In the early 1990s in IBM I worked with a young guy who was into bulletin boards & networks - he had been running a BB since he was 16.

He & I left IBM in approx mid 1990s, his name was Nick Andrew & he founded an ISP service he called Kralizec (he was into cult Japanese monster movies & named all his servers after them - his interest in things Japanese extended to a pretty young Japanese wife). Anyway on good advice Nick renamed his service to Zeta & up until 1999 he was gate-waying my Australian web sites. We even considered joining forces. Nick could have grown his service across the country if he had had good marketing (or is that really aggressive bullshitting pushy salesmen). Nick was just to damned honest & professional.

Then Pacific Internet took over & that was when a lot of people learned what a quality service Nick ran & how dedicated he was. PI now host my Sydney site (since I moved to HK & had to turn in my tcp/ip address block (of 16)). But I only stayed with PI out of loyalty to Nick.

The only good think I can say about PI is that Nick remained to work for them - as said by Wade - to improve their customer service.

My US site is also run by a committed and knowledgeable guy (Wayne) in Maryland (www.web-span.com). It is such a pleasure dealing with real people who have real knowledge. Wayne, just like Nick, has always been a great help & his prices & the performance have always been excellent. Long may he remain independant (if he still is?).

Cheers

Doug