I was recommended to 34sp web hosting about 3 years ago after names.co.uk bought out my previous webhost and started messing everyone around. During this period, the up-time has been quite impressive, except for a couple of blips earlier this year -- a DDOS attack (let's face it, *nobody* is safe from these) and an outage on the upstream network (where 34sp wasn't to blame, and wasn't the only casualty).

Unlike other hosts (e.g. dreamhost) that offer patently absurd levels of bandwidth in the hope that 99.9% of their users will never need it, 34sp's bandwidth limits are a bit more realistic. Their support has been excellent all along. I've never had to wait more than a few hours for responses to support requests, even at weekends.

Their website has a user forum where people are always around to help with just about anything (I've learnt a lot about Unix, PHP and Perl in 3 years), and they have an IRC chat room where you can talk directly to admin.

Excellent budget hosting and reseller accounts. I have been using 34SP for 4 years and had no major problems. You can actually phone up and speak to some one from tech support who know what they are talking about, and get problems sorted fast.

The thing I like best about 34sp web hosting is that they don't hide anything from their users. If there's a problem, they'll keep you informed of the situation until it's been fixed. (Less reputable companies try to cover everything up, and only tell you about their problems if you phone their premium-rate support lines.)

Besides the usual support channels -- email (365 days a year) and phone (*not* premium rate, and they'll even call *you* if you prefer) -- they also offer IRC support, a lively forum where staff and other users are willing to answer any queries.

The £15-a-year entry-level package is great value, but they have fixed charges for additional disk space and bandwidth, which become increasingly uncompetitive the more you need. Bandwidth isn't capped, so your site will still remain active if you exceed your allowance; you just have to pay an additional £1.50 per excess GB. Overall I'd say this is the ideal start-up host for a new website.

Business packages with guaranteed up-time, 500MB disk space and 10GB monthly bandwidth allowance start at a tenner a month.

I've used 34sp for over 2 years... I currently have two domains and two hosting accounts purchased with them and I think they are the best hosting company I've seen.

The value for money is great, £15/year is not better than all places, but for what I get I'm happy to pay.

They do have rather limited web space, and the lack of hosted sub domains is a problem, but they are continually adding new features, and I'm sure these will change eventually.

In the 2 years that I've used them I believe that both of my sites have had zero down time. I know one of 34sp's oldest servers had some downtime, maybe for a day, but this didn't affect me, and 34sp informed all their customers of the problem, and offered to move accounts to a working server if they could not wait until the server was repaired.

I believe this is exactly support, and the people that run it seem to be very open and honest about what's going on. If you are ever in need they have a lively IRC and web forum based support (where normal users and occasionally admins help out), or email and phone support (which I believe is the preferred way to get support).

Try them out and I'm sure you will stick with them.

Andrew

For the occasional user or hobbiest, 34sp's offering may seem good value with many features such as mysql, php, webmail + plesk control panel as standard.
But here's a classic example of you 'get what you pay for' - server downtime of both web hosting and email is embarrassingly bad, and many inconsistent performance niggles that you'd normally perhaps blame on your isp e.g emails arriving at user 12 hours later, incoming mail bouncing or being delayed days - website offline, unfortunately are down to 34sp's regime of creaking at the seams over provisioned servers and an attitude of 'hey we'll get it fixed soon' (usually next week')
Ultimately, for anybody conducting business on a professional level on the web, 34sp are to be avoided - don't give them a chance to ruin your reputation!