IX Web Hosting offers 3 packages as shown below:
If you do not need a database, Expert Plan is sufficient for most of the websites, as 6000 GB Data Transfer is
more than sufficient for many of the popular sites. Business Plus and Unlimited Pro include database, which is the
main difference from Expert Plan.
One which attracted me to go for the Unlimited Pro plan is the unlimited disk space offering. Do they really provide
unlimited disk space? Probably, you may have to fight for it. I am not sure how long one can fight for the rights.
See my experiences with IX Web Hosting below for more details on this.
The reason why I am still with IX Web Hosting is their network speed and customer support. As there are lot of
large size downloadable files in my site, download speed is very important for me. When a user has 8 Mbps
connection, he expect his downloads to happen at that speed. A site with lots of creatives can load fast at users'
computers only if the network and servers at hosting site are really fast and good.
If you are running a business, then an instant customer support from the hosting service provider is very vital. Your
site cannot be down for long time or it cannot be performing slow. If you find any issues, the customer care
executive must be available at a click away to resolve the issues in a timely manner. Otherwise you will be losing
your customers and business. From my understanding, IX Web Hosting has customer care executives working
from different part of the world, round the clock.
Experience with IX Web Hosting
Now, what is my experience with IX Web Hosting? My first bad experience came in 8-9 months time. Though they
offer an unlimited disk space, I went for 3 Unlimited Pro accounts to share the disk space and data transfer load.
To explain clearly, let me name the accounts as A, B and C. While I set up my website at A, I used B and C to
store my downloadable files and linked them to A. Also, B and C were configured to redirect to A. So anyone
visiting B and C get redirected to A.
One fine day, I found that all my files at B were missing. When contacted customer care, I came to know that the
System Administrator deleted the files as there was a ToS (Terms of Service) violation. Yes.. their ToS says that
one should not use the account as file storage and the files must be linked to html pages. In my case, the files
were linked to html pages, but not on the same domain.
In this case, what is done by the system administrator is also a ToS violation, as their ToS says that they will
take any action only after informing the account owner. When the things were not understandable to the customer
care executives or system administrators, I decided to contact the CEO of the company, Mr. Fathi Said. Yes..
you read it correct. IX Web Hosting allows you to write directly to the CEO, though a top-level Manager may be
getting in touch with you. You can find the CEO's note and the page to contact him in their website under the
section 'Our Promise To You'. The chain of communication is given below. To conform with their ToS, I
agreed to keep web pages in every account, rather than redirecting from B and C to A, though it doesn't make
much sense to me.
Communication with IX Web Hosting
Dear Mr.Said,
I am a subscriber to IXWebHosting with three accounts with you, and was so happy about your service until
now.
I am running a website A.com, for which I opened another two accounts B.com and C.com. The later two
accounts were redirected to A.com.
As I have many downloadable video files, to share the load on servers, I was placing such files to B.com and
C.com and linking from A.com.
Two days back, all my files from B.com got deleted, without any notice. For my ticket, I got a response that the
files were deleted as it is considered that the account was used as a file storage, which is a breach of ToS.
If you see it that way, it is fine. But my complaint is about your breach of ToS. The same section in ToS says
that: "In any case, the subscriber will be notified of any actions that IX Web Hosting may have to take."
But we were not notified about any breach of ToS, before you deleted the files. If that was done we could have
make some arrangements and avoid our huge loss. (Please note, we are also running a business and such
actions are creating huge loss to us.)
I request you to take this seriously and put it in a process to inform the subscribers about any breach of ToS
before you take any action. (I still doubt if there was any breach of ToS from our side as all the files were linked to
html on another account and people were using it.)
Thanks
Mr. Z
============================================
Dear Mr. Z,
Thanks for contacting me. I appreciate that you took the time to provide me with your feedback. Your ticket has
been submitted and one of our client managers is already taking a look at it. I'm personally kept aware of
updates made to this ticket.
We'll continue to be in touch with you to address your inquiry. I hope we can take care of this and get back to you
within a short time.
Kind Regards,
Fathi
============================================
Dear Mr. Said,
I am requesting your immediate attention to this problem.
I am getting lot of communications from your support about ToS violation. My request to restore the files is being
denied stating that it takes too much diskspace. Please note that I have an unlimited disk space package from
you. And I am not even using the disk space offered by any of your limited packages.
I request your early possible attention.
Thanks
Mr. Z
===========================================
Mr. Z,
I have tried to contact you at the telephone number which is provided on your hosting account, however I was
unable to reach you. If there is a preferred time and telephone number which you would like us to contact you at
please provide this information.
Mr. Y
Customer Relations, Manager
===========================================
Hello Mr. Y,
You can reach me anytime at xxx-xxx-xxx.
If you give me your number, I can call you as well.
Thanks
Mr. Z
===========================================
Our 3rd shift manager will attempt to reach you at the number provided. Thank you for your patience.
Ms. U
CR Manager
===========================================
(After the telephonic conversation when Mr. Y understood the matter.)
Thanks for the call, Mr. Y, and understanding my concern. Thank you so much for helping me to solve this
issue.
Mr. Z
===========================================
Ticket Status was changed from On-Hold to Resolved
Mr. Z,
Thank you for speaking with me today, as per our conversation you have conformed to our Terms of Service. If you
have any other questions please feel free to contact us at any time.
Mr. Y
Customer Relations, Manager
Second Dose of Bitterness
Though the issue got resolved, I got another mail from the System Administrator in one month saying my disk space usage is a violation of 'Fair Use Policy'. This invention happened at a time when I was using only less than 50 GB disk space and my package offered unlimited disk space in theory. But again the fire is put down through negotiation. See the communication chain below:
Dear Mr. Z,
Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mr. Q, and I am a system administrator at IX WEBHOSTING. In this role, I’m responsible for maintaining a reliable environment for all sites we host. As part of my duties, I monitor the activities and usage levels of all websites that we host, so that a stable hosting experience is guaranteed for you and all other customers.
It has been brought to my attention that one/some of the website(s) you host with us (C.com) are in violation of the ‘Fair-Use’ portion of our terms of service. I’d like to emphasize that this is not a big problem and can be solved easily if you can follow my recommendation.
Specifically, the domain(s) I mentioned are utilizing an unproportional amount of disk space. That is causing a shortage on the server, which is significantly impacting the performance of your account with us and the accounts of other customers on the same server. To alleviate this problem, all you have to do is to reduce the amount of disk space used by your account to less than 50GB. I certainly understand that in an ideal situation, you could be using up to the full amount of disk space provided by the product you’re subscribed to, however, it comes with limitations such as the Fair-Use portion of our terms of service, which promotes an equal sharing of server resources among all customers. The Fair-Use statement is actually the main reason why you can use the disk space you are using today in the first place, as it lets you use more resources, when others use less, so that the system is always in a balanced state, providing reliable services to you and your site’s visitors. Please note that all shared hosting providers today work in this fashion to ensure the best performance for their systems.
I’d be more than happy to work with you on how we can bring your site in accordance with our terms of service. If for any reason there is no option for you to adapt the disk space usage, it would be my recommendation that you consider using a dedicated server. We can recommend you reliable companies to work with if you are interested.
As the performance of your account and the server you’re hosted on is impacted at this time, it’s important that we can address this matter in a timely fashion. Please let me know within the next 72 hours if it is possible for you to adapt the disk space usage, or if I can be of further assistance if you decide to host your website elsewhere (the only real option is a dedicated server, as other shared hosting companies have the same Fair-Use provisions and you may be facing the same challenge there). Of course, if you choose to not continue to host with us, we will be refunding you any outstanding or prepaid amounts.
I apologize for this inconvenience and hope for your understanding. Thank you for your assistance.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. Q, System Administrator IX WEBHOSTING
===========================================
Hello Mr. Q,
First, let me thank you for writing to me and not taking any action without informing me. (A ToS violation by itself, which your team had done before and I had to deal with Mr. Fathi Said.)
Now coming to the 'Fair Use', your limited space package itself offers a disk space of 1000 GB (Business Plan). So an unlimited package is expected to get more than this. When you offer this disk space in all your published sayings, you should be in a position to give 1000 GB to each account. (You are at a better position if some are not using that much space. It should not be the other way.) When you offer more than 1000 GB and now when you say use only less than 50 GB, it is like making fool of your customers. 50GB and 1000 GB are not at all comparable in my opinion.
Please let me know clearly how I violate the 'Fair Use' when I was offered unlimited space and me not even using 50 GB. Please note, my current disk space usage on C.com is only 49.1 GB (50,348.2 MB).
Please don't ignore my above points in your next email, as I wanted to hear clearly from you on the 'Fair Use' and your published offers.
Now coming to help resolve the current issue, I got another message from you saying that you moved the account to another server. Does that solve the problem with you?
If not, may I suggest something? I am very much happy with your service and I would like to continue with you (hoping you don't step back from your promises.) Can I open few more accounts with you and share the disk space between them? I can keep the files in different domains and link each other. Please let me know if that helps you.
Thanks & Regards
Mr. Z
===========================================
Ticket Status was changed from On-Hold to Resolved
Dear Mr. Z,
PID: #nnnn, Product name: Unlimited Pro with C.com was moved to another server, xyz123, which solves the problem per management. Yes, you may definitely open a few more accounts with us and share the disk space between them. Thank you for your time and patience. We greatly appreciate your time and your business.
Sincerely,
Mr. R
IX WebHosting Tech
Better Evil
Despite these experiences, I see IX Web Hosting as a better evil compared to others, as long as they are responsive and listen to your grievances. Everything else can be adjusted, if your users are happy with the load time of your web pages and your site is up and running always.
In the next page, I am addressing the doubt of many new webmasters from countries like India or other asian and middle-eastern countries. Why should I host in U.S.?
