From Ascent Hosting founder Robert Phelan
Welcome to our web site and thanks for seeking out more information about Ascent and our web hosting services.
Ascent Hosting is a privately owned , Australia-based web hosting business conceived and born out of my need to provide quality, business-class web hosting services at an affordable price for clients of Flip Interactive, Ascent’s sister web design agency.
Like many web site owners, I was frustrated by my experience over a period of five years of failing to find a solid, focussed web host we could partner with for the longer term with confidence. Either the price was good, but support, uptime, reliability and features were lacking, or the support was good (rarely great), but at considerable cost to their price-competitiveness.
So the key idea behind Ascent Hosting was to create the kind of web hosting business that I would want to be a customer of were I looking for business-class hosting. What does that mean for prospective clients of Ascent?
Firstly, Ascent is NOT a web host that offers cheap plans with huge disk space and bandwidth allowances. We don’t do budget hosting. The web hosting industry today (2006) is saturated with such hosts, and their failure and client turnover rates are frightening. In the short-term such operators may succeed simply because of a basic lack of consumer knowledge of the hosting industry. In the long-run, this approach is not viable.
Worse, short-term business models generally means life for their customers is often very uncertain and stressful. Not a recipe for a quality business partnership.
Secondly, we are in it for the long-term, and this mindset ensures we stay focussed on growing by investing in the future through premium-grade equipment and high quality support. We will always ensure customer support is our highest priority.
So how is Ascent different? Basically, we have set out to distinguish ourselves in the business hosting marketplace in three main ways. Being a business-class web host means:
1. We offer you a premium web hosting service - with standard features many hosts don’t even offer as for-cost optional extras. Your site runs on premium hardware, is served across premium bandwidth (provided by multiple bandwidth providers), and is protected by multiple levels of redundancy and backup built into all layers of our network operations.
2. In order to remain a strong viable business and stable, long-term partner for our clients we are clear and upfront that we will always charge realistic prices for our services. We don’t discount or loss-lead. I see this as just basic business realism, and ultimately in the interests of both us and our clients over the longer term (there’s that phrase again).
3. Ascent is a service business, not a technology business. So communication is a core focus. You will see that fact reflected in the quality and timeliness of our various client communications and support channels like the forums, tutorials, knowledgebase and helpdesk on our web site, in the speed of our responses to helpdesk tickets and client inquiries, and in our planning as we roll out new services and upgrades to our network that improve our clients hosting experience.
These are the main ways we aim to be a better kind of web hosting provider for our clients.
Well, enough from me, over to you. I hope you find what you are looking for here at Ascent Hosting.
Don’t hesitate to contact us or post a question in the “Your Questions” forum if you can’t find answers to your questions here on our site.
Yours sincerely
Rob Phelan
CEO, Ascent Hosting
