP.

They decide on hosting from WebAfrica and they can only spend R500 per month max on their hosting, money is tight.
So for R450 per month they can get either 10GB local bandwidth or 100+GB international bandwidth.

Isn't their choice obvious?