After web host HIT shut down last week, its wholesale host Fibernet took over for its customers
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — After web hosting provider Heritage Internet Technologies (www.hitwebdesign.com) announced last week that it was shutting down, some confusing and potentially misleading messages emerged about the potential fate of sites hosted by the company.
In a conversation with the WHIR on Monday, Lane Livingston, CEO of Fibernet (www.fiber.net), the behind-the-scenes provider of hosting to reseller HIT, discussed the role his company is playing in providing immediate support to HIT customers, and the potential for Fibernet to support those customers going forward.
First and foremost, he says, it is important for HIT customers to understand that the technology underlying that company’s services have always been owned and operated by Fibernet, which operates as a wholesale provider of hosting in many similar relationships – meaning that no HIT customers are in any danger of having their services turned off unexpectedly.
“Everything’s up, everything’s running,” says Livingston. “There is no emergency whatsoever. We were already managing everything underlying. We do that every day all day long, and that’s what we’ve been doing. The difference is that HIT isn’t answering the phone.”
For HIT customers (who reportedly number somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000), the news came suddenly, on Tuesday, March 8. The company sent a note to customers saying that it was closing its doors, and recommending that they contact Fibernet for more information on their ongoing hosting needs.
Livingston says the basic issue at HIT was that the company ran out of money, having struggled to pay its bills with Fibernet, and other suppliers, for years.
A wholesaler such as Fibernet generally has processes in place to deal with a customer going out of business, of course, but without any notice, that situation can become complicated.
“We have done this thing many times before,” he says, “and about 50 percent of the time it’s a fire, meaning this is what happens – the company shuts the doors and it’s over. The well executed ones are those where we have usually 30 days or more to plan. With 30 days to plan, you can do a lot of great things. With no way to plan, it’s very hard.”
Since Tuesday last week, Fibernet has been fielding in the range of 700 calls per day from HIT clients, and approximately triple that volume in online communication.
His advice to HIT customers, perhaps unsurprisingly, is to simply become customers of Fibernet. The process is relatively seamless, with no real transition effort required, beyond at some point officially becoming a customer of Fibernet – in most cases, the pricing for the basic hosting product would improve.
“They don’t have to do anything,” he says. “Everything will keep functioning, such as email and websites. The system they’re used to for managing the sites, and editing, all of that will stay the same. The only change is at some point Fibernet will be billing them, and they need to agree to essentially become a Fibernet customer.”
While HIT’s services were focused around website design – a service Fibernet does not offer on quite as large a scale – Livingston says the company is prepared to meet those needs through partnerships.
Customers who have very recently made a payment to HIT and haven’t yet received the design work they purchased might have to do some extra work, he says. “We’re suggesting for folks that have paid recently and haven’t received fulfillment – we’re suggesting that they request a chargeback, and we will help them with their design.”
The benefit to Fibernet of keeping HIT’s clientele in-house is fairly self-evident, but so is the benefit to the clientele, says Livingston.
“Fibernet is a 17-year veteran of the Internet space,” he says. “We’ve been here for a long time. We know what we’re doing. We’re not going anywhere. We are an operation that knows how to fulfill its promises and take care of its customers, keep things running and working and reliable. We have the experience and the team to be able to support manage and help all these customers with whatever they’re going to need. And we’ve been doing it for a very long time.”
In the wake of the closure, a fairly significant number of companies began vying for the at-least-15,000 customers that found their web host going under. This is understandable, says Livingston, but among the messages to emerge was some misinformation suggesting that Fibernet wasn’t equipped to provide hosting, or that the company intended to shut off HIT-hosted sites.
Fibernet has posted information on its own website, as well as the HIT website, attempting to clear up any misinformation.
In one particularly egregious case of misinformation, says Livingston, Internet marketing company Leadgenix issued comments seeming to intentionally mislead users into thinking the company was offering some kind of official replacement for HIT hosting services.
(NOTE: regrettably, the WHIR originally misreported on the story based on this particular misleading report)
“I thought that was funny, considering I’ve never heard of them until a few days ago,” says Livingston. And he has been unable to reach the company to clear up matters.
“The moment we found out about this,” he says, “we attempted to communicate with them. I have names of principles over there, and nobody will call me back. They’re being evasive and won’t communicate with us in any way. We’re trying to correct some information there.”
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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