home > web design > Web Hosting Australia
Web Hosting Australia
Where your website is hosted is a vital link to your online presense. Thomas Multimedia uses only the best the Australian Web Hosting Community has to offer.
The reality is that its an absolute nightmare trying to find good value and reliable web hosting. We should know, because we have spent the hours finding the very best, and there are plenty of choices!
So without further ado, here is our pricing schedule:
Jump To
Services by Region
See Also
| Packages >> | Starter | Midweight | Heavyweight |
| Suited to | small websites containing a few pages of mainly text and images | Steady traffic expected, supports some advanced features | Busy websites serving a high volume of daily traffic |
| Example | Online brochure | online store / product catalogue | Busy online store |
| Control Panel | yes | yes | yes |
| Storage Space | 10MB | 100MB | 250MB |
| Monthly Traffic (bandwidth) | 500MB | 1GB | 2.5GB |
| Databases | 0 | 5 | unlimited |
| Email Accounts | unlimited | unlimited | unlimited |
| Subdomains | unlimited | unlimited | unlimited |
| Setup Fee | $25 FREE | $75 $35 | $100 $50 |
| Monthly | $15 | $33 | $50 |
| Annual | $150 (save $30) | $330 (save $66) | $525 (save $75) |
| * all prices in Australian Dollars (AUD) and include GST | |||
Add-on Services
Content Management System - Editable Pages:
A very easy to use system that overlays your site, allowing you to securely change your pages anywhere, anytime. No need to pay a developer or worry about expensive web software and FTP programs, when you can do it all right out of your everyday internet browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can use this system. Take control of your website for only $5 a month! See demo.
About Our Services
Our services are tailored to meet the requirements of the overwhelming majority of sites on the internet. Each package is highly specific to real world hosting situations. If you have seen the offerings of a few different web hosting companies you have probably seen a wide variation in the pricing and features. There are some things that you should be aware of:
- Literally hundreds of hours can be saved by having your server locating physically nearby. When connecting to an offshore server (typically located in the US), several things occur; the initial connection takes longer to establish, the data transfer is more likely to encounter congestion somewhere on its journey, and transferring files to and from the web site is ultimately slower. Part of Thomas Multimedia being an efficient business is due to our constant time saving by investing in local server hardware.
- most web hosts are offering you a service without support; that is the technical staff talk a different language. Unless you understand terms like mail servers, domain name propagation, IP addresses and htaccess (just to skim the surface) you will probably find it difficult to communicate. The reality is that your site will usually be amongst several thousand others and your business is insignificant to the company. Alternatively, Thomas Multimedia is offering a specialised service, acting as the middleman to ensure you are getting the very best from your website
- Often a web hosting company will offer packages starting at 200mb of space and 5gb of bandwidth (traffic allowance) per month. While this sounds great on the surface, it is a bit like buying a bus to duck down to the corner store. The downside is inpersonal service, your customers being turned off by slow page loading times, and more frequent downtime.
Here is an outline of the relationship between Server Staff, Thomas Multimedia & Client:
More about Our Web Hosting service
Control Panel
All our hosting products come with a password protected control panel that allows you to manage a wide range of features and functions on your site such as;
- View comprehensive traffic statistics
- Manage email accounts
- View email in your browser from anywhere in the world
- Manage files
- Manage FTP accounts
- Manage subdomains
- Manage databases and database user permissions
- Create and restore backups
- Customise error pages
- Install several popular web applications - chat, bulletin boards and agora shopping cart
Storage & Bandwidth
We have all gotten used to the idea in IT that everything must always be bigger, better, faster. While this is certainly true with the server hardware and infrastructure, the amount of space and bandwidth you are allocated is well above nearly any requirement.
A typical PC probably has somewhere in the order of an 80GB hard drive, while the above hosting plans only allow 25, 100 and 250mb of space! The reality is that a well designed website is very, very small. Take for example the webpage you are looking at now. The physical size of all elements on this page is around 18kb. That means to reach the starter package bandwidth limit of 500mb, this page could be accessed some 27,600 times a month. Similarly, one could fit 1,300 similar sized pages onto one hosting account. Now thats a big website! Certainly we have worked with extremely busy websites, but a large proportion of websites out there would fit into our starter package.
Email Accounts
You may create the specified amount of email accounts @yourdomain.xx. Read below to see how you can manage these accounts.
Databases
When a site grows, often the best addition is a database. This will allow the secure storing and retrieval of a wide range of vital information. Usually one database is sufficient (see Midweight package), however if you have extended demand for databases the Heavyweight package provides the best option.
Generally speaking, alot of existing data you may have can be migrated to a web-based database with relative ease. So in most cases, no-one has to sit there entering data record by record. If you have a well formed Excel or Access file for example, or even a list in Word or Notepad format, hundreds, thousands or even millions of records can be imported instantly to your online database.
Once you have a database, you can say goodbye to hours of laboriously trawling through your raw data. Just have Thomas Multimedia create an online control panel where you can retreive, edit or remove exact records in seconds!
Subdomains
A subdomain acts a seperate website under your main domain name. For example, you may have your main information on www.yourdomain.com, and your products located on shop.yourdomain.com. All Thomas Multimedia web hosting packages allow for subdomains.
Server Environment
- Dual Genuine Intel Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz Processors
- Linux Operating System
- 1 Cpanel per site
Other Plans
Our three packages, Starter, Midweight and Heavyweight cater to most any hosting need. If you feel that you require something significantly different from what is offered, we are happy to tailor a package to your unique needs. For example, we can outsource hosting if you require something like dedicated hosting.
We have well established relationships with high-end hosting providers who can accommodate clients looking to start or continue a substantial, multi-site web presense.
The Bottom Line
Too many hosting companies are in the practice of overloading their servers to make rediculous profits to the detriment of the thousands of businesses that depend on their service reliabilty. Remember, web hosting is not only a working website, but also working emails! An offline website means an offline email system!
We have done the research, and we have the experience to co-maintain your website. Our server has unbelievable uptime and speed, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Reliable, fast hosting is only half the picture. Read about Thomas Multimedia's web design & development services
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens when I reach my bandwidth or disk space limit?
You will be notified if and when you exceed your plan's disk space / bandwidth. We will likely recommend that you upgrade to a higher plan or purchase additional bandwidth from us. This is welcome news because it means your getting lots of traffic! We will not take drastic action such as suspending your account without notice, but we will be in contact to discuss the situation.
Definitions
Bandwidth (Monthly Traffic): This figure refers to the total number of megabytes or gigabytes that your account may use each month. This figure is automatically tracked by the server and available via the client control panel. Essentially every visitor you have to your site uses bandwidth as they view pages and download images and media. A well built site makes a dramatic difference to the bandwidth usage by being consistent, having optimised images and using css style sheets.
Storage / Disk Space: Indicates the allocated hard drive space you may use with your account. Although these numbers may seem small in comparison to your PC's hard drive space, keep in mind that a well optimised website is 5-10mb on average, which is well below the minimum plan's allowance.
Databases: Our servers support the highly popular MySQL database system. Each package has an allowed number of databases, which can be used for storing products, customer details, transactions and much more. It is important to note that the size of the database counts towards your allowed disk space (see above), and that one database is usually sufficient for one site as they can store literally millions of records! Databases can be built in such a way that they are incredibly efficient at storing data.
Setup Fee: If you have an existing site, the setup fee includes creation and installation of your site. For database driven sites this includes copying your database to Thomas Multimedia's servers. In the unlikely event that your site experiences a compatability issue with our servers, additional charges may apply. The setup fee assumes that you are able to provide your current site files and database. File and database retreival may incur additional charges.