Odysseus called at daylight's ebb
And asked his ministers how might best
He launch upon the wine dark web
His own fair land's domain and crest.

"We'll build you one that'll pass the test!"
Some of them cried with fervor bold,
Others: "Nay, profit and buy it from the best,
For few can build at the price now sold."

"What cost is asked by those who seek
To host domains like mine?" he queried.
"We have not asked," his pages squeek,
"So deep with work we're buried."

"Then cost it out, to make it so,"
The frugal King did then mandate,
"While I unto the market go,
to find and gauge the going rate."

Odysseus immediate demands are modest . . . now.
    He wishes sufficient storage space for his domain's few html files, mostly text of the advantages of visiting or doing business with Ithaca, with a few small images of Ithaca's ministers and attractions.
    Odysseus expects a low frequency of visitors, the occasional potential customer or vendor getting some background on Ithaca before contacting the Ministry of Shameless Commerce, and also the occasional hit from a competing city-states checking out their rival.
    Yet, Odysseus requires the capacity to expand his domain, to offer streaming audio and video for promotion and training.
    He even wishes, at some future time,to offer his trading partners, and colleagues easy, on demand web hosting and design for their special needs in trading with Ithaca. In short, to resell hosting services.

Ithaca's organizational infrastructure is also modest.
For now, Ithaca.gov only needs electronic mail box accounts for about 20 ministers and their staff, all prepared to access a separate mail box in order to keep their ithaca.com transactions separate from their other business and personal correspondence.

Ithaca.gov must handle items of state security.
So up-to-date protection is required. At the same time, the domain must freely serve colorful brochures depicting Ithaca's sun-washed beaches, well-stocked merchants and friendly inns and bistros. So, Odysseus requires the availability of solid SSL security, digital certificates and signatures, and also free and easy access to public information.

Odysseus also wants the potential to expand the domain.
As the kingdom grows in power and volume of commerce, Ithaca.com needs the capability to transact electronic commerce, so he was looking for sites able to support solutions from such companies as Cybercash, iCat, NetGravity, Open Market and others. He also requires the capacity to serve up RealNetworks' streaming audio and video formats to clients, staff and vendors, as another creative means of providing information and service. (See wamble980123.html)

So, Wise Odysseus begins to search the marketplace for web hosting providers, in order to determine if his own household would be wisest to make or to buy such services.

As he perused UUNet's own site, Odysseus perceived that UUNet's primary focus was in providing high-bandwidth mission-critical services to large organizations with heavy usage requirements. Such as other web hosts and Internet Service Providers, and industrial-strength users. UUNet deliberately does not play in the consumer market, and did not seem to encourage small business domains. Yet UUNet's site provided scholarly Odysseus a valuable source of background information.

Perhaps most valuable to Odysseus was UUNet's comprehensive white paper entitled "Internet Business Guide" which included chapters on "Using the Internet for Competitiveness" and "Selecting an Internet Provider." Odysseus carefully studied these works by this premier business-to-business host.

Throughout his visit to UUNet's site, Odysseus was impressed with the immediacy and speed of its response to his calls. A head of state hates to wait, and he found no wait states at UUNet's home.

Although UUNet presented an online quote request form, Odysseus marked the site, and moved on to look for a provider more focused on smaller sites like those of Ithaca.gov.

Drilling down through ANS' Products and Services to "Web Hosting Services," he found more details about service and technical details, including capability with SSL and support for ecommerce solutions from Cybercash, iCat, NetGravity and Open Market. and RealAudio servers, but no price information, merely an invitation to telephone a salesperson in, Purchase New York. Not even an email address for price information. Shuddering at the prospect of falling into the clutches of a New York salesperson so early in his search, Odysseus recorded the information he found for later reference and moved onward.

Returning to his Infoseek results, observant Odysseus spotted a link to a headline "MICROSOFT PROVIDES COMPLETE INTERNET SOLUTION FOR SMALL BUSINESSES. Free Web Site Hosting Offer From Internet Service Providers Completes Internet Access And Web ..." This turned out to be a promotion announced in March 1997 for Microsoft Office 97, by offering businesses using that product 60 days free web hosting with several participating hosts, including: Concentric Network Corp., GTE Internet Solutions, NETCOM On-Line Communications Services Inc. and Verio Inc. in the United States, ACC NetMedia and i-STAR internet inc. in Canada.

Odysseus moved on to refine his search. Scrolling down, Odysseus viewed page after page of links to web hosting services he'd never heard of. "Where to find a disinterested view?" he asked himself.

"Eureka! Lycos' Top 5%" he exclaimed.

Host Pro

T3West

9NetAvenue

Mindspring

TriaNet

Ultimate Web Host List

Host Pro offered package plans from $19.95 to $350.00. For $99.95/month, the "NetBusiness" package offered 20 POP3 mail accounts, 20 alias mail accounts, 80 MB of storage, and 4,000 MB of traffic/month ($0.06/MB thereafter), along with Real Audio & Real Video Server support for 15 streams, SSL, mSQL database and remote control and daily statistical analysis. For $395/month, Ithaca.com could get 100 MB, 10,000 MB of traffic monthly, and 40 POP3 and 40 alias accounts. Host Pro's "Famous Clients" list included Ceasars Empire, CalFed Bank, Nickleodeon and tennis pro Michael Chang. "A good price point," spake Odysseus and moved down his checklist.

T3West Web Hosting Services top end "Corporate Account" asked $295/quarter or $990/year. It offered 50 MB storage, 15 Gig/month of bandwidth, SSL, RealAudio and RealVideo, but only 15 forwarding email accounts. No POP3 accounts. Remote FTP updates, OK. But not as attractive as HostPro, and the "second year free on corporate annual packages" had the ring of desperation. Their name "T3" apparently derived from their T3 fiber optic lines into the backbone at Silicon Valley.

9NetAvenue offered plans starting at $14.95. Their "Pro" plan, at $39.95/month offered 100 MB, 25 POP3 mailboxes, 5 GB of data transfer/month, plus SSL, Cybercash, RealAudio and RealVideo up to 1000 streams, and other standard items. They boasted of multiple T3 lines into the Net's backbone, and of being an InterNIC Premier Gold Partner, due to the volume of their registry of new domain names. They also pointed to their recent listing as one of the Top 25 web hosts on the Ultimate Web Host List, an independent monthly ranking service. They listed at their site only three reference commercial customers, none of which Odysseus recalled hearing of. Odysseus wondered if they would have the capacity to absorb growth smoothly.

A stop at Mindspring reminded Odysseus of its purchase of PSINet's consumer ISP and hosting business in 1996. Its plans started at $50/month. For $125 set up and $100/month, Ithaca.com could get 20 MB storage, 1 GB/month bandwidth. The pricing plan did not mention any POP3 mail accounts or a RealAudio or RealVideo server support. Odysseus moved on.

The fifth, TriaNet, offered only two plans, each evidently aimed at a bare-bones operation. The "Custom Plan" for $49.00/month offered 25 MB storage, 5 GB/month data transfer, five POP3 mail accounts, and other basic features. No mention of RealAudio or RealVideo or ECommerce support except a cryptic reference to "shopping cart program" requiring a set up fee, but no further explanation. "I don't think so," sighed Odysseus.

Concentric Host

NetCom

The reference by 9NetAvenue inspired Odysseus onto a side trip to the Ultimate Web Hot List, where recent monthly lists include among the top five:

ConcentricHost, which, for $99.95/month offered its "Internet Suite - 100" plan that included 25 email accounts, 75 MB (3,750 pages at 20K/page) of Web site storage, a Web site traffic allocation of 2000 MB/month (100,000 page downloads) dial-up Internet access account, virtual IP addressing, shared SSL, and other features. Odysseus recalled this as one of the hosts participating in the Microsoft Office offer.

Netcom A publicly traded leading company (NASDAQ:NECSY) with a good track record for financial stability, Netcom presented a table of plans starting at $25 including a "Business Package" offering 2 GB/month data flow, 50 MB storage and 5 POPs for $125/month (extra POPs $5/month each). Not the cheapest, but a solid name with T3 lines into its wholly owned international OC-3 network. And its publicly traded status meant Odysseus could easily keep his eyes on their finances and ability to expand over coming years.

Odysseus reviewed the archived Ultimate Web Host Lists for past months are also available as far back as September. Odysseus found that Netcom consistently scored in the top five hosts, and that both ConcentricHost and 9NetAve consistently scored in the top 25.

Observant Odysseus did not see HostPro or T3West on any of the Ultimate Web Hot Lists.

1) Commercial-grade hosting by top-ranked, world-class providers could be had for a piddling set-up charge and $100/month, offering the POP3 accounts and bandwidth he required today, and capacity for expansion in stages tomorrow.

2) This service could be ordered and activated online, unless the ads were false, within 24 hours, and remotely managed by FTP from anywhere in the world. It does not include web design or training of users, which would fall upon Odysseus' team.

3) The marketplace was filled with competitors aggressively competing for his business. Some big, some little.

4) Among the leading providers were internationally known, publicly traded companies such as GTE, Netcom and WorldCom's UUNet and ANS, with the financial support needed to grow their network infrastructure as their customer base and bandwidth demands grew.

Oddysseus posed himself the question,
"Can my own crafters produce as much,
as well, as fast, and as economically?
We shall see when they report to me."

Have you some "do's" and "don'ts" from your own experience picking a web hosting service?

Please, share your thoughts in the:

    Guestbook
Sign It . . . View It

  Doug Simpson 98.02.23