701 Lee Road, Suite 300
Chesterbrook, PA 19087
Sales: 1-877-461-2631
Support: 1-866-991-2631
1&1 Internet began as a marketing company in 1988. Making headlines all over the industry, 1&1 branched out and began offering hosting services in 1998. Today, 1&1 owns their own environmentally friendly data centers where they host more than 10 million customers.
Review
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Pricing
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1&1 has three plans to choose from, each catering to a different market. The smallest plan, 1&1 Starter, includes 50 gigabytes of space and unlimited bandwidth for $4.99/month. 1&1’s pricing structure is about average. On the downside, all plans must be paid for yearly.
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Uptime
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My premium uptime monitor indicated that 1&1 maintained a 98% uptime record over one year.
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Sales
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1&1 takes sales questions by telephone and email. I phoned 1&1 and was speaking with a representative in under a minute. The rep I dealt with was quick and polite, but unable to answer a few of my questions about domain names and nameservers. Since no other sales team members were available at the time, I was asked to call back the following day. My questions
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Help & Support
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1&1 hosting support comes by telephone and email. Telephone reps were always friendly and happy to try and help, though I found most to be unschooled in the basics of web hosting. I had a difficult time finding a rep who understood MySQL databases, which left me without much support when my database went down unexpectedly. Email support is hit or miss, and many of my emails to 1&1 went completely unanswered. Disappointing!
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Setup
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Clients can sign-up for a 1&1 hosting package by phone or via an online form from the 1&1 website. I used the online form, which is pretty straightforward, taking just under five minutes to complete. A welcome email hit my mailbox a few hours after my account went live.
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Reliability
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The server where I hosted my website was strong and reliable. Aside from routine server reboots and server upgrades, I had no hardware issues of any kind.
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Billing
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1&1 accepts all major credit cards and billing issues are handled by phone or email. I had to deal with the billing folks once, when my domain was automatically renewed, even though I’d cancelled it. 1&1’s billing department has limited hours, so it took almost two weeks to get a refund. Slow!
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Guarantee
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30 day money back guarantee.
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99.9% uptime guarantee.
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Terms of Service
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The Terms of Service for 1&1 Internet are online. Highlights include:
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Prices may change at any time.
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Setup fees apply to some accounts.
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Websites using excess server resources will be suspended.
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No IRC allowed.
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Spamming prohibited.
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Bottom Line
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Advantages
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Free domain with some plans.
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Ability to setup hosting plan online or by phone.
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Almost no wait time with telephone support.
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Green technology.
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Manages own data center.
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Disadvantages
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No live chat.
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Support is mediocre at best.
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MySQL databases are limited to one gigabyte in size on some plans.
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No true month-to-month plans available.
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Billing department open only during business hours.
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