[Hidden-tech] (un)reasonable expectations of email and web hosting services?

[Chris Duncan, GISmatters]

I've just passed through the 2nd substantial interruption to my email and 
web hosting services (same provider for both services) this year, and I'm 
wondering if my expectations are reasonable or not: I expect the provider 
to have enough redundancy to keep at least email up and running 24x7. In 
the short time I've been in business (15 months), I'e had several 
out-of-the-blue contacts that have led to paying work, and I hate to think 
that bounced email at the wrong moment could be turning away potential 
customers, or even just annoying existing ones. The failure on this 
occasion, at least, was such that messages were not being held for 
re-delivery - they were being bounced back to the sender with a message to 
the effect that gismatters.com was an unknown/non-existent host - related, 
I suspect, to the fact that the web hosting service was also down for the 
past 18 hours... I don't think that creates a very good impression for my 
clients.

So, is it time for me to look for a different provider (and if so, I've got 
questions about how to do that in as seamless a way as possible), or is my 
experience par for the course and that's just life with the internet?

Chris

-- 

Chris Duncan
President
GISmatters

duncan at GISmatters.com
http://www.gismatters.com/

227 E Pleasant St
Amherst, MA 01002

Tel: 413-549-2052
Fax: 508-637-2557