midPhase Review - Illinois Web Site Hosting Provider

Ranking:	Top 5
Monthly Price:	$7.95 (Free Setup)
Key Features:	3,000 MB Disk Space Unmetered Bandwidth
Corporate Office:	midPhase Services, Inc. 223 W. Jackson Blvd #600, Chicago, IL 60606, USA
Toll Free Tel:	1-866-MIDPHASE (1-866-643-7427)
Website:	midPhase.com

Latest News:
Aug 31, 2004 - midPhase Inc has unveiled their new website which had been in development for 6 months. midPhases also added some exciting features such as Free Domain 4 Life and unmetered bandwidth.

June 7, 2004 - midPhase Inc, has acquired 'AN Hosting', a Chicago-based website hosting firm.

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 3,000 MB disk space and 'unmetered' bandwidth. The 'unmetered' bandwidth means unlimited bandwidth for your website (This unlimited bandwidth offer is not applicable to download/file archives websites or image gallery websites. But, non qualified websites will be allocated 60 GB bandwidth). In another words, you don't have to worry about bandwidth overuse problem ever! midPhase 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 SimpleSite Wizard. 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.

Marketing & Promotion - All Mega-PHASE customers enjoy a free marketing package that includes free search engine submission, tools and tricks to obtain high search engine rankings, and numerous articles that you can freely used in your website. Alternatively, you can order the value added service provided by midPhase known as EasyPromote that aims to increase traffic to your website at $59.95/year.

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 iPowerWeb and PowWeb. 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.

Even though midPhase continue to promote double disks space (original was 1,500 MB) offer and claim a one time setup fee of $29.95, but after we have been monitoring midPhase for some times, we can safely say that the disk space offer is always 3,000MB and midPhase always waive the setup fee (it is just a marketing tactic!). While the others web hosting providers recommended by us offer a 30-Day money back guarantee, midPhase is the only web hosting providers that offers a 14-Day money back guarantee.

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 'unlimited' 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 Now !

(Note: All International customers are required to fax in or scan a copy of your credit card to midPhase. They need 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)