MidPhase
- From the company
Founded in 2003, Midphase has grown from no customers to having over 120,000 customers. We began working from a couple home offices and have grown and expanded to our current Utah facility. Our staff has grown from the original two founders to over 75 employees.
Mission Statement
Hosting Services, Inc. aims to provide the absolute best web hosting by focusing on speed, price and reliability.
General Overview
Hosting Services, Inc. is a privately held web hosting and Internet services company based out of Providence, Utah. Midphase provides budget, shared, advanced and other types of web hosting services to a wide range of clients ranging from small business to individuals. By providing a robust technological base and reasonable pricing, Midphase is able to offer customers an unbeatable value.
Midphase is able to distinguish itself from countless other providers by offering an incredible value to our customers. This combination of advanced products and affordability has helped midPhase retain a record breaking growth pattern, faster than the industry average every month since inception. Unlike most web hosting providers, Midphase owns all of the hardware it uses. Midphase does not rent or lease servers.
Customer Focus
When we designed our products, we did so with the average small business in mind. What do small businesses want in a web hosting account? For starters, to be able to build a website and setup E-mail without paying a designer to do it for them. Small businesses need hand holding, and we're ready and happy to help. From the company
MidPhase
Expert Review- From the Editors
Midphase Overview
Founded in 2003, Midphase has grown from no customers to having over 120,000 customers.
We began working from a couple home offices and have grown and expanded to our current
Utah facility. Our staff has grown from the original two founders to over 75 employees.
This Guru Review is written by one of our expert webmasters who used Hostgator for
around a month:
Background
I used midphase.com just for 1 month. I transferred my website to them in October
2009. Different peoples have different experience, but my personal experience with
them was not so good. I found them on one of the web hosting forums, and found that
they have good Dedicated Servers deal. I was looking for budget dedicated server.
I submitted few presales & talked with them via live chat. They were looking good.
I read some of their review & decided to go with them. Ok, I will go step by step
Sales (9/10):
I was bit confused about selecting server. I asked midphase on live chat for help
me choosing right server, after getting some important information about my website
traffic & other loads, operator asked me that my requirement are not high, I can
go with their VPS plan which has these specifications Dedicated CPU = 1.20GHZ, RAM
= 752MB, Storage = 20GB, Bandwidth = 500GB & price is just $38. I was expecting
that my website traffic will increase & also I was willing to start 2-3 more sites.
So, I told him about this & he suggested me to with their P4 2.4 GHz. He gave me
a favor that I can pay my bill on monthly basis but price will be $85.95. It was
great. I went on their order page & filled my order form, but there was a problem,
due balance was always $99.95/moth & with $29.95 Setup charges. I tried coupon code
provided me on live chat but it was not working too. I contacted them back & they
generated an invoice of amount $85.95 for me manually. I paid it & start waiting
for me server.
Setup (7/10):
After about 16 hours from making payment, I got my welcome email. It was consisted
on just 3 lines excluding hello & best regards.
- 1. Root IP
- 2. Root Login
- 3. Root Password
Anyway, I got my details & login to my server. I found that it came with just CentOS
only & nothing was installed on it. I was totally new to servers in those days.
I contacted with them & they told me that if I need support about this, I must purchase
their Supreme Support whose worth is $99.95, ah too costly. However, they gave me
1 month free trial for their supreme support. I got my supreme support login details
& I submitted my ticket there & they installed everything for me in this trial period.
Pricing (9/10):
You must keep 1 thing in your mind that midphase.com doesn’t have its own datacenter.
They are using Softlayers & Theplanet datacenters. So, this is sure that they are
reselling Theplanet & Softlayers servers & definitely they are making some good
profits on it. They are getting big discounts from Theplanet & Softlayers that’s
why even after making fair profits, their prices are lower than both Theplanet &
Softlayers. I don’t think that I/you can get servers from Softlayers or even from
Theplanet at this price. The best thing is that you get supreme support for free
for first month. In this first month, you can build your server.
Reliability (4/10):
My site was getting around 1000 unique visits per day. It was built on 4images by
4homepages. Everything was running smooth. I had no issue with them in the first
week. Due to some budget problems I couldn’t start my remaining two projects & in
this situation I assumed that I shouldn’t waste my money on this server or I should
sale hosting to some people. So, I made a plan & start selling hosting. I got 9
clients in 3 days & this distributed my server expenses. I was happy & suddenly
1 day I got an email from my client, “My site is not opening”. I connected to internet
& checked. I found that none of my website was opening. I pinged server root IP
& domain name but it was fine. I contacted midphase.com at live chat & operator
referred me to supreme support for ticket submission. I submitted a ticket & got
reply in around 2 hours. I was replied that my server was overloaded & its now restarted.
Problem was resolved, but I got this same problem just in 1 hour & they restarted
my server & told me that auto restart in now ON & if overloaded it will restart
automatically. I found that my server was restarted about 10 times in just 3-4 hours.
I submitted ticket again & they replied they will check my issue & will reply me
as soon as possible. I got reply after 24hrs that we have made some tweak settings
& this problem will be resolved now. (I was continuously getting this problem &
lost my 4 clients for this issue). But I was shocked to see this same problem after
8-10hours. I again submitted ticket & got formal reply that “we will check your
issue & get back to you”. I was totally fed up. I got reply that my client “username”
is responsible for this as he was using some high resources usage scripts. I suspended
all my clients & restarted my server. Few hours gone fine but problem came back
again. I contact them again & they told me that they will talk with Theplanet for
this issue. But my issue couldn’t resolve & I left them.
Support (7/10):
Their support varies issue to issue & person to person. Some of their support team
members are very supportive, helpful & user/client friendly but some are not helpful
& supportive. They don’t care whether your issue has resolved or not. They just
reply you & close your ticket. I got reply within 1 hour (Supreme support). Remind
that, I was on trial but its listed price is $99.95, it’s totally loss if you purchase
their supreme support. I will recommend you to hire server admin separately if you
really need someone to manage your server. Around 50% of my tickets were closed
with simple reply “Issue Resolved” while my issue was still there. I was totally
dissatisfied with their support. I believe they have just few high skilled server
administrators remaining staff is not good.
Billing (6/10):
One of midphase.com support team member was in my MSN, this was the same guy who
setup invoice for me & helped me a lot for joining midphase.com. I was highly disappointed
with their services. I asked him to close my account. He referred me to cancellation
form; I filled that form & submitted it. He asked me that there is nothing for me
to do more with it, remaining will handle by midphase & your account will be closed
soon. I left them & purchased new server. I forgot anything about midphase as just
a bad dream, but one day, I received an email from midphase.com that I have an overdue
balance $85.95. I couldn’t understand why I got this email while I had already closed
my server. I replied that why should I pay this while I have closed my account just
within 15days. But they gave me fake excuse that this invoice was generated before
cancelation. I strictly refused to pay any cent to them & if they will try to charge
my credit card, I will file a case against them. Matter settled & they said sorry
& closed that invoice.
Uptime (9/10):
I couldn’t record their exact uptime. I was using 3rd party uptime reporting service
& it calculate 67.22% uptime. I think it’s not accurate, whenever I ping my server,
it was up. I believe this uptime service monitoring was assuming downtime whenever
my websites were not accessible due to server overload issues. My websites were
not accessible but my IP was pining, it was not downtime. So, I will give them fair
points for this.
Advantages & Disadvantages:
Advantages:
- 1. You get server in great datacenters (Softlayers & Theplanet) for paying less.
- 2. They are 24x7 available on Live Chat &/or Ticket
- 3. They offer ISP Manager Pro for free
- 4. They offer good packages for new customers.
- 5. Their website is good & everything is mentioned clearly.
- 6. They have variety of servers which attract everyone.
Disadvantages:
- They don’t have their own data center. They use Theplanet.com & Softlayers datacenter.
If there is some serious issue, they will have to contact with Theplanet & Softlayer,
which consume more time.
- 2. They are charging $99.95 for their so called supreme support, while If they will
offer this for $49.95, I will not recommend it.
- 3. They don’t have any money back guaranteed. They say that they refund only if
reason is Bad Support & Downtimes, but they don’t refund.
Overall Rating = 7 Out Of 10