Sunday, May 14, 2006
And They Wonder Why I’d Switch
Once upon a time, I got my first domain. It was in 1997, for my business, which we started ten years ago this summer. Network Solutions was the only option for domain registration, and hosting was expensive. We looked into hosting and chose a place right in Massachusetts. It was over $1200 a year for less than I can get for $112.20 a year now, and recently I found that $9.35 a month is no longer necessarily competetive.
Fast forward a few years, when the big client started making plans to get online someday, and when they started to need e-mail. We picked a domain that wasn’t too bad, given that all the most logical ones were taken, lined up hosting for them with our hosting guy, and for convenience had him deal with Network Solutions and get the domain.
On a side note, the guy was a retired spook, and observed that a lot of people with ties to the intelligence community emplaced themselves similarly in internet businesses. He was fascinating.
After a while, our host got too sick to remain in business. He gave everyone a window to find new hosting and helped move you as needed, then shut down. It is entirely possible he’s dead by now, or in a nursing home.
We switched the business and the client to XO Communications, which in part had formerly been Concentric, which at one point was one of those big names up there with Mindspring and Earthlink. I think XO may have been Nexlink when we started with them, then changed, but they remain XO now. I still get customer newsletter e-mails from them. They were so dramatically cheaper that it was shocking. We’re talking moving from $1200-odd a year to under $300 a year. They had excellent support and service, and apart from probably not being competetive with the likes of Hosting Matters, GoDaddy, or pretty much any commoditized modern web hosting service, I would recommend XO Communications highly.
At that point the original guy whose name was primary contact on the client’s domain should have changed, and I thought it did. You look it up and I am listed as primary and as billing. I had also originally hosted elhide.com with the first web host, parked it briefly, then put it at Hosting Matters for blogging. After a while I decided to move the business to HM, and a while later I moved the client to HM. Unlike their original hosting, by long since the outside host only matters for the web site, and there’s an appropriate MX record sending e-mail straight to the building.
Well, on my domains, it’s all me, except where HM is the technical contact. I’ve been meaning to move the domain registration from Network Solutions to elsewhere almost as long at that has been an option. Saturday I did that with minimal fuss, except for having to find out my ID for each one, reset or remember my passwords, and turn off domain locking designed so nobody can steal your domain.
On the client’s domain, multiple primary contacts are listed: the original guy, Concentric.net (XO Communications), and me. Apparently they not only never dropped those, but also my being the primary never superceded them anywhere but in WhoIs. I can do all kinds of things, but unlocking the domain is not one of them.
I put in a web-based support request and as promised they were back at me within 24 hours. Kudos there.
Since I am the primary contact but not allowed to unlock the domain, I have to fax them a form changing the primary contact to me! WTF, over?
Sigh…
Good thing I trust NSI so much that I am trying to transfer the domain in May that expires in September (and that they breathlessly warned me - maybe because I am the person who matters on the account - in January was “about to expire in September so renew now!") before they can have any justification for doing their classic “it’s going to expire within two months so nyah nyah you gotta renew with us before you can transfer” trick.
Good riddance.