Which IP for a small business account?

new_business_2

I could do with advise to which IP gives the best deals to small business and host our company web site etc, we run the business from home at the moment but we live in Holland so use Tiscali. nl - no thankyou not Tiscali again. Moving back to the UK next month recommendations of who to use in the UK would be great ? we'lll need phone, broadband , web hosting the lot.
Thanks in advance

greyster

You need to determine how critical the broadband service is to your business. If its not critical i.e. you can afford a random days with broadband down throughout the year, pick a home package.

Otherwise look harder for business packages which guarantee a certain availability per year and state how long it will take to fix outages.

Hosting is likely to come from a hosting business and not an ISP, unless you are willing again to settle for webspace designed for personal users where outages are not the end of the world.

I'd look immediately at BT's offering for business broadband and telephone and then perhaps plusnet. Both large business providers.

For business hosting you got a zillion places to choose from. Perhaps go to UKbusinessforums.co.uk and look for a hosting company on there with a personal touch who can respond to web problems quickly.

This is all irrelevent if you personal phone, broadband, hosting is acceptable.

new_business_2

Broadband is critical - I don't really understand what you mean re web hosting and web space though. At the moment tiscali provide dsl, web hosting the lot. I am new to this to pls excuse me if it seems thick, what's outage in lamen terms?

greyster

Web space and web hosting is the same thing.

Outage is the same as downtime. Most web hosting companies offer 99.8% availability of your website to internet users throughout the year. That means you can expect your website to be unavailable for 0.2% of the year.

If you go with webspace provided by your IP you should check the smallprint. They will most likely offer you no guarantee that your site will be 99.8% available. If you want this, you should pay for proper hosting where the hosting company main business is providing web space to businesses.

These businesses that offer 'business hosting' have backup power supplies, network connections and servers so if their service crashes, they have backup services that can still host your website so customers will never seen an interruption.

I doubt Tiscali offer this. Most space provided by such IPs is for personal use, to let individuals establish themselves on the internet with their friends or co workers. Most individuals will not care if their site is down sometimes and to be honest, the majority won't notice. However as a business you will notice, and so will your customers and bank account!

greyster

Just done some research for you,

Broadband with a Service Level Agreement i.e. an agreement between the IP and you to say that the IP will fix your broadband within a set period is still very very expensive. I think BT charge £100 a month which is very dear. Perhaps home broadband package with no guarantee and a backup dial up internet package installed for when there is downtime is cheaper?

For business web hosting, I recommend https://www.webfusion.co.uk. They're owned by the same company who do Pipex Broadband and 123reg.co.uk - a popular domain registrar. Do not scrimp on hosting, as you may know.

new_business_2

Thsnks for taking the time to reply. I'll conract all th folks you suggest and see where we go. kind regards

[Deleted User]

If broadband is critical then go for someone reliable and who knows what customer service means. Don't tie yourself into a contract longer than 3 months. This is crucial for a business that relies on broadband.

I have had no problems at all with Zen. (One month contract).

Does exactly what it says on the tin and excellent customer service as well.

But DYOR.

Present performance is not an indication of the future.

Think e7even and you will get what I mean.