Overall Editor's Rating
84%		Overall Rating
84%		Price
93%		Features
83%		Support
92%		Reliability
71%		Speed

Business Operation
since 1998

Number of Websites Hosted
1000

Overview & Company Description
Malaysia and Singapore boast of having a strong talent pool and the resources and infrastructure needed for a thriving information technology industry. Particularly in the web hosting market segment, we are seeing cheaper, and bigger hosting space being launched every month. Some of the medium size hosting companies want to unseat the reigning king NetMyne, with WebVisions.com's strategy to continue dominating the web hosting market in singapore by offering a variety of top-notch servers based on Linux® and Windows® NT® operating systems, all tailored to meet customers' Web-hosting, e-commerce, e-mail and file-storage needs.

One hosting company that is taking on both NetMyne and WebVisions.com is Free Net Business Solutions Sdn Bhd. While not trumpeting the fact, it has fired its first shot in a move designed to grab a bigger share of the hosting market.

The strategy, that of offering a complete range of cost-effective hosting solutions complemented by the reseller and affiliate marketing has so far helped the company host more than 5000 websites. The company is also hosting at least 100 mission critical application websites. This has catapulted Free Net into the league of the Malaysia's largest suppliers in the hosting sector.

John Tan, founder of Free Net, says the company has transformed itself from a small web hosting company to an IT outsourcing solution provider with its own state-of-the-art data center facilities to operate and manage in. The company has invested US$600,000 in the data center facilities and infrastructure, capable of offering email hosting, ecommerce hosting, SMS, VPN hosting, managed services, web server replication, enterprise network monitoring solutions and backup recovery services.

The investment, he says, enables Free Net to give the right solutions to the issue of compatability and will help push further the company's effort in offering scalable and reliable hosting services.
 

Why we like this company

• First company in Malaysia to introduce IP VPN secure hosting services for web-hosting environments.
   
• The company invests researching and determining the market needs prior to actual solutions development. This will help the company gauge the potential solutions that could be offered on the web.
   
• Formulates product enhancement and expansion plans based on such avenues as customer feedback, market developments and competitor's product innovations.
   
• Pioneer of the technology to check the .my domain name availability using the Internet.
   

Customer Support & Rating  83%  
What constitutes good customer service, and who sets the standards? HostPulse.com believes customer service begins the moment the web user first clicks on our Web site or talk to a customer support staff.

While there will be no new investments by Free Net at the moment, John says there is ongoing investment in meeting the technical support needs , which has been entrusted with handling the customer support in the Asia region. "We are particularly selective about the staff who works in the support department. We want staff who are can be friendly and enthusiastic to support and respond to technical, sales and customer service enquiries via telephone and written communication. HostPulse.com investigated its technical support department and found that 73 % of them demonstrated an enthusiastic attitude and 80% of the technical staff demonstrated the ability to acquire hosting knowledge quickly, along with an interest in the Internet or Computing.

The company offers technical support through email and telephone. Contact information can be found at http://www.freenet.com.my/contact.htm.
 

Hosting Plan & Price that stand out  84%  
The Standard plan at the cost of US$96 a year is one of the most comprehensive Windows hosting plan available on the web. Bear in mind that this is a Malaysian company competing with major players like NetMyne, WebVisions , WebServers in the region. Although the web space and email space is limited to 50MB each, the features of the hosting plan are well-planned.
 

Network Connection and Infrastructure
Technology upgradation, quality mission efficiencies, new product development, value-added services are a "must to do" in order to survive in the competitive hosting market. Free Net has so far invested a total of about RM2.3 million in the data center facilities and infrastructure. This technology investment has been made in order to provide much better facilities and infrastructure environment for customers to outsource their IT needs. The Data Center is a 5000 sq. ft. state-of-the art Internet Data Center (IDC) that provides the physical environment necessary to keep customers, servers up and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This world-class facility, located at Century Square, Cyberjaya, MSC, is custom-designed with raised floors and HVAC temperature control systems with separate cooling zones.
 

Reliability Rating  92%  

• Free Net's data center offers a wide range of security features, including 24/7 biometric security systems requiring finger-scanning access with security PIN Code with video surveillance system.
   
• Environmental conditions at FNBS.s data center are controlled by multiple Libert N+1 precision air conditioning system that ensures each computer room temperature is maintained at 20 degree F (+/- 2 degrees) and relative humidity maintained at 50 percent (+/- 5 percent)
   
• High load raised flooring system allows for easy access to cables and enable superior airflows environment for FNBS.s data center. In addition, fire rated floor insulation to protect fire and provide dust free environment.
   
• Free Net's data center surrounding is protected by 1 hour fire rated material to prevent adjacent fire from spreading into the data center. The Data center is also completed with individual FM200 system, smoke and heat detection system.
   
• Free Net provides multiple Libert N+1 parallel-redundant Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) system that has redundant capacity and allows maintenance or power interruption to be performed on the data center with no risk of a power outage.
   
• Free Net has their own generator set that can supply unlimited hours of electricity to their data center in case of power outage in the electrical sub station. This generator set is capable of supplying 72 hours of electricity to our data center without any refill.
   
• Each rack in Free Net's data center is controlled by an individual circuit breaker. Any short circuit of power caused by computer equipment will not affect the rest of the circuit.
   
• Free Net's data center has added redundancy on electricity supply by a dual feed power source from redundant power station at an adjacent location. Electricity supply company has service level guarantee of supplying 99.9% of electricity to their data center.
   
• Free Net has multiple facilities monitoring system to ensure engineers can instantly respond if faulty event arises in their data center. These facility monitoring includes security, fire suppression system, uninterrupted power supply system, generator set, power supply, HAVC temperature control system and water detection system.
   
• Free Net'sdata center facility monitoring system has linkage with building and city control monitoring system that assures event can escalate to relevant authority effectively.
   
• Multiple redundant high speed internet backbone connection by multiple upstream ISP providers; Jaring ( www.jaring.my ) and Telekom ( www.telekom.com.my ) with total subscribed bandwidth of 14Mbps from the 100Mbps allocated.
   

Web Server Type
Dell Server, Dual Xeon processor, minimum 1Gb RAM, SCSI Harddisk.
Web Server Software: Windows 2000 IIS Server, Linux Apache Server.
 

Other Services, Marketing and Design
Apart from hosting, the company offers services ranging from database administration, data migration, network design, server management and security solutions.
 

Website Speed  71%  
Ping FreeNet.com.my [202.9.108.183] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 202.9.108.183: bytes=32 time=46ms
Reply from 202.9.108.183: bytes=32 time=47ms
Reply from 202.9.108.183: bytes=32 time=47ms
Reply from 202.9.108.183: bytes=32 time=47ms
Reply from 202.9.108.183: bytes=32 time=47ms
Reply from 202.9.108.183: bytes=32 time=47ms

Ping statistics for 202.9.108.183:
Packets: Sent = 6,Received = 6, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 46ms, Maximum = 47ms, Average = 47ms
 

Hosting Feature & Rating  93%  

• Unlimited POP Account
• Web based email
• Control panel
• Anti virus protection
• Anti spam features
• Windows and Linux Platform
• Front Page access
• ASP, ASP.Net, .NET Framework
• Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit
• Cold Fusion support
• CGI-BIN
• Perl and Perl Modules
• PHP support (including Zend Optimizer)
• Python
• MySQL
• MSSQL 7 / 2000
• Microsoft Access
• Persits AspEmail
• AspSmart AspSmartUpload
• ServerObjects ImageSize
• Softwing AspTear
• Jmail Message
   

Testimonials

• "There are many hosting firms in a highly competitive environment. We have been very satisfied with FreeNet not only because of their competitive price, but more importantly, what we get for that price."
  
  From Mr Henry Wong of Seng Hen
  http://www.senghen.com.my
   
• "Free Net is reliable and quick in response to our needs. We are very happy with their service. Thumbs up to the Free Net team!"
  
  From Mr Wong Wai Sun, Account Director from Compass Interactive
  http://www.compass-interactive.com
   
• Trouble-free and speedy connection to the server to upload files. Response to problems practically instantaneous and good service personnel know their responsibility. Very experienced and dedicated staff you have. All our problems are solved the same day.
  
  From Mr Michael Tan, Retail Automation Specialist from Caltex(M) Sdn. Bhd. http://www.caltex.com.my
   

Traffic Magnetism
Customers are attracted by Free Net's ability to provide functional value such as hosting selection, competitive pricing, and convenience. Increasing hosting features will attract and retain customers as long as the offer outbids the competition. It seems by providing hosting features and supplying a variety of hosting solutuons, Free Net is able to retain customers even when lower prices are available elsewhere.

In addition to that, the company offers professional IT managed and support services ranging from Enterprise Network, Network Monitoring Solutions, Database Administration, Managed Security Solutions, Data Migration, Network Design, Server Management and System administration services that many other host may not have.
 

Accomplishments

• A member of the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC).
• Application Service Provider license holder, granted by the Communication and Multimedia Commision (CMC).
• MSC status awarded by the Multimedia Development Corporation (www.mdc.com.my)
   

Success Factors
John Tan's boundless enthusiasm has impressed HostPulse. He proves to be a knowledgeable and energetic technoprenuer at a time of booming technology and commercial growth. It is the creative and insightful founder and its staff that make things happen as a team. The company's success comes from honest communications among confident, collaborative team members and the learning takes place in real time as the subjects of hosting knowledge emerge from the team's experience.

The major milestones of Free Net since its incorporation are as follows:

• 1998 Pioneered the technology to check the .my domain name availability through the Internet in Malaysia
   
• 1999 Pioneered the technology to offer both Windows 2000 and Linux operating system for the web hosting industry
   
• 2000 Pioneered the technology to introduce IP VPN Secure Hosting services for the web hosting industry
   
• 2000 Pioneered the technology to have offsite backup DNS server and e-mail backup server in the United States.
   
• 2002 Granted MSC Status by Multimedia Development Center (MDC)
   
• 2002 Started to provide FN HostSuite fully integrated hosting solution consisting of web, e-mail, database, DNS and E-commerce.
   
• 2003 Started to provide Enterprise Network Monitoring Solutions which offer proactive monitoring solutions with SLA that can help customers in turn guarantee service delivery to their customers.
   
• 2003 Provided Professional Managed service to manage customer IT operation.
   

The company has been an effective host that takes the initiative to integrate people, process and technology to maximize the value provided to customers in the Asia region. Free Net has indeed developed strategies that define the unique service standard to market its hosting services successfully.


HostPulse is proud to honour Free Net with a place in our list of the 100 most dynamic web hosting companies, 2004. We hope to see more of Free Net moving forward — whether it's an announcement like this or a growth in building successful customer relationship.