Web Hosting News by HostReview.com

C I Host Expands Core Network, Adds Reliability, Guaranteed Uptime

At 2.6Gbits, Largest Privately Held Web Hosting Network

HostReview.com
Tuesday, November 11, 2003; 12:00 AM

BEDFORD, TX (November 10, 2003) - C I Host, a global leader in Web hosting and Internet infrastructure, has expanded its core network at its Dallas data center by an additional OC-12 622 Mbits of bandwidth, through a fiber optic connection purchased from Tier-1 provider Allegiance Telecom, a leading national local exchange carrier (NLEC).

The addition brings C I Host's total bandwidth to more than 2.6Gbits, making its network the largest privately held Web hosting network in the world.

The size and redundancy built into the network mean that C I Host's customers never have to worry about their Web sites going offline.

"Having additional multi-homed carriers all running Border Gate Protocol (BGP) ensures that even if one or more of our carriers goes down, our clients' data will be automatically rerouted over backup carriers," said Christopher Faulkner, CEO of C I Host. "This enables us to reach our industry-leading Service Level Agreements of 100 percent uptime."

All C I Host's bandwidth is Tier-1 quality and is purchased from
Allegiance, Sprint, Global Crossing, Verio, UUNet, Qwest, Level3 and Broadwing networks.

"Allegiance is excited about the opportunity to work with C I Host and support these providers as they grow their businesses," says John Dumbleton, Allegiance senior vice president of alternate channels. "Allegiance is uniquely positioned to help C I Host offer better solutions to customers."

Based in Dallas, Allegiance Telecom provides integrated communications through its state-of-the-art fiber backbone, NexGen One. NexGen One is a fault tolerant, self-healing backbone that uses MPLS technology to offer fast, reliable and secure data services with minimal network delays and guaranteed bandwidth.

"Our partnership with Allegiance is one more example of how we offer our customers tools and services from companies who - like C I Host - are playing at the top of their game," Faulkner said. "Those kinds of tools and services, in turn, give our customers what they need to be the best in their field."

C I Host, with more than 200,000 customers in 182 countries throughout the world, has cornered the SMB market and is making significant inroads into the higher-end, dedicated and managed server market. The firm has more than 8,000 dedicated servers in its Dallas data center alone and is closing ten new colocation deals a week in each of its three data centers - Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles.

With no long-term debt and a commitment to customer service, C I Host has continued to grow and prosper even as the last two years have left many of its competitors struggling or pushed them out of the industry.

"Now, with the economy clearly on the upswing, we are positioned to even increase our rate of growth and expansion and continue to give our customers to best in Web hosting service and Internet solutions," Faulkner said.

About C I Host

C I Host (www.cihost.com), based in the Dallas/Fort Worth market, is a Web hosting and Internet solutions provider, domain name registrar (DNR) and application service provider (ASP) serving 200,000 individual consumers and businesses in 182 countries worldwide.

C I Host creates business-class Web hosting solutions for the small- and medium-enterprise (SME) market, with the broadest portfolio of managed hosting and value-added services in the industry. C I Host is accredited by ICANN to register domain names.

C I Host is HIPAA-compliant and has passed the SAS70 audit.

C I Host has been ranked #1 in speed by the Adoloma Web Hosting Guide. C I Host has been consistently ranked among the Top 5 Web hosting companies out of 16,000 around the globe by c|net's Ultimate Web Host List, HostPulse, WebHostsOnline.com and HostChart.com. C I Host was named among the Top 25 Web hosting companies by HostIndex.com.

C I Host offers turn-key services ranging from initial domain name
registration to custom dedicated servers for e-commerce on today's Web.

The company offers innovative packages and services to the Internet community.

C I Host operates three diverse data centers across the United States, with its main facility and Network Operations Center in Bedford, Texas. C I Host also has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and London.

All telco-grade, tier-1 data centers are wholly owned and operated by C I Host and consist of redundant diesel generator backups and a temperature-controlled secure environment with fully redundant UPS capability. All server hardware is fully tested and configured for optimal performance. Daily Web server backups and full fire protection guard against any data loss. To deliver speed and reliability, C I Host's servers are connected to two OC-12 fiber connections, five DS-3 and two OC-3 lines from five diverse Internet backbones for a total of more than 2.6 Gigabits of available bandwidth.