Posted by Alec Jones on 29 Sep 2007,
(15) Comments — Setting Up Risk & Fraud Web & E-Commerce Supplier Management
Whether or not your small business uses Vonage, dim news of the troubled internet phone company is a wake up call for all of us to reexamine the stability of all our service providers, especially those based on the ever-changing internet.
In case you haven’t heard, Vonage is sinking fast, after losing its second patent infringement lawsuit in a single year. If you’re a Vonage customer, it may be time to jump ship because your business phone number may not float for long.
If you’re not a Vonage customer, it still no time for you to kick back to sip tequilas at the beach.
Have you recently checked to see if your discount web hosting service provider may be going belly up sometime soon? How safe is your domain name at your current registrar? If you’ve got electronic fax, how do you feel about losing ownership of your fax number?
Periodically monitoring the stability of your service providers will save you and your small business from headaches and potential catastrophes.
Earlier this year, SunRocket, another popular internet-telephone company, cut all services with less than 24 hours’ notice to customers, after it suddenly announced it had gone bankrupt. Thousands of abandoned customers lost phone service for days without means to transition their number to another company.
Also take the saga of 1PlanHost.com, the king of web service disasters in my book. This web hosting company had a cult-like following of loyal users for years. However, in April 2005, after its acquisition by WebHostingPlus.com, all services went to hell. Websites hosted by 1PlanHost stopped working, email became unreliable, databases got lost, and online shopping carts crashed. Worst yet, customer service turned off its helpdesk, making it impossible for some customers to move their embattled websites to a new hosting service. Incidentally, WebHostingPlus is now defunct due to numerous lawsuits against the company.
If your small business depends on providing reliable services to your customers, you owe it to yourself and your customers to make sure your own service providers got life in them.
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Comments for "What’s the Life Expectancy of Your Service Provider?"
01 Oct 2007 at 07:28 AM
This is a incredibly valid point. We offer IT support and the dependency of every small business on broadband should not be under-estimated.
In our area, the city centre is going through a huge re-construction exercise and broadband is regularly cut-off whenever they’re digging under-ground.
So any internet-based phopne services or even basic email access is really important.
It’s also imperative NOT to necessarily go for the cheapest hosting package. It’s worth paying a little extra for a company that will be here today AND tomorrow.
01 Oct 2007 at 09:30 PM
Thank you, Ian, for participating in our site. I have been enjoying your articles at http://iandenny.blogspot.com/. Very relevant contents for entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Nowadays, we rely so much on technologies, a vendor issue can kill our businesses. The city digging under-ground must be almost unmanageable to small businesses.
I use Skype, and I am wondering if I should switch or not. It is a great service, but the other day, it failed for a few days, as everyone knows.
02 Oct 2007 at 02:16 PM
Hi Alec and Asako. This is a good point and I’ll definitely be checking how my web hosts and domain hosts are doing.
I am wondering what would happen if my domain host went bust. Would I lost my domains? Most of mine are through Go Daddy, but I point them to use on the hosts. What would happen in that case?
06 Oct 2007 at 01:54 AM
Great question, Catherine. It’s a topic that’s juicy enough for another article!
GoDaddy is an accredited registrar of ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) with a large base of domains under its control. In the unlikely event that GoDaddy goes bust, I believe your domain would be transfered to another accredited registrar.
How quickly the transfer would happens, and how much you’ll be involved in the process are some outstanding questions.
My understanding is that all accredited registrars follow provisions established by ICANN. Under such provisions, the accredited registrar must follow an established plan in the event of going bust.
I’m going to do some extra due diligence on this one and post an article. Thanks for asking!
--Alec
10 Oct 2007 at 07:14 PM
Yes as there is such a low barrier for entry, especially in the web hosting and even web development game there can be the real risk that the company you deal with might close, leaving you with lost time, money and having to build a new relationship.
13 Oct 2007 at 02:23 PM
Hello Steve,
I agree there are so many players these days, I do not know whom to choose.
“How to choose” needs to be addressed in another article!
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17 Dec 2009 at 05:11 AM
What are the trends in the Service provider market and business environments? What are their main points? How can a system integrator with their horizontal solutions address their needs?
21 Dec 2009 at 03:00 AM
Internet Explorer stopped working because of the IE 8 download. Does anyone know where I can get a Internet Service CD? Like some places used to have free AOL internet CDs. I can’t download it from the internet because it doesn’t work. I’m lookin for software’s like Safari, Mozilla FireFox, AOL & etc. Can someone please help me
25 Dec 2009 at 02:09 AM
I have a sink in my kitchen that is a brown sink, I would like to know what I can put over it to make it be white. Like I can get from home depot, can you use what they use to regularize a tub or something. So what would I need to get?
copper sink
12 Feb 2010 at 01:11 AM
Windows and Linux often use two different web server applications. Windows sites use the Windows IIS server, while nearly all Linux sites use Apache. Zboost
13 Feb 2010 at 05:24 AM
My friend just cut the internet off, and left it up to me to find a new provider. I don’t know anything about internet service providers, but remote access software I do all of my work online from home and need a reiable high speed connection.We were using wireless that cost $40 a month, but one of remote pc access software my friends said I could find wireless for less than that. I’m not sure about providers. Could you recommend some to me?
01 Mar 2010 at 11:08 PM
How do electronic means of communication (e-mail, the Internet, fax, and so on) differ from face-to-face interactions because now a days there Skye and stuff.alarm systems
04 Mar 2010 at 05:13 AM
I want to change internet providers but i have heard that when doing so the old providers bill you for the month or others reasons even though you aren’t connected to them anymore, is this true?Facebook applications
10 Mar 2010 at 12:47 AM
A friend of mine’s wife contacted me recently asking if I can create a new web site for her company. Their old site was hosted by a local company and they choose not to renew the service.web conferencing software|online training