midPhase Review - Illinois Web Site Hosting Provider

Latest News:
Apr 12, 2008 - midPhase Inc has upgraded their MegaPhase hosting plan from 200 GB diskspace and 3,000 GB bandwidth to 750 GB disk space and 7,500 GB bandwidth.

Sep 19, 2007 - midPhase Inc has been named one of the best at Commission Junction's annual client conference's 2007 Horizon Awards ceremony. The Horizon Award for Innovation was presented to midPhase Services in appreciation for their support to Commission Junction and their commitment to people in the industry.

Overview
midPhase is a relatively new web hosting provider founded in Year 2002. But within such short timeframe, midPhase has recently been ranked among one of the top 5 fastest growing web hosting companies in the world. Today, midPhase has thousands of customers all around the world.

midPhase provides hosting packages for both advanced developers as well as new users. Their mega-PHASE hosting plan offers wide range of hosting features from advanced scripting, mySQL databases to simple website building software. Most importantly, they offer hundred of hosting options that you can choose to upgrade as your business grows.

Currently, we have a website about used golf clubs hosted on midPhase. We started to set up our website within 5 minutes of signing up a web hosting account with them. We were given a temporary URL to test our website while waiting for the DNS to propagate. That's how fast you can set up your website with midPhase too! (For International customers, your website will be temporary suspended pending for your credit card verification approval).

Key Hosting Features
midPhase offers an amazing 750 GB disk space and 7,500 GB bandwidth. With such huge offer, essentially, you don't really have to worry about disk space and bandwidth overuse problem ever! On top of that, midPhase also supports almost all the standard web hosting features such as server-side functionalities (CGI-BIN, Perl, JSP), FTP utility, email accounts, web statistic software and etc. Below are few special features provided by midPhase:

e-Commerce Ready - Unlike many other web hosting providers, you don't have to pay more to enjoy the e-commerce features. The basic entry-level midPhase's mega-PHASE Package is e-commerce ready. The package provides three popular eCommerce shopping carts, namely PayPal, osCommerce and Agora shopping cart. The plan also supports merchant accounts and merchant services via CDGC and NXG/NV. You get all these e-commerce features for free when you sign-up the mega-PHASE package.

Website Builder Software - midPhase has developed a proprietary website builder software called Site Studio Builder. It is an easy-to-use tool that enables anyone, with little or no web design knowledge, to create a professional look website quickly and easily. Meaning, you don't need to hire a professional web designer to create your website, you can do it yourself. This feature alone could save you tons of money.

Email Filtering - You will get unlimited POP3 email accounts for Mega-PHASE package. With so many email accounts, you are expected to receive many junk emails. midPhase understands the cost of handling junk emails. Every time a spam email goes into your inbox, you have to spend your precious time to find and delete them. Now, every hosting account with midPhase comes with the free SpamAssassin software and virus filtering designed to help you to remove junk and virus-laden emails.

Additional features - There are many additional features provided by midPhase, including PHP-Nuke, Xoops compatible, most CMS Auto-Installer, Fantastico Auto-Installer and more. You can add these free features onto your website directly from the administrator control panel.

Customer Support
midPhase is one of the few providers that provides true 24/7 customer service with an average response time under 30 minutes. That explains why midPhase has won the "Best Customer Service of 2003" award.

24/7 Toll-Free Phone - midPhase provides 24/7/365 toll-free telephone support with an easy to remember number: 1-866-MIDPHASE (1-866-643-7427).

Emergency Pager - This is an unique service provided by midPhase. When you fill up an emergency pager web form on midPhase website, the administrator and technical staffs will be notified through their pagers. Your problem will receive immediate attention any time of the day, any day of the week.

Help Ticket support - midPhase offers a help ticket system to help you to resolve your problem quickly. Average help ticket response time is claimed to be less than half an hour.

Live Chat - Powered by 'phpLive', midPhase offers you an option to chat with their support staffs live!

midPhase FAQ & Knowledge Base - In the midPhase Service Center, you can find midPhase popular FAQs and extensive Knowledge Base for common questions to help you on any website setup problems.

midPhase Live Animated Tutorials - You can learn how to setting up and configuring your website by viewing the online animated tutorials.

midPhase Talk - This is a community forums provided free by midPhase to all of their customers to join and discuss on various web hosting issues.

Data Center  
midPhase house their customer websites on an award winning, multi-million dollar data center facilities known as the Equinix IBX Center in the heart of Chicago, IL. Their Data Center has primary and secondary connections to the following backbone providers: Time Warner, Internap, Bell South and other providers. Their server uptime is guaranteed to never, ever drop below 99.98% per month!

Testimonials

Awards
Below are some of the awards garnered by midPhase:

> "Top 15 Web Hosts, Feb 2004" - HostReview
> "Editors' Choice Award, March 2004" - Web Host Magazine &Buyer's Guide
> "5^th Fastest Growing Website Hosting Company, Feb 2004" - Host Count
> "Best New Host of 2003 Finalist" - 100 Best Inc's Best New Host
> "Best Customer Service of 2003 Finalist" - 100 Best Inc's Best New Host
> "GoldStar Host" - FoundHost

Summary
The Mega-Phase package offered by midPhase is quite comparable to the hosting plan provided by Lunarpages and BlueHost. Their technical support is also excellent judging from the Live Support survey rating of 4.74 out of 5 (every time a customer submits a support ticket and after the support ticket is completed, a survey form is sent to the customer to collect their responses). In our experience with midPhase, we are pleased with their technical support and server uptime so far.

While midPhase continue to claim the $29.95 setup fee waiver, but it has remained so after we have been monitoring midPhase for a long time. It's just a marketing tactic they use. Nevertheless, midPhase's Mega-PHASE package at $7.95 per month that comes with complete e-commerce ready features and one free domain name which, given its huge disk space and bandwidth offer, is an absolute bargain. Regardless of your hosting requirements, you probably won't have to look much further than to the midPhase's Mega-PHASE.

	Visit midPhase.com Now !

(Note: All International customers are required to fill up a 'Credit Card Verification Form' to midPhase. You can choose to fax in or scan a copy (we think this is a cheaper and easier method, just scan and email to admin@midphase.com) of that form to midPhase. You MUST send in this verification form within 7 working days, otherwise your account will be terminated.

midPhase needs this information to perform verification in order to curb credit card fraud. This fraud verification system is in place to protect consumers such as yourself. Your web hosting account will be activated as soon as the verification process is completed, which normally takes 2-3 days)