What happens when a locally-owned ISP / hosting company has a problem and 3,000 of their customers lose access to their websites and/or email? Trouble, that’s what. Customer’s websites are down. They can’t get email. They can’t access the Internet. Two of my web design firm’s clients have called up and expressed emotions of panic to me.
The Salt Lake Tribune published the article ArosNet move causes Internet headaches which says service was supposed to be restored yesterday, but as far as I can tell it hasn’t been. KUTV reported on the 19th that the website was up and you could access email there, but a quick visit to aros.net shows the website still not working.
I’ve previously written a post on how to set up a web hosting account if you’re looking to switch to a different provider.
This reminds me somewhat of what has happened recently to jetBlue in that while jetBlue sells seats on jets and Aros.net sells web hosting, email, and ISP services, they’ve both experience exceptional events that have cost them a lot of money and credibility, and which have exposed the level of our own dependence on such services.
jetBlue has taken a big hit financially, but I believe they have done a lot of things right in the aftermath. The CEO has expressed his sense of embarassment, humiliation, and mortification. He has pledged millions of dollars in compensation, has written a passenger’s bill of rights, and has pledged to put processes in place to prevent any such event in the future. He avoided the fatal mistake of pointing the finger of blame at the airport or the weather. People like it when someone takes responsibility and takes a matter like this seriously, rather than saying “Hey, it’s not really my fault…” even though David could certainly make a credible claim to that effect.
Likewise, the problem Aros.net has is not entirely the fault of the current owner. But I suspect he will be hurt much more than jetBlue. The big difference between buying web hosting and buying a plane ticket is that one product you purchase once and generally use for a long time unless there is a catastrophic event, and the other you buy repeatedly and every time you buy you have a lot of choice. It is a big hassle to switch hosting providers, but it is not such a big deal to go with one airline one time and a different airline the next (assuming they both fly where you’re going). Customers who are unhappy with jetBlue might come back. But once you move hosting companies the pain and cost of moving back makes moving back a large hurdle, and therefore the customers who leave Aros.net will probably never return. The negative press will keep customers from signing up with Aros.net since there are so many adequate alternatives, and therefore the chances that Aros.net will ever recover from this are, unlike my physique, slim.
I don’t know if you are familiar with this, but Consonus had an implosion at their data center in West Jordan a few years ago. It was a Halon catastrophe. The entire center – was a wreck. What happened immediately after came as a shock to them. Orders for space were coming in at unprecedented levels when they announced they would rebuild. I don’t believe I am at discretion to say who uses this operation – But I know that 3 of the worlds largest companies have space inside this data center now.
I have found that people would rather use a data center with a mistake or two under their belts. They have a far less likely chance of this mistake ever happening again. Now, if they had 5 or 6 mistakes under their belts – that’s a track record. I was always leery of salesman telling me they had a 100% service history. I immediately thought, “So you’re due huh?”
I enjoyed watching Letterman last night with David on. He said something that probably shocked a lot of people. Nobody would be fired for this calamity. It again follows the principle – that people that have gone through the experience are less likely to repeat it.
In the case of Aros – I believe you may be right. I never saw them as a high caliber provider in the first place, which will hurt them. But then again – Consonus wasn’t a big player when the implosion happened either.
You touched on what I think is the primary difference between Aros.net and Consonus – Aros.net has small customers, Consonus has high-end customers. I think the high-end customers are less fickle and more apt to look beyond the superficialities, whereas your everyday person paying $10/month for web hosting is less likely to be forgiving.
Isn’t that funny? I was always amused about how passionate people got about dollars when corporations are more lenient. It’s totally counter intuitive, as is a lot of business.
I think you would be shocked to find out how many $10 hosting operations are based inside Consonus. It made me actually consider using those hosts because I knew they were in that data center… never actually did though. Hmmm.
Big companies have the resources to check out a facility. They know what they are paying for.
When you are a small company, you only have the feel of the web site and the word of others. Anyone playing the small host game needs to have a back up of their site on hand and a plan to run to the next budget host when things turn south.
FYI, looks like Arosnet’s site is back up – http://www.aros.net/.
Aros has promised for 4 months to have news back up. Last week their tech told me to use google news because “they don’t charge”. My response was, I’ve been paying for it and havn’t gotten it. To which he replied, “Oh…we don’t bill for news, so it’s a freebee. So you havn’t paid for it.”
No, I don’t think they’re up today.
Makes you wonder how 2 highschool kids can build and run an ISP but these folks can’t seem to get a phone line up. Hmm….
As you may be well aware, ArosNet has had their share of problems over the past few months. Due to the recent overturn of business, consistent system failures, and the impact this has had on Utah business owners who currently have websites hosted through ArosNet, Nevatech LLC will be offering substantial discounts on web design and hosting services for current ArosNet clients. This is our effort to help local businesses get back on the web quickly, and at a minimal expense.
We understand that you have several options at this point, and would be delighted to earn your business.
Nevatech Digital Solutions
801 447-5547