EarthLink Web Hosting
Who is EarthLink?
Before examining their web hosting offering, it’s important to know some important facts about this provider. EarthLink is a NASDAQ-listed Internet Service Provider, (ELNK), headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Since their first customer’s login via dial-up modem in 1994, they have grown to hold a claimed subscriber base today of over 5 million connected users. By 2000, EarthLink was beginning to feature in the continental USA as a national-scale ISP, winning multiple “Best ISP” awards and were second only to MindSpring, now their partner, in a customer satisfaction survey run by Inter@ctive Week. EarthLink’s leadership has consistently focused on the customer experience, demonstrated in their offering a radio show in 1998 in LA with an associated Q & A web site to field questions about the Internet. This site now links to their homepage, www.earthlink.net. EarthLink support is via online chat, email or telephone, with support telephone numbers quoted by connection type, such as DSL, Wi-Fi and Cable.
EarthLink offers products ranging from consumer cellphone and Internet connectivity bundles to full business connectivity solutions with a claimed industry-leading uptime. Web hosting is offered for all sizes of online presence, including an online store facility that makes an Internet shop front readily accessible for even the private home user. Prices are very competitive, with discounts offered over the initial stages of a contract. EarthLink transfers web site look-and-feel requests to professional graphic designers, maintaining continuity for consumers. The web-hosting products are for both Windows and UNIX, and come in three flavors. EarthLink has received plaudits for their simplicity, insulating the user from unnecessary coding and, once deployed, there are no paid advertisements interfering with the new site’s appearance. The flavors are graded primarily by storage space and data transfer.
EarthLink Business
For business users, search engine registration, local directory listings and a free marketing guide with some very useful tips are some of the value-added services offered. Products are provided with a supporting suite of data and privacy protection applications like spam blockers and anti-virus software, available to all types of customer. For the larger organizations, there is also Blackberry Enterprise, most useful for serving mobile email to employees. EarthLink also integrates enterprise-grade Internet with the corporate network, opening up Virtual Private Network functionality that allows businesses to connect multiple geographic locations. The wired workers for such an organization would be able to browse common data stores, connecting from outside the corporate infrastructure via wireless on the road or home Internet access.
For a business owner requiring a new connectivity option or upgrading an existing offering, the choice of connectivity and service offerings can be bewildering. Which connection speed do I go for? Do I need a web site? If I get a web site what will it end up costing me? What can a web site do for me? EarthLink has already asked these questions and seem to have made products and services available to make the transition as smooth as possible.
EarthLink business connectivity is option-rich and provides all the connectivity and web hosting features required for a small business with 5 or less employees, right up to the largest corporate. The products offered, Small Office DSL (digital subscriber line), Business DSL, Business T1 and Business T1/T3, cover the entire spectrum of business networked Internet connectivity for wired functionality like email and web browsing. The Small Office DSL is not upgradable to the other options, which means that a new connection will have to be established, but this is a technology/infrastructure obstacle. Small Office DSL is highly cost effective, which smooths out this issue.
These business connectivity options are all subject to the full service offering by EarthLink: 24/7 support, additional software and tools and also some attractive extras: dial-up time is limited only for Small Office DSL – the unlimited dial-up option on all the other packages make remote email access available to employees on the road at no extra cost but with a lot of goodwill! The 3 other packages come with Service Level Agreements (SLAs) which means that EarthLink stands by their uptime, support availability and other commitments they make in the contract taken out for the service. The customer is also able to query service and support problems in accordance with the contract guidelines.
To obtain an Internet presence with a web site and a domain name specific for the business, the EarthLink web hosting is an additional cost over and above EarthLink Business. Web hosting coupled with the connection to the web gained with EarthLink business allows a business a fully wired presence, giving them access to all the best possibilities offered by the Internet. The subscribing business is fully protected with the EarthLink anti-virus, firewall, spam blockers and other software, and they are able to leverage a professional, competitive web site with state of the art technology like web services and data feeds, with contained and clearly visible cost options. EarthLink business and its web hosting are highly competitive and cost effective in a very large and confusing space. The clarity of their options and the very simple path a subscriber can take to being a successfully and cost-effectively wired business makes EarthLink a very attractive ISP.
EarthLink seems to offer everything required by any size of organization, and backs up its offerings with a customer experience more flexible than other providers, impressive for a very, very large ISP (second only to AOL in size). This very broad spectrum of product offerings is what one would expect of a mature and pervasive ISP, and EarthLink has kept focus on the online experiences of their subscriber base throughout their very rapid growth and expansion. While simultaneously servicing both individual accounts and the largest enterprises, it is telling for EarthLink that their growth has not detracted from their customer focus.
EarthLink Voice
EarthLink has stated that their focus is the small and medium business and, true to their strategy, they’re making sure they’ve got the bases covered. One of the new bases for Internet users is Voice over IP (VOIP), where voice calls can be made anywhere in the continental USA and Canada using a high speed Internet connection. With landline call rates in the USA already competitive, the service offering must compete on price and must definitely compete on ease of use. The EarthLink VOIP service, or trueVoice, can be used with an existing telephone and high speed service – EarthLink will send the customer an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) that is used to hook up a normal telephone handset to a high speed Internet connection. With the ATA installed, calls can be made exactly as before, or using the EarthLink Click-to-Dial software, where the user can click on the contact they wish to dial. Once the phone rings, the user picks up the phone and can speak to the dialed contact when they answer their phone. Ease of use is definitely covered – EarthLink’s service is really easy.
On price, the trueVoice product comes into its own: for a flat monthly rate, calls are not charged at all. The EarthLink trueVoice basic service is currently offered at $14.95 per month, with a 500 minute calling limit to numbers anywhere in the continental USA and Canada, and subscribers who ran up conventional telephone bills of over $50 will save immediately, for the Unlimited offer is $24.95 per month. Dial-Up customers will of course not be eligible for VOIP as dial-up bandwidth is insufficient to make VOIP calls. International calls are reasonable on trueVoice too, and compete favourably with the Skype VOIP landline and mobile international dialling rates, the other attractive international dialling option for high speed Internet users. Again, EarthLink competes extremely well when it comes to offering their customers top-of-the-range Internet connectivity solutions.
trueVoice offers an online account management service where the subscriber is able to integrate their high speed Internet contact list and their telephone contact list, a definite advantage over the landline option. There is an “Enhanced 911” service offered, which requires some care on the part of the subscriber, as the location of the trueVoice service, meaning the point at which the subscriber makes their calls, must be clearly specified to EarthLink, for the 911 personnel to locate the call. The service has some locale restrictions, but if the subscriber would be using their mobile phone to make 911 calls anyway, as I would do, this is not a problem. Subscribers with cable may keep their existing telephone number, but DSL subscribers will require a new number, since the DSL service requires a different, always-on telephone connection. An added bonus is that the service is a month-on-month service with no contracts. If the subscriber is already a contracted high speed Internet user, the no-contract relief of EarthLink’s trueVoice is a commitment to improving their customers’ experience and further cements their reputation as a service-first company. It makes little sense as an EarthLink customer to continue to pay for a traditional telephone service when a single subscription point with EarthLink can offer everything a landline gives and so much more.
EarthLink Internet Access
EarthLink Internet Access is offered in two main flavors: high speed and dial-up. The two flavors are aimed at the either individual at home or the business user who needs access without speed restrictions. The dialup option is ideal for someone who needs only a short access time for some email access. For web surfing, dialup handles basic websites with more text than images. Images will load OK, but will take longer than a second or two. The high speed option gives access to multimedia content like video that plays immediately on a click – so called “streaming video” or audio files that also play instantly a link is clicked. Dialup would require that the user download the file in full to the hard drive on their computer, before the file could be opened and played back. High speed is also excellent for someone who spends a lot of time (2 hours plus per day) online. Lengthy periods on the Internet using dialup become a real chore and a waste of time. High speed Internet access is supplied using cable, DSL, satellite or Wi-Fi technology, with DSL the slowest and cable the fastest. EarthLink’s high speed Internet access is made available using all these technologies. There’s no need to know what each technology entails – just order the speed settings most suitable for you.
EarthLink High Speed Internet
EarthLink High Speed Internet (broadband Internet) makes the user impervious to the bandwidth-intensive bells and whistles now popping up on web sites. Broadband is for the serious Internet professional who wishes to log in from home to do their work, or to do remote work for offsite customers. Small and medium businesses almost always prefer high-speed Internet connections over dial-up, especially if they are to serve all their emails, download files employees need to do their jobs and use the emerging technologies to make business work cheaper, like Voice Over IP (VOIP). A family needing Internet connectivity for each member will require broadband with a wireless home network, so that various computers throughout the home can access the internet simultaneously without compromising on bandwidth for each person. Small businesses will find anything less than EarthLink High Speed Internet access unable to serve their needs. Medium business will be able to use the broadband EarthLink offers, with cable offering the speeds required by organizations of this size.
EarthLink Dial-Up
Dial-Up utilizes the good old-fashioned copper wire or landline telephone cables installed just about everywhere in the United States. Dial-Up data transfer speeds mean that a web site with images and other rich media content can take as long as a few minutes to open properly. Listening to music online requires more speed than dial-up can offer and watching video files online is doubly difficult. As already mentioned, the dial-up subscriber is forced to download the file to their disk and watch it later, but since most video content is copyright and must be played in the browser while accessing the site, this is often just not an option. Dial-Up is therefore suitable for the casual home user with only a few emails to retrieve and who surfs news sites or any sites with mostly text content. Extremely cost-sensitive customers will also enjoy the access to the Internet without the higher cost of the high speed option. Unfortunately, with the increase of multimedia advertising, pages are becoming uncomfortably slow-loading as the animated or bandwidth intensive advertising loads up. Even with the limitations of dial-up, there are still cases where a dial-up line is sufficient and with all the features packed into the dial-up offering by EarthLink, the dial-up option is by no means less attractive than high speed Internet access.
EarthLink Web Hosting
EarthLink Web Hosting is offered for small and medium enterprises via the Starter, Pro, and Premium Site packages. Key features are:
- Control of a hosted web presence from one user interface
- Email accounts with mailing list functionality, autoresponders and mail forwarding
- Dynamic web content infrastructure, including CGI scripts, PHP support, PERL debugger, ASP and ADO.net support and database access.
- Site Building capability (Trellix Site Builder)
In order to upload files to the subscriber’s web site to configure it, you need secure FTP access to the storage space for the hosted environment and this is supplied, along with traffic limitations in the amount of data that can be transferred free with a subscription – the data transfer options. Every customer visiting the site and surfing through it will be also be using up data transfer MB. Extra bandwidth (data transferred to or from the site) is charged at for, at 1 MB for $0.02 per month. The three hosting options available cover most web sites and their usage patterns for successful wired business.
These are the basics. How does EarthLink Web Hosting go the extra mile to bring my business the details that offer the outstanding value that would really boost my site? It would seem that access to an online site builder tool places EarthLink ahead. (See the article on the EarthLink Trellix service offering). EarthLink also targets its offering at medium-sized businesses – this also places them ahead of the game. Small business users can be happy knowing that the tools and services they use are also working well for larger businesses. Add more to this service: the dynamic web site technologies offered, like CGI, PHP and ASP, and the service is clearly ahead. EarthLink then hits the ball out of the park with the Web Gems and web services capabilities built in to their site builder toolset. EarthLink clearly has expanded customer options beyond their competitors.
EarthLink therefore offers the web hosting technology required for business web sites, but do they back it up with solid uptime, reliable support and a track record that inspires confidence in their service? The answer is a resounding “Yes.” Although this web hosting review does not go into specific metrics, EarthLink uptime is said to be among the best in the business. As this is difficult to verify independently, the various customer service satisfaction ratings give the next best perspective, and EarthLink has scored top ratings since 2000. We can assume that happy customers are not customers who have been experiencing hosting service downtime at all. EarthLink offers free 24 by 7 live internet chat, email or telephonic support to their subscribers, also boosting confidence in their offering. Finally, their track record is impressive – the second largest ISP in the USA and a subscriber base of over 5 million individual accounts. Success it would seem, breeds success, and EarthLink web hosting is serving their large and growing subscriber base with confidence-inspiring competence.
EarthLink Tools: Free and Premium
The free software available on the EarthLink site starts with a free email address, free EarthLink account with personalised settings, free music downloads in the continental USA and Canada and the MindSpring VOIP client (the equivalent of Skype but supported and backed by one of the world’s largest ISPs). Prices are competitive with Skype’s. There is also a spyware scanner and a full computer protection suite including an anti-virus and firewall bundle with automatic updates from EarthLink for anyone connected to the Internet to download and try. There is also a toolbar add-in for Firefox, demonstrating yet again that EarthLink is committed to its users. Firefox was the fastest-growing Internet browser for a time and EarthLink has recognised that many of their users prefer Firefox over Internet Explorer.
Once a customer subscribes to any of the EarthLink products, even more important protective software becomes available, the parental control suite. This service makes it possible to allow children online time windows, block access to your child by strangers, block attachments and undesirable sites. Emails are sent to the parent before they get to the child and teen-friendly software versions are offered. EarthLink allows the parent to set up a profile for the child which allows access to all web sites except the 3 million EarthLink has blocked or a list of a few thousand definitely “kid-friendly” sites. Communications between a child and a list of known friends and family can be approved, and any communications from or to anyone not on the list is first forwarded to a parent before delivery. Peace of mind regarding the child’s Internet activity is almost guaranteed.
Site Builder is another immensely powerful and valuable tool. Purely from a cost perspective, the user is saved hundreds of dollars in software licensing for the multiple applications it would take to provide the Site Builder features, and the professional developer costs it would take to get even the most basic web service embedded in your page. The Site Builder software makes it possible for the small and medium business experts themselves to put their own updated, fresh content on the business site. Eliminating the outsourcing time and costs of constantly updating the company web site makes the Site Builder an extremely attractive proposition, exactly as intended by the EarthLink strategists: EarthLink has chosen its service offerings very carefully around the customer experience and to deliver real value.
For dial-up users there is EarthLink accelerator, claiming to increase download speeds by up to 5 times over standard dial-up. This speeding up is achieved by adjusting image quality on downloaded data so that less image data are downloaded. There is no lack of tools or software applications from EarthLink that support a comfortable, safe and enjoyable Internet experience.
Trellix Web Site Builder
The goal for most small to medium enterprises is to have a no-fuss, no-nonsense Internet presence that demands little or no attention and is easily updated as needed, whenever needed. Traditionally, a web professional would be engaged to slave away at a computer for a while and the web site runs. This model may work, but it does involve a lot of dull, repetitive and crude work. Trellix addresses this basic difficulty in setting up a corporate web site but goes even further – it allows sophisticated services and function-rich content to be added to a web page without any specialist knowledge or skills. If building a web site from scratch is the hard way, and believe me, it is, then the easy way is to use the EarthLink Trellix product. It is an automated tool that features built-in support for embedding multimedia content and managing dynamic features like web forms, where users are able to capture their information for your site to store. Small wonder then that the Trellix web builder software is offered free to all EarthLink web hosting customers.
EarthLink customers are truly empowered to deploy fully-featured web sites running any of the latest technologies available to web masters. Professionally configured high-end sites have various plugged-in features for displaying stock tickers or local weather or sports results. Using Web Gems, users are able to provide web services without writing their own code.
EarthLink provides a feature sure to be popular amongst most web users today: free web blogging. With the Trellix software, customers are able to set up their own web blogs on their own home page, making their Internet presence even more personalized. This personalization of the web experience makes it unlikely that the customer will migrate to another ISP, so there is a win-win for both EarthLink and their customers.
The Trellix product features allow the serving of all mainstream digital media: photos, videos, graphical images and music. The customer is now able to post all information gathered at the last family wedding or event: video, family portraits, sound bites, galleries, diarized comments from attendees, any images scanned from memorabilia, the list is endless. The medium enterprise is also well served – expensive web professionals are not forced to grind through the anonymous chore of updating a web site or even the less-than-robotic chore of adding a weather service to the company web site – Trellix has made all of this a lot quicker and easier than it would have been. This translates to savings of time and money and the efforts of valuable professionals can be better leveraged. Trellix doesn’t stop with just a cost benefit – the addition of a large array of complex and thus rewarding web features, called Web Gems by EarthLink, to any web page involves no coding and complicated technical exercises, just a configuration task in the user-oriented Trellix application.