I'm interested in moving my website to an Australian based host with Australian based servers and I am absolutely shocked at the prices I have seen. I am aware that bandwidth is much more expensive here, but figures such as $35 a month for 1Gb of bandwidth and 50Mb of space just makes me want to cry.

So, in short, I'm asking how is it that Webcity can offer such cheap prices in comparison to everybody else? And more importantly, with this company offering such good prices and feature-rich services, why is it that when I search this forum and the Australian Webhosting Directory their name doesn't come up once?

Am I missing something?

Is anyone hosted, or has been hosted, by www.webcity.com.au and would like to share a review on their services? All I know about this webhost is what I've read on their website, I'd very much like to hear some personal opinions.

Thanks,
Owen.

Webcity is a part of Enetica who is a part of Connect Info Barn (www.cia.net.au) who is an ISP with plenty of outbound bandwidth making their bandwidth pricing dirt cheap as hosting is mostly outbound data, but it makes you think how much they serious oversell

We have a heap of inbound capacity but limited outbound with room to grow due to our 1:4 inbound to outbound ratio. Now an ISP will have 3:1 inbound to outbound ratio so that means they have heaps of exess outbound available making it dirt cheap

Ah ok, that makes a lot more sense now. But how serious of a factor is the inbound to outbound ratio? Will it actually have noticable performance impacts? Or is it simply an indication of a possible oversell of services by the host? My website isn't going to be streaming content nor hosting large files. Could or would the availability of (outbound) bandwidth ever become a problem?

Please elaborate..

Well if their inbound bandwidth is shared with their DSL customers than they may have congestion problems which could seriously impact on email and site accessability but apart from that there isn't too much to worry about. Just remember they make a lot of money in DSL so this is their primary product

Spirit, it is not just the data. Webcity seem to be cramping thousands of sites per server. Just look at the reseller model. This domain cramping strategy is a desaster waiting to happen.

I am waiting to read about it in the paper.

FYI, this is always interesting view of the people running enetica and webcity:
http://www.audomainnews.info/modules...10a9d1c17e059d

Well then, I'll certainly be sending Webcity off an email to ask for some proof of their uptime and enquire about average server loads. But it would be really helpful to hear from a current Webcity customer.

Thanks for your input guys.

CIA did my hosting for years @ $40/month and not much for it.

I left them a year ago, but if I point my name server to webcity my old CIA site still comes up, so apparently webcity are using the same server. The support telephone number, address and people are the same at all three. (You left off host1 which I believe is another one of their's?)

Having said that, I had no trouble with them, and speed from Sydney is top notch. You've not a lot to lose by trying them.

If you are after any sort of customer support, I would strongly advise you to AVOID WEBCITY AT ALL COSTS. I have spent literally hours on the phone trying to get through to their support, and sent them numerous emails. HELLO, webcity. Does anybody really work there, or are they all a bunch of robots?

I've just got off the phone to Webcity. They told me that that Webcity have been undergoing a sustained hacking attack, and are now blocking all UK and German IP addresses. So, if your domain is hosted by Webcity, you won't be getting European customers!
My tale of woe: I'm an Australian, recently relocated to the UK.
A tracert identified an Australian router blocking my UK IP address. Two emails received no response from Webcity surpport. Two days later, I tried to ring. After 90 minutes, the call was answered by a surley, overworked guy. The first thing I did was complain about the wait. No apology, just "Well, we're extremely busy at the moment. You've got me now, would you like to discuss a problem, or should I move on to the next caller?"
I mentioned that I was calling from overseas, and given the cost I had already borne for the call, was it possible for him to ring me back? He said "No. We're an in-bound call centre." Silence. My issue was not the facts, it was the manner of communication.
I start to explain my problem. "I'm in the UK, and I'm having trouble connecting to either the webcity website, my domain name, or any domain you host". It soon became evident that he was too quick to diagnose the problem, and (extremely worrying) was technically less knowlegable than me! Not what you expect when you're ringing someone for help.
First he mis-diagnosed the problem as an error on my part to edit or upload a web page to my domain name (I deliberately have a holding page at my home page). I told him I didn't use their hosting service to host a web-site, I used it primarily for the email service.
He then said "Okay. I'll test your email service" and put me on hold again before I could tell him that it wasn't a problem with my email service, it was a problem of connection.
After another few minutes, he came back to me and said "I've just tested your email and that is working fine."
Politely, I traied again to explain the problem- it wasn't a problem with the service, it was a connection problem. He somehow could not get his head around this and kept saying "but there's no problem with your service".
Exasperated, I said "Is it possible to escalate this issue?". He said "No, it's not possible, because there's no issue here."
I asked to speak with his manager. "If you like, I'll get my manager to tell you exactly the same thing I've told you."
<webcity: please sack this guy - you cannot afford to have your staff speak to your customers this way.>
I thought I would have more joy from his manager, but (again) a surley, overworked bloke (why always men?).
I again tried to tell him that my UK IP was being blocked from getting access to their server by a router in Australia.
He said "yes, we're blocking all traffic from the UK and Germany and a number of other countries". He told me Webcity was undergoing a sustained denial-of-service attack since Monday, and the block would remain in place until at least Thursday or Friday. I pointed out that they were also blocking legitimate customers, he said "we don't provide suppport outside of Australia".
I pointed out that they were also blocking the overseas viewers of their customers' websites. I cannot access ANY website that is hosted by webcity. Which means all of webcity's customers are inaccessible to viewers in the UK and Germany.
I questioned whether this was (in fact) the problem, because my broadband provider, and two friends in the UK can all get access to webcity, from their UK IP address. He wasn't interested in pursuing this. He felt he had found the problem and there was nothing I could do. Tough luck, mate.
My warning to anyone considering using Webcity - you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Their attitude to their customers is insulting, disrespectful and condescending. I have lost more money in support phone calls, and lost business opportunities by using the bottom of the barrel. I really regret my decision to use them and will be switching as soon as practically possible.

careergirl,

I appreciate that you had an issue that required support, but please refrain from greatly exagerating things. You were NOT on the phone for hours, our phone queue was no more than 10 minutes this morning. The fact that you posted your initial message barely an hour after our phone line even opened suggest you are somewhat confused.

You also claim that we have been ignoring your emails, but your support call was specifically in regards to the fact that you had problems sending and receiving email, did you possibly consider that we simply did not receive your emails requesting suppport?

As you have now mentioned, one of our mail servers did experience a Denial of Service attack originating from Europe on Monday and Tuesday, which caused intermittent problems for clients accessing our mail server. At various times, certain European IP blocks were blocked by that server. As you yourself and your other UK based friends have experienced, it was not ALL of UK and Germany, it was a fairly small number of IPs.

Also, the access issues only related to one of our mail servers, it did NOT affect any of our client's web sites at any stage, in any way.

The attack stopped, and everything was back to normal by Tuesday night. Nobody here told you our IP blocks would be in place until Friday.

Your claims and version of events are full of exagerations, misquotes and generally incorrect.

Regards,
Bennett
Webcity.

Dear Webcity,
I would be delighted to show you my phone bill, which will clearly demonstrate the length of two calls I made to your support centre this morning. The first was 27 minutes, before my phone card ran out. The second was 52 minutes duration before the call was answered. The fact that I rang up "first thing" Australian time is because I was waiting up until 12 midnight UK time. You phone queue information is clearly mis-reporting statistics to you.
Regarding the email to your support, yes, I was clever enough to work out that I couldn't send support requests via my webcity email address (and thanks for the patronising tone). It was actually sent from another (working) email address. I bcc'd myself, so I know there were no problems with either the calls for request.
I was quite clearly told by the service technician that all IP addresses from the UK were being blocked. I questioned this myself, as a couple of friends were able to access the webcity sites.
I was quite clearly also told that the blocks would probably not be lifted until Thursday or Friday.
The problems have NOT resolved, as I am still being blocked. I have moved to two wireless hotspots in Edinburgh, and am still unable to access ANY sites hosted by webcity, and the webcity internet site itself.
I do not believe you have been honest with your customers about this situation. This includes me. (Yes, I am a customer). I have no reason or motive to exaggerate my experiences. I don't enjoy conflict. All I want is the problem to be resolved. And yet it persists.
It is astounding to me that the only way you have meaningfully engaged with this problem is through a public forum, and not through your own support channels. It is also astounding to me that you don't have enough insight into this situation to realise the tone and response of your reply send a stronger message to your potential and existing customers than anything I could say.
Warning to everyone else - if Webcity treats me like this, they may treat you the same way.

MindBee's anyone?

WebCity = Enetica, just in case somebody didn't know

I haven't read the thread in detail because careergirl's grammar sucks, but I would expect any provider to take reasonable steps to prevent their servers from collapsing under a DoS attack. Whether Enetica's steps were technically reasonable, I don't know, but at least they were aware of the issue and have made some effort to prevent the attack from affecting all of their customers.

I don't blame the MindBee's, they would be happily buzzing away in Asia, not Europe.

DNS Attack is a bit different to a Denial of Service attack .

careergirl,

As I have already said, we have not had ANY issues with our web sites, at any stage. If you are having problems accessing our web sites, it is a completely separate issue to what we have discussed.

Please provide an IP you are trying to access from, or even better, a traceroute from your ISP to our servers.

Regards,
Bennett.