But when I looked at moving to Florida, one thing became apparent: I couldn't locate the servers down here. We could survive a week or two of being blown back into the Stone Age if a hurricane hit, but I didn't want to take a chance that our Web sites would be down for the duration. I decided I had to locate the servers someplace really safe.

I'd known Justin Hill and the other Prominic.NET people from many previous Lotuspheres and they always struck me as pretty cool folks. After a number of attempts to find a co-lo provider that didn't suck, I finally decided to give Justin a call and see if he could provide us the service we needed.

Reducing stress one server at a time
This was at the end of 2004 and I don't think I've had a single stressful ISP day since then. Back before I discovered the joys of credit cards and room service, I was an Eagle Scout. Our friends at Prominic.NET remind me of the old Boy Scout Law -- the whole trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent thing.

To be fair, I don't know too much about either their cleanliness or reverence (although everyone's always very clean-cut at Lotusphere). But, unlike other ISPs, I do trust the Prominc folks and they've never betrayed that trust. No matter who I've worked with there, each individual has always been loyal and supportive, friendly, courteous, kind, and cheerful.

I have yet to get the whole team to sing We Will Rock You on command, so the jury's still out on "obedient" (probably in their own best interests), and running any self-made business has to incorporate some degree of thrift. But I've never known the service to skimp, bandwidth has never failed. In fact, other than for planned downtimes, we've never had a single service failure from them in the three years or so our servers have been located in their facility.

The comparison between, say, Verizon and Prominic.NET has been night and day. Who ever described Verizon as supportive, friendly, courteous, kind, and cheerful?

Not to mention competent. These guys know their stuff. Every technical problem I've had has been resolved (and in nearly all cases it was the nut behind the wheel). Not once did they give me a hard time for my own boneheadedness. Instead, the people there took the time needed to walk me through the process of getting my own personal clue.

The Fortress
Before I wrap up, I want to say something about their facility. Actually, Prominic.NET has two facilities, one in Champaign, Illinois and one in Rantoul. Our gear is located in Rantoul and the story behind this facility is just the coolest thing. Our servers are located in the former command and control center of what was once the Chanute Air Force Base, a building affectionately known as "The Fortress" due to its military grade construction.

It's taken me quite a long time to get this review written. Sometimes, when things just run smoothly, I tend to forget how incredible "running smoothly" can be. But as we begin 2008 and celebrate ZATZ' 10th publishing anniversary, it's important to realize that the key reason the last three of those years haven't had ISP-related stress is due to the Prominic.NET team.

We give Prominic.NET's service an enthusiastic five out of five. I wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone looking for hosting or co-lo service. You can't do any better.

One final and important note: this article is not a paid ad, even though it's enthusiastic enough to seem like it might be. I'm just so grateful for a universally good experience that I'm gushing a bit. Working with these guys really doesn't suck that much.

OUR RATING: 5 of 5

David Gewirtz is the author of How To Save Jobs and Where Have All The Emails Gone? For more than 20 years, he has analyzed current, historical, and emerging issues relating to technology, competitiveness, and policy. David is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines, is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and is a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He can be reached at david@zatz.com and you can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.