🚀 go-pugleaf

In <400o66$5ot@news1.mcs.net>, pschuman@interserv.com (Phil N. Schuman) writes:
>it makes sense to use a local ISP for dialup access - 
>but what about a business Web page with a DNS entry.
>I mean - local access has no relavence - more of up time and services..
>
>so - you really could put your Web pages anywhere in the world and 
> upload/update them with FTP and Telnet from your local ISP access.
>
>I was gonna put our pages on a local provider - but with all the ups and downs 
>I think it might make more sense to go for the services and reliable 
> connection.

We are currently running a VSERV account with MCS, primarily for the Web Page
aspect. We have our own domain and to the world it looks like we run our own
server. 

I've been around the net and Usenet for many years now. Network outages and
the like were somewhat acceptable, at least understandable, for my personal
use. 

It is a different story when I contract with an ISP to provide services to
our company. In this environment downtime is unacceptable, just like my
responsibility to our organization is to keep our business systems up at
all times.

With one notable exception, our Web page has been up even when other MCS 
services had outages. Even when we were down, a call to tech support advised
me that they were aware of the problem and were working on it. A short time 
later, I received a call BACK from tech support to confirm that our services
were restored. This is not what I would consider extraordinary support from
an ISP, it's what I would expect. And it's what we got. 

We have chosen to develop content and adminster our pages in-house. We are
Unix based in our business systems and also have an extensive DTP system
for our mail order catalog division. So, while there is certainly additional
overhead in our organization to support these pages, our original investment
has been extremely modest in getting a Web presence. A recent article in 
Web Week spoke about how the going rate for placing an ad with Hotwired or 
Time was going for $5,000 to $10,000 per month and you still have to provide 
the content! With a little effort in getting your site listed with the big 
directories (yahoo, webcrawler and the like), I feel we are getting perhaps
75% of the value for about 5% of the cost. A damn good value for our
specialized niche market company.  
-- 
Bill Fischer                | US Agent for Omega Electronics & Swiss Timing 
wmf@kiefer.com              |  Sports Timing and Display Systems Worldwide 
http://www.kiefer.com       |   Official Timekeepers of the 1996 Olympics