A Leader

C I Host has been in the web hosting business since 1995, making us one of the early innovators in the industry.

Throughout the years, we have strived to continually improve our services by offering a wide array of choices to our customers. Additionally, we have created a non-traditional corporate environment where feedback from our customers and employees is channeled to our Quality Assurance Department so that we can constantly meet the needs of a fast-growing and ever-changing medium. Because of this, we can enhance each of our products and services on a continual basis and deliver the latest features that are requested by our customers.

"Quality assurance is the focus here at C I Host, and that means that we are constantly seeking to provide the best service and programs, as soon as the new technology becomes available," notes Christopher Faulkner, C I Host CEO. "Pairing our experienced staff with exclusive online tools gives unrivaled power to our customers."

This innovative approach has led C I Host to have the industry's lowest customer churn rate--4 percent.

In less than seven years, C I Host has developed custom web hosting environments on multiple operating systems (Windows and Unix); created automation systems to setup new hosting accounts in under 30 seconds; created web-based control panels to give our customers the power to instantly manage the services they use; developed custom e-commerce transaction and shopping cart systems; and built a fully redundant, fault-tolerant network encompassing four autonomous data centers in Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Today, C I Host is able to offer our customers shared, dedicated and all flavors of hosting in between. However, we don't stop there. In our pursuit to becoming a tier-1 full web solution provider, we have created colocation, application hosting, dedicated connectivity solutions, professional services, domain name registration, reseller/partner programs, and over 100 other service offerings. Quite frankly, if you are looking for any web service or Internet infrastructure offering, C I Host has experience in providing it.

C I Host's portfolio of services was created with the small-to-medium business (SMB) in mind. All of our services are backed with a no-questions-asked 30 day money back guarantee--if you are not happy, you don't have to pay! In recent years, we have expanded our portfolio to encompass services that meet the needs of enterprise level customers like Jerry Springer, Jeff Foxworthy, American Airlines, Iomega, McDonald's, Lay-Z-Boy, Del Monte Foods and others who have selected C I Host to fulfill their hosting requirements.

To provide the most secure and reliable hosting environment, C I Host has constructed our data centers from the ground-up.

C I Host currently operates four data centers built with N+1 and N+3 redundancy and are geographically disbursed in Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago. International data centers are planned for the future.

Each data center is designed with 2.5+ megawatts of premise power, temperature control systems, fire zones above the ceiling and below the floor, specialized heat/smoke sensors with automatic fire department notification, backup diesel-powered generators, UPS systems, biometric identification systems so only high-level C I Host employees are permitted near your hardware, and 24x7 secured access control systems backed with armed guards. All C I Host data centers and NOC's are staffed 24x7 with expert engineers in IP networking, IT infrastructure and web hosting systems management. We've taken great strides to provide web hosting services to all of our customers.

Our data centers are only as good as our Internet connections. That is why C I Host's bandwidth saturation averages (a measure of how crowded our systems are) are always kept below 30%. We have redundant GigE private fiber connections (capable of 1000Mbps each) with diverse routes to the Internet Backbone, ensuring our servers always have an active connection to the Internet. BGP Peering allows us to automatically re-route traffic away from "Internet Traffic Jams." This means when one part of the Internet slows down your site will not be caught in the bottleneck.

As you might have guessed, our data centers and Internet connections are only as good as our servers that house our customers' websites. That is why all C I Host's web hosting servers are operated on ultra-fast, bleeding edge technology using best of breed components from the top technology manufactureres in the world. Additionally, we dont over-subscribe! We keep our servers at less than 50 percent capacity so even when traffic peaks, our servers won't overload.

Additionally, C I Host leads the industry in data center industry-specific regulatory compliance and certifications. We currently have the following certifications:

• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) - For the healthcare industry
• GLBA (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) - For the financial services industry
• EU Data Protection Directive - For companies conducting business in the European Union
• FISMA (Financial Integrity and State Managers Accountability Act)
• SAS-70 Type I & Type II (Statement on Auditing Standards)

See our Data Centers page for complete information.

C I Host hosts hundreds of thousands of customers whose skills range anywhere from novice-level to experts. These range from personal websites to Fortune 500 corporations. The C I Host Technical Support center is staffed 24 hours a day to offer assistance in any area. When the call center cannot resolve a customer's issue, the dedicated Quality Assurance Team steps in to facilitate the resolution of any problem, whether billing, technical or administration. At no point does a C I Host customer feel alone; they know that we are standing by waiting for their call. With 24/7 toll-free technical support, 24/7 online support chat and a dedicated online support center, C I Host is constantly rated in the Top 10 of any list for its support and dedication.

We know however, that great service starts long before you contact us. Therefore, our customized server and network monitoring systems are sophisticated, refined and highly sensitive. We monitor overall performance statistics from our routers and our servers, we monitor basic HTTP response and availability of port 80, we monitor all server-level hardware, and all other port specific services that enable you to fully utilize your website to its fullest potential. Our monitoring systems not only alert us to what is happening, it also gives us an idea of what might happen if we do not take proactive steps to correct an issue. With our system's predictive fault management technology, we can anticipate fluctuations in disk storage, memory and CPU usage so that when you need resources the most, they will always be available.

All of our support contact methods and system architecture is backed up by a live, up-to-the-minute WAP-enabled network status system available on our website 24x7. If something happens, our customers are the first to know.

Over the past seven years, C I Host's superior performance has attracted many high profile, Fortune 500 customers. These clients' high, mission-critical requirements should provide additional credibility to our claims of superior service and customer focus. These customer include McDonalds, Lay-Z-Boy, The Department of Commerce, Empire Records, Aloha Airlines, Shimano and many others.

Additionally, C I Host has received over 500 awards since our inception in 1995. Most notable of which are the 1999 - 2005, "Top Web Host" from HostIndex.com, an independent company that reviews and rates over 10,000 web hosting companies on a monthly basis. For a complete list of our awards and accomplishments please click here.

C I Host has been profitable from day one. Our founder, Christopher Faulkner, organically grew C I Host with a conservative "phased-built" business approach that has led us to financial and debt freedom since our first day of operations. Our data centers are built as customer demand warrants, not to the original dot com methodology of "build it and they will come." C I Host's revenue is recycled back into the organization and fuels our expansion efforts and funds our operating capital.

C I Host is privately-owned and was built with $0 of venture capital. Between the years 2000 and 2002 over 5 of the world's largest web hosting firms filed bankruptcy -- C I Host expanded and launched new data centers. Between the years 2000 and 2003 40 of the world's largest web hosting firms laid off 20%+ of their staff -- C I Host added an additional 50 staff members to meet our triple digit growth. This disciplined business model means that we are here today and will definitely be here tomorrow to serve our customers.

Will C I Host transfer my domain name?

Yes. C I Host will send in the request to transfer your domain. You will receive an email from your registrar asking you to approve the domain migration.

Will I see any downtime if I get my domain transferred?

No, you will not see any downtime. Domain transfers usually take a couple of days to complete. While some end users may be visiting your site at its new location, others may still be receiving old information and are being routed to your previous host. During this time, it is best to stay with your old hosting provider until the domain has been properly transferred and is pointing to C I Host's servers.

What if I want to buy a site but don't want to transfer my domain?

You do not have to transfer your domain. When you order the site, choose "No" when it asks you whether you wish for C I Host to take care of your domain name registration. You may then transfer your domain name at any time.

What if I only want an IP site (no domain)?

When going through the Order Form, fill in the domain name field with something.cihost.com as the domain. Make sure "something" is a username that you wish to use when connecting to our servers.