In the history of telecommunications in the Maldives, Dhiraagu has been a company noted for its standard and services. Comparing the service providers available in the Maldives (phone / internet) it would fair to say that Dhiraagu provides a better service.
Recently we have seen witness good upgrades of the services and huge deductions in the prices of services provided by Dhiraagu. Specially internet and mobile phone services. Maybe it’s due to the uprising competition in the market or maybe they are generous!!!… hmmm.. naaaaaa!!.. reason???.. lets see..
Dhiraagu is the ONLY registrar for .mv domains. The prices for the .mv domain has not been reduced by even a laari. Setup costs MRF 500/- and a monthly fee of MRF 100/- for just the domain name!! and don’t get me started on the stupid time consuming procedure of acquiring a domain name. This service from Dhiraagu has not been changed since its introduction (which is good proof that Dhiraagu is not generous). All these changes we see are made to stay in the business and due to the competition in the market (who cares I know). All im saying is when would there be a change in this??.. Please don’t let me hear never!!..
Another service where we have not seen any change is Dhiraagu Hosting Services! What can you say about it other than its total crap! Just check this out ;
Service Details
| |
Bronze Package |
Silver Package |
Gold Package |
| Features: |
|
|
|
| Platform |
Unix |
Unix |
Unix |
| Bandwidth Traffic |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
| Daily Backups |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Uptime |
99.9% |
99.9% |
99.9% |
| Free Web Space |
2 Mb |
25 Mb |
200 Mb |
| FTP access |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Search Engine Submission |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Statistics |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Free Domain |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Free POP3 e-mail accounts |
Nil |
20 |
50 |
| CGI |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| FrontPage |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Mailing List |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Database |
No |
No |
Yes |
| PHP & Perl |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Sublevel Domains |
No |
5 |
10 |
| MX Record Capability |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
http://www.dhiraagu.com.mv/dhivehinet/webhosting/
Pricing Details
| |
Setup |
Monthly |
| Domain name service (including 1 free pop3 email account) |
500 |
100 |
| Web Hosting - Bronze Package |
200 |
50 |
| - Silver Package |
300 |
200 |
| - Gold Package |
500 |
450 |
| Additional 1 MB web space |
- |
05 |
http://www.dhiraagu.com.mv/tariffs/dhivehinet.php#webhosting
Are those people insane????.. and now the services they run. I recently was developing a website whose hosting was on a Dhiraagu server. I checked their server for the version of PHP installed and it was 4.3.10 they have not updated their systems since February 2005 (http://members.dhivehinet.net.mv/aharen/test.php). Anyhow, I called 123 to ask them to update the server to PHP 5, the response pissed me off big time ;
Me : Hello, I would like to upgrade the version of PHP on my current hosting on your server.
123 : hold pls
**after couple of minutes**
123 : sorry to have kept you waiting
123 : sorry we don’t offer that service!
Me : okai, then when would your servers be upgraded??
123 : hold pls
**after couple of minutes**
123 : sorry to have kept you waiting
123 : we don’t have an upgrade scheduled anytime soon!
WHAT?????… This sux!.. Dhiraagu’s hosting service is the one service that has not evolved with time. Nowadays we can get over GB’s of storage and a lot better/more services for a couple of bucks per year (eg: http://www.mediatemple.net , http://www.dreamhost.com ), while Dhiraagu still offers the crap service for a much expensive price. Wonder when this would change??.. When they would realize its not about providing the server but about providing a valued service??.. And that competition in the market or fear of loosing the customers is not why you should reduce the price or introduce some awesome features / services???..
Hoping for some change!!… soon???… i hope!!..
.. ooh and i really hope we get to see a new president!!.. i’m really bored of this one!!.. :S
