Tata Sky is TATA BYE (AKA Choosing the Right Hosting Company)

This week on TV News was dedicated to the launch of TATA Sky and how it's entry into the Indian Market will help people get a choice, after all, we are all tired of our cable operators. Some of us , like my Dad who were the early movers, chose the ZEE Dish TV and were all waiting for more channels, and the Star Bouquet on it for the last two years. Finally TATA Sky is launched.

But well, my post is not about Tata Sky or it's launch, it is about how to choose the right hosting company. After all you pay the hosting company to make sure the site is running, and not show you

"Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.34 Server at www.tatasky.com Port 80"

Why did it happen to Tata Sky, Well TATA is the owner of VSNL, country's largest Internet and Hosting company, Sky a Part of the Star TV Network is one of the largest cable / satellite television networks of Asia, and the Investment to start Tata Sky "Approximately 13,000 crores or US$ 28 billion, if I have my mathematics right".

Who do they choose to host their webiste, well atleast not my company, and atleast not VSNL, but a Shared Hosting Company run by Quadra Infotech (Using Shared hosting servers from DirectI), at a plan of maybe Rs. 5000, for a 100 MB disk space(well how much more do you need for a website).... without reading the fine print Bandwidth Allowed: 1GB... :) Well who will do 1 GB.. TATA did it.. you will do it, anyone can do it.. it's a matter of visitors coming to your site.

Who is the Culprit, someone called Mr. Rasesh Patel, who I believe is someone very senior in Tata Sky's IT Department.

Sadly, Mr. Patel, did not bother to verify the company and or the kind of service they provide, and also forgot to check out, that the same server had 288 other clients for hosting.

So beware and be careful, do not let your IT Guy or your Accounts guy take the decision on where to Host, check everything, read all fine prints... you never know.. you may become famous, and have a dead website saying "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later."

Have a Happy Weekend.. and Hopefully tatasky.com should be working before we say wake up and smell the coffee. It's 11th August, 2:18 AM.. and I am still up and awake trying to figure out, after all TATA should not have done this.

G