South Africans are paying far too much for Internet connection and services. So claims the management of the Cape-based web hosting and domain registration company, Internet Online. Locals stand to benefit from straightforward and competitively priced online access through the company’s comprehensive product range and services.
Few would dispute the fact that it costs money to go online – many would expect to fork out a significant amount to host and register domains, manage e-mail accounts and conduct e-commerce. But what if there was a way in which one could acquire these services at a reasonable rate and still enjoy the benefits of secure, fast and reliable connectivity.
Sounds too good to be true. But the managers of Blue Sky Internet Online, who have conceptualised DigitalDomainz.com, a formidable option for users in the domain name registration and web site hosting market, don’t see it that way.
The company has established a firm reputation in the areas of consulting and web development, but regard domain registration and hosting as a primary focus.
Internet Online boasts a range of hosting packages that are tailor-made to manage variable web-hosting requirements.
Says Julian Sher, technical director at Internet Online, “We host web sites for individuals, web developers, resellers, and companies large and small world-wide who demand high quality, fast and reliable web hosting. All hosting packages are e-commerce enabled allowing you to accept credit card transactions from your website.”
Anyone who seeks the ability to go online is considered a potential customer. Included in the company’s product portfolio are a R50 Starter package, a R150 Business package, a R300 Elite package and the R500 Reseller package. Each of these product packages features unlimited e-mail service and are only separated by the amount of disk space and traffic available.
“It depends on what the client is looking for. If you have a static web site, you don’t need anything more than the starter package. The moment you have a dynamic web site with databases, we suggest the Business pack because databases tend to be large and you would need more disk space. Our Reseller package, for instance, is aimed at web designers and hosting companies, including those who want to enter into a domain hosting business but lack the technical knowledge. This package offers the user a master control panel and the ability to manage up to twenty domains,” explains Sher.
Internet Online also provides a dial-up service at R95 per month and this price remains the same whether clients have an analogue or ISDN line.
The company’s servers run off the UUNET backbone infrastructure and according to Sher, this provides the speed and efficiency, reliability of connection to make sure customers secure their packages.
“We sit on the UUNET backbone and this provides us with speeds of up to 100mb/ps. We believe that having an online business is all about being connected online, and we work hard to maintain this. With a growing hosting client base, we aim to provide the best web hosting service in the industry. Both technology and customer focused, we continually innovate to improve our hosting products, ensuring that our customers benefit from the latest technology and the highest standard of customer and hosting service.”
One of the main differentiating factors separating Blue Sky Internet Online from competitors is that it is the only company to provide users with access to a Windows-based control panel.
This uniquely positioned custom-built software is accessed through the browser and provides the user with full control over all the aspects of online domain management.
“This is extremely user friendly and it is not necessary for the user to have any knowledge of programming. Updates and changes are straightforward. Adding an e-mail address to the web site, for example, through conventional means could take anything between two and 48 hours. The control panel can effectively reduce the duration of this process so it would take just two minutes to complete.”
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