Networking

It seems like there is an almost unlimited number of hosting providers who will serve your website for a monthly fee. In the best web hosting providers for 2021, I spotlighted 15 providers that offer a wide range of plans. When doing a full review of a single hosting provider, I set up the most basic account possible and run the service through a barrage of tests. In this article, I’ll dive into Bluehost’s offerings.

Shared hosting starting a $2.95 per monthOnline store hosting starting at $12.95 per monthManaged WordPress hosting starting at $9.95 per monthVirtual private server (VPS) hosting starting at $18.99 per monthDedicated server hosting starting at $79.99 per monthPrice bump after end of period: Yes

View Now at Bluehost

Because there are so many variables among plans and offerings, not only among hosting providers, but within the plans offered by any one provider, it can be difficult to get a good comparison. I’ve found that one of the best ways to see how a provider performs is to look at the least expensive plan they offer. You can expect the least quality, the least attention to detail, and the least performance from such a plan.

How hosting provider pricing really works

For this series of hosting reviews, I’m testing the most basic, most entry-level plan a vendor is offering. In the case of Bluehost, it’s their appropriately named Basic plan. To get pricing, I went to the company’s main site at Bluehost.com.

As with most every hosting provider, Bluehost’s published pricing is somewhat misleading. There is no option to get billed only $2.95 per month.

While it looks like you can get the Single Shared Hosting plan for $2.95 per month, that’s only if you prepay for three full years, which means you’re actually paying $106.20. A hundred bucks or so for three years of hosting isn’t a bad deal, but can be confusing. If you want only one year, you’re charging $59.40 to your card (which is $4.95 per month). It’s more expensive, but not terrible.

There’s a gotcha though. When you renew, you’re going to pay more. A lot more. Three times more. This, too, is not uncommon for hosting plans and is a practice I strongly wish the hosting industry would stop. When you renew your $2.95 three year plan, you’re going to jump to $8.99/month or $107.88/year. Of course, we have no idea what the pricing will be in three years, but you get the idea.

While $2.95 or even $4.95/mo isn’t a bad price for basic hosting, the fact is, your price will jump by more than triple what you paid when you signed up. I talked a lot about lock-in and switching costs in my How to create a website: The 2021 step-by-step guide overview. Read it, because Bluehost (and many other hosting providers) have business models that count on the switching costs being so painful that you’ll suck up a huge upcharge simply to avoid moving your site.

I focus on these pricing gimmicks in my reviews because it can be really unpleasant to suddenly get a bill that’s hundreds or even thousands of dollars (depending on the plan) more than you expected. Second, switching from one hosting provider to another hosting provider can be a very time-consuming and possibly expensive job, fraught with hassles and potential points of failure.

At least half of the hosting vendors I’ve looked at over the years do these promo deals, with big jumps in renewal fees, so Bluehost isn’t alone in this somewhat predatory practice.

What the Basic plan includes

Most bottom-end plans are for one website, and Bluehost is no different.

Before we move into the details, let’s spend a moment talking about what a base plan really is. All websites are not created equal. While you might be able to pay under three bucks a month to run your website, I pay about a hundred bucks each month to run my small fleet of sites.

A base site is designed for a business or individual who wants a basic online presence. That’s a bunch of pages, some product or service images, and a lot of text. If you want to run complex web applications, or you expect a lot of traffic, a basic site is not for you.

If you’re just trying to get started with an online presence, starting simply is a good way to go. In this series, we’re reviewing the least expensive program each hosting provider offers. That’s going to be what the majority of buyers will want, and it will give us a good insight into the company.

Bluehost offers a number of pretty solid features in their Basic plan. The base plan includes 50GB website space (maxing out at a whopping 200,000 files), five email accounts, 100MB of email storage (which is pretty low if you’re active), up to 500 emails sent per hour, one free domain registration (for a year), 25 subdomains, a basic SSL certificate, and what they describe as unmetered bandwidth.

Be careful, though. In practice, if you push your account near the limits, or use an excessive amount of bandwidth, it’s likely that the service will throttle you back. Bluehost was one of the earliest providers to institute server throttling when “unlimited” resource usage got to be too much.

There are some wins, most notably that even the basic plan is hosted on SSDs. Even if a site is using caching (which reduces the load on a server), having fast drives is always a plus.

The company does have 24/7 chat and phone support, and Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. It’s not as long as some of the company’s competitors, but it is a fair amount of time for you to get a simple site up and running and see how things work.

Getting started

Once your account is created and you log in, you’re presented with this screen:

I like this. While I always like to go it on my own, I’ve gotten panicked calls from too many friends who log into their hosting providers for the first time and have no idea what to do. I was a little surprise to find that even though I hit “No help needed,” I was presented with a choice:

Again, though, I can’t really complain about guidance. After all, I didn’t hit “Skip this step” on the first screen. I did now. I’m still in a wizard, even though I did select “Skip this step.”

I hit “Skip this step” again, and once again I’m presented with a wizard. However, once again for basic users, I like that there are helper choices and even a solid FAQ for folks not sure what to do next. 

I have to admit that I’m getting a little impatient. I want to see the dashboard so I can see what I can do with this service. That said, I hit the “Limitless customization” option. From this point on, there were more selection options. I just kept hitting “Skip this step.” Finally, I reached a page with some more options. Most important to me, initially, is checking out the Advanced tab.

Yes! We finally have cPanel. I did a little happy dance (in my mind — I don’t actually dance, jump, or run, but I can celebrate running the gauntlet in my head, can’t I?).

Dashboard access

The first thing I like to do when looking at a new hosting provider is exploring their dashboard. Is it an old friend, like cPanel? Is it some sort of janky, barely configured open source or homegrown mess? Or is it a carefully crafted custom dashboard? These are often the ones that worry me the most because they almost always hide restrictions that I’m going to have to work around somehow.

I got rid of the welcome message and started to look around. I like how Bluehost has the normal cPanel interface, but also provides access to Bluehost services on the left. That’s convenient.

Basic WordPress access

I thought about nuking WordPress and installing it myself, but I wanted to see what most users would be presented with when they started the service. So I hit the My Sites button with the WordPress logo icon — and was presented with upsell city:

To be fair, the upsells don’t seem nearly as intrusive as Bluehost’s sister vendor, Hostgator. Once logged in, the WordPress dashboard is filled with a lot of stuff that’s not traditional to the WordPress dashboard, but it seems more helpful than egregious.

Ooh, this is interesting. Bluehost provides a staging site, even in the base plan. They get some big points for that. It’s always nice to having a staging site, and many more expensive plans don’t come with one. Granted, this is a staging site managed inside the main WordPress install (which can be a bit dicey when things go waaaay bad), but it’s still a great feature for a bottom-level plan.

The Plugins dashboard is quite busy, but that’s mostly because Jetpack (a product made by WordPress’s developer Automattic) takes up a lot of space and has a lot of upsell action — I received an email from Jetpack before I even got Bluehost’s login credentials. Fortunately, it was easy to dismiss the banners and get on with work. 

Unfortunately, after I dismissed them, I discovered they came back whenever I returned to the Plugins dashboard. That was annoying. The easy solution was to delete the Jetpack and Creative Mail plugins, which I did.

How to do WordPress upsells

I have to admit, Bluehost did this right. There were the few upsells I pointed out as we moved into the WordPress part of our review, but nothing that made using the service unpleasant. More to the point, Bluehost has its own plugin install and while it does offer upsells, it does so in a surprisingly non-intrusive way.

That first welcome page I showed you back when we first logged into WordPress is part of the Bluehost plugin, but it’s mostly pointers to how to get work done. We already talked about the staging feature, which is also provided by the Bluehost plugin.

A key page provided by the Bluehost plugin is the Settings page. Notice that there is not a single upsell on this mission-critical page.

So where are the upsells? They are conveniently tucked into the Themes, Plugins, and Services tabs of the Bluehost plugin:

I have nothing against upsells. Businesses need to pay expenses and salaries. What I often complain about — and did so vociferously with Hostgator — is when upsells get in the way of using the product already purchased. These Bluehost upsells do not get in the way. The Bluehost plugin is useful enough and non-intrusive enough that I’m not going to uninstall it. That’s a pretty ringing endorsement.

QUICK SECURITY CHECKS

Security is one of the biggest issues when it comes to operating a website. You want to make sure your site is safe from hackers, doesn’t flag Google, and can connect securely to payment engines if you’re running an e-commerce site of any kind.

While the scope of this article doesn’t allow for exhaustive security testing, there are a few quick checks that can help indicate whether Bluehost’s most inexpensive platform is starting with a secure foundation.

The first of these is multifactor authentication (MFA). It’s way too easy for hackers to just bang away at a website’s login screen and brute-force a password. In the past, many of my sites have been pounded on by some hacker or another, but because I have some relatively strong protections in place, the bad actor hasn’t been able to get in.

Bluehost picks up another win with dashboard-level MFA, which supports Google Authenticator and those compatible, like Authy. Bluehost also supports email authentication, but does the right thing by pushing its customers to smartphone Google Auth authentication as a safer choice.

Bluehost includes a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, which is configured and enabled by default. While there are some overhead issues with Let’s Encrypt (the certificate needs to be renewed more often than commercially-sold SSL certificates), Bluehost automates that renewal process, so it’s not something site operators need to configure.

As my last quick security check, I like to look at the versions of some of the main system components that run web applications. To make things easy, I chose four components necessary to safe WordPress operation. While other apps may use other components, I’ve found that if components are up-to-date for one set of needs, they’re usually up to date across the board.

Here are my findings (using the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin), as of the day I tested, for Bluehost’s Basic plan:

Component

Version Provided

Current Version

How Old

PHP

7.4.16

7.4.16

Current

MySQL

5.7.23

5.7.34

32 months

cURL

7.76.0

7.76.1

Last month

OpenSSL

1.1.1k

1.0.2q (and 1.1.1a)

Last month

In general, these results are quite good — especially considering how out of date some of Bluehost’s competitors have been when I checked their versions. That said, you kind of need to know the component to know how to read these results. For example, a number of these components have multiple development tracks. PHP 8.0.2 is the latest version of PHP, for example. But WordPress lists PHP 7.4 as its base PHP version and the latest version of PHP 7 is 7.4.15, updated just a few weeks ago. 

MySQL can be even more confusing. The current version of MySQL is 8.0.23, but the production MySQL release process jumped from 5.7 to 8.0. While the MySQL 8.x branch is being updated, so is the MySQL 5.7.x branch. In that branch, Bluehost’s MySQL is getting a bit long in the tooth.

I also chatted with a Bluehost support person, who was helpful and nice, but woefully inaccurate. When I asked about PHP version, they told me PHP 7.4. Then I asked whether that was 7.4.0 or a later release and I was inaccurately told 7.4.0 (in fact, Bluehost offers a much more current version). I was told that the cURL version for this plan is 7.29.0 — a 97-month-old version rife with long-fixed bugs. In fact, Bluehost isn’t out of date. Their cURL is basically current. So, twice the tech support rep told me versions that were worse than are actually provided. On the other hand, the support person told me Bluehost provided MySQL 8.0 for the Basic plan, when the algorithmic Health Check reported it’s really 5.7.23. 

Are you confused yet? Let me simplify things. Bluehost is committing no crimes with the component versions it is offering. Most are current, and while the MySQL build is out of date, it’s still a supported build for WordPress. Honestly, I don’t have much to complain about here.

PERFORMANCE TESTING

Next, I wanted to see how the site performed using some online performance testing tools. It’s important not to take these tests too seriously. We’re purposely looking at the most low-end offerings of hosting vendors, so the sites they produce are expected to be relatively slow.

That said, it’s nice to have an idea of what to expect. The way I test is to use the fresh install of WordPress with the standard theme TwentyTwenty. I then performance test the “Hello, world” page, which is mostly text, with just an image header. That way, we’re able to focus on the responsiveness of a basic page without being too concerned about media overhead.

First, I ran two Pingdom Tools tests, one hitting the site from San Francisco and the second from Germany. Here’s the San Francisco test rating:

It’s not stellar, but a good solid B rating is all you can really expect from a bottom-of-the-barrel plan. It’s certainly workable and shouldn’t incur any Google juice SEO penalties. Here’s the same from Germany:

Also, definitely good enough for a small site.

Finally, I hit the site up with LoadStorm, which sends 10 virtual users over the course of 10 minutes to the site, and then measures responsiveness.

This chart is a little difficult to read, so let me first draw your attention to the green and cyan lines. These represent concurrent requests per second and number of users. As you can see, they rise over time. That’s because we want to see how the Bluehost site performs as the load increases. While peak response time bounces all over the map (the blue line), what we really care about is the average response time (the brown line). That seems to indicate that the speed of response actually goes down as load increases. That’s very good. That means that you can reasonably expect that if you get some traffic, your site won’t come screaming to a halt.

Support responsiveness

There’s not much to say here. I had only one interaction, late on a Sunday night. I did get connected with human via chat within about five minutes. The individual was nice and clearly wanted to help. I particularly liked how they let me know that some of the information would take a few minutes to dig up, so I wasn’t left hanging, wondering if they’d gone home for the night.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, the accuracy of the answers left a little to be desired. That said, being able to reach a support person who is responsive and who tries to be helpful late on a Sunday night is a good thing.

Overall conclusion

I was very pleasantly surprised. It’s almost impossible to believe that Bluehost and HostGator are part of the same company. HostGator slapped spammy upsells on everything, making the use of their service an annoyance. On top of that, nearly all their key security components were woefully out of date to the tune of 8 years, 7 years, and 11 years.

Bluehost, by comparison, is pretty much up to date. Their portal and even their implementation of upsells in the WordPress dashboard show a great deal of thought and consideration of the overall user experience.

Even though Bluehost is slightly more costly than HostGator ($0.20 per month) in the initial term and considerably more after term renewal ($2.00 more per month), I would definitely recommend Bluehost over HostGator. 

In fact, I’d put Bluehost into the running against the other base level plans I’ve reviewed. It offers a basic staging server mechanism, reasonably fast page loads, current security libraries, multi-factor authentication, and a low-key approach to upsells. It’s not bad at all. Now, maybe they can teach their siblings as HostGator to play nice with others.

You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV. More

I just upgraded my internet to 1Gbps this week using a DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem. Believe it or not, I could use more. I do a lot with video-streaming, and I run virtual machines (VM) off clouds and desktop-as-a-service (DaaS). I’m not alone. With so many of us working from home now, even a 1Gbps feels confining. Now, thanks to Comcast and Broadcom, we’re seeing the first tests of full-duplex (FDX) DOCSIS 4 system-on-chip (SoC) devices. 

Comcast’s tests, done between Philadelphia and Denver, show that FDX can work with DOCSIS 4. FDX enables cable internet providers to run a high-speed internet connection both upstream and downstream simultaneously. In other words, while you won’t see symmetric speeds, you will someday see 10 Gbps downstream and 6 Gbps upstream over Comcast’s hybrid-fiber coaxial (HFC) network. Comcast has been working towards this for years. The company has been working to bring DOCSIS 4 FDX to market pretty much since CableLabs’ set the specification in 2017. There is another way to deliver DOCSIS 4 speeds: Extended Spectrum DOCSIS (ESD). This is easier to deploy since it “only” raises to 1.8Gbps while keeping downstream and upstream traffic separate as has been the case with previous DOCSIS versions. Comcast, though, is investing heavily in chasing the top price of 10Gbps. It’s possible that a single chipset could support both FDX and ESD, but we’re still years away from that silicon being forged.  Comcast has reasons for throwing its support behind a technology that’s still years away from coming to your small office/home office. As the company explained, a key advantage of DOCSIS 4 FDX is that it will enable them to deliver multigigabit speeds over its existing networks to the existing customers without needing massive digging and construction projects. So, 10-times the speed without having to spend a ton to rebuild infrastructure. Yes, I’d like this deal too if I were an ISP.In the tests, which use experimental Broadcom SoCs, in a simulated network environment, they hit speeds of over 4Gbps both up and downstream simultaneously. This was done using DOCSIS 4’s echo cancellation and overlapping spectrum techniques. The businesses expect future optimization to push the throughput even faster.We still don’t know when these speeds will arrive in our small offices/home offices (SOHO). CableLabs doesn’t even expect to test hardware for DOCSIS 4 certification until 2022. Nor, has Comcast announced any kind of deployment roadmap. 

In a statement, Charlie Herrin, Comcast Cable’s president of technology, product, and experience, said: “We are always pushing the envelope to stay ahead of our customers’ growing needs. . . . “This milestone is particularly exciting because this technology is an important step forward toward unlocking multigigabit upload and download speeds for hundreds of millions of people worldwide, not just a select few.”Personally, I can’t wait. I’m building a new office and I’ve already installed Cat 6 10Gbps cable in the walls. That was for my servers, but I’ll be more than happy to use it to bring 10Gbps internet into my office as well.Related Stories: More

Nokia on Friday announced it’s partnering with NewCore Wireless, a hosted wireless switching provider, to deploy broadband across more than 12,000 square miles of under-served US tribal land. The deployment uses spectrum made available to tribes via the US Federal Communications Commission’s  Tribal Educational Broadband Service (EBS). Last year, 400 Native American tribes were awarded EBS spectrum, covering tens of thousands of square miles, often in remote areas, and millions of tribal members. The Tribal EBS program comprises spectrum on the 2.5 Ghz band, which is mature and can be found in the majority of mobile phones, telephone switching equipment and add-on devices. The new Nokia-NewCore initiative will use up to 117 MHz of the Tribal EBS band, making it suitable for 4G and offering a pathway to 5G.Nokia and NewCore are starting their buildout in North and South Dakota, Oklahoma and California. The Native American communities involved include the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, as well as the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. The first wave of deployments will over 12,000 square miles and will provide broadband connectivity to more than 15,000 tribal members. “This initiative with Nokia and NewCore will go a long way to leveling the technology playing field for the people of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe,” John Pretty Bear, Councilman for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Cannonball District, said in a statement. “All members of our community, including our elders whom we pride ourselves in helping, will benefit from more affordable and accessible connectivity. This is critical for the well-being of our people, especially during the pandemic where information about mass testing or vaccinations needs to be shared in real time. From online schooling, to telehealth, to affordable mobility and cellular phones, we look forward to improving the quality of life for everyone in our community.”The partnership leverages Nokia’s Digital Automation Cloud (DAC), a platform that enables customers to create their own private wireless networks using a Nokia DA access point device and Nokia DA edge devices. The platform includes access to a catalog of applications including voice and video services. NewCore, meanwhile, will provide integration and operational capabilities, delivering an integrated network of 4.9G/LTE and 5G radio and core elements. More

The future Australian telcos dream of
Image: Optus
Australian carriers revealed on Friday how much they had paid in the recent 26GHz spectrum auction. First cab off the rank was Telstra, which announced it would be paying AU$277 million over five years for 1000MHz in the 26GHz band. “We’re delighted with the outcome of the auction and while the licenses won’t come into effect until around the middle of the year, the ACMA is making available early access licensing which will allow us to use the spectrum even sooner,” Telstra CEO Andy Penn said. Penn also spoke about a dystopic scenario of people attending live sports only to then fix some goggles to their face. “Imagine watching the Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, with your 5G-powered augmented reality goggles overlaying real time player stats, all at the same time as thousands of others are enjoying the game alongside you — that’s the immense bandwidth and speed that mmWave can offer,” he said. ZDNet refuses to imagine it. Telstra added it would hit 75% population coverage for its 5G network by the end of June, and had over 3,200 live 5G sites around the country.

Elsewhere in the auction, TPG Telecom said it would stump up AU$108 million for spectrum in all available licence areas. In Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth, the company picked up 400MHz of spectrum, and 600MHz in Brisbane and other metro and regional areas. As a result, the telco said its spectrum holdings had tripled. “The spectrum will enable us to deliver 5G fixed wireless services as a compelling NBN alternative, and it will also benefit mobile services in high foot-traffic areas such as CBDs,” TPG CEO Iñaki Berroeta said. In total, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) offered 2.4GHz of spectrum between 25.1–27.5GHz over 27 areas across Australia, made available in 360 lots across a 15-year term. Optus said it would pay AU$226 million for 800MHz in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and a “range of regional areas”, as well as 600MHz in Hobart and Margaret River.”Importantly, Optus have secured the best and most highly valued position at the top of the spectrum band in most of the capital cities and regions, which include ‘golden GHz’ segment supported by both the 28GHz range enabled in US and the 26GHz range to be enabled in Australia,” it said.Optus Networks managing director Lambo Kanagaratnam not only promoted headsets at live sporting events, but also music concerts.”For enterprise, this spectrum could support remote controlled automation for example robotics in a warehouse or factory, or the creation of a secured private network at a university campus to support thousands of students and academics,” he added.Overall, 358 lots were sold for a total cost of AU$647.6 million, ACMA said, with Dense Air paying AU$28.7 million for two lots in Sydney and Melbourne, and Pentanet paying AU$8 million for four lots in Perth and Margaret River. Telstra picked up 150 lots, Optus gained 116 lots, and TPG bought 86 lots — typically Telstra gained five lots in each geography, Optus bought four, and TPG paid for three.In August, the Australian government limited the amount of spectrum a single bidder could pick up to 1GHz.In December, ACMA announced it had offered the first round of its new area-wide apparatus licences to communications providers for the millimetre-wave bands. Licences were handed out in the 26GHz and 28GHz bands to SpaceX Starlink, Telstra, Optus, Vocus, Nokia, NBN, Opticomm, MarchNet, Dreamtilt, Field Solutions Group, WorldVu (One Web), Inmarsat, Viasat, O3B/SES, and New Skies Satellites/SES. NBN did not pick up any spectrum in the latest auction.Updated Friday April 23 at 9:52am AEST: Added Optus comment and purchases.Updated Friday April 23 at 11:30am AEST: Added further information from ACMA.Related Coverage More

AT&T reported better-than-expected first quarter earnings, added 823,000 net wireless connections and added 2.7 million HBO Max and HBO subscribers in the US.The telecom and media giant’s top line results topped estimates. The company reported first quarter earnings of $7.5 billion, or $1.04 a share, on revenue of $43.9 billion, up 2.7% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were 86 cents a share. Wall Street was looking for AT&T revenue of $42.7 billion and non-GAAP earnings of 78 cents a share. AT&T’s results come a day after Verizon reported declines in net wireless postpaid subscribers, but also beat expectations. As for the outlook, AT&T projected revenue growth of about 1% in 2021 with non-GAAP earnings on par with 2020. AT&T is facing a battleground for 5G consumer lines as T-Mobile takes share. The first quarter featured heavy promotions for the Samsung Galaxy S21 launch.By the numbers:AT&T added 595,000 net postpaid phone additions and 823,000 postpaid net adds overall. The company added 207,000 prepaid phone net adds. AT&T lost 22,000 postpaid tablet and other branded computing device connections. AT&T saw a surge in equipment revenue due to phone launches as well as store reopenings. AT&T mobility revenue in the first quarter was $19 billion, up 9.4%. Equipment revenue surged 45.2% from a year ago to $5 billion. A year ago, AT&T had to close stores due to COVID-19. The company added 235,000 AT&T Fiber customers. HBO subscribers globally were 64 million at the end of the quarter with 44.2 million in the US. HBO and HBO Max average revenue per unit was $11.72. Business wireline revenue was down 3.5% from a year ago to $6 billion in the first quarter. Consumer wireline revenue was $3.1 billion, roughly flat with a year ago.  More

Netgear on Wednesday reported better-than-expected first quarter financial results, in part thanks to strong SMB sales. Non-GAAP net income per diluted share came to 99 cents. Net revenue was $317.9 million, an increase of 38.3 percent from the comparable prior year quarter. Analysts were expecting earnings of 66 cents per share on revenue of $310.21 million. The SMB business brought in $77 million, growing nearly 18 percent year-over-year. Its Connected Home business brought in $240.9 million, up 46 percent year-over-year. “With both businesses performing well, Q1 marks a strong beginning to the year for us,” CEO Patrick Lo said in a statement. “The Netgear team again navigated the ongoing challenges in the supply chain to deliver strong revenue growth… The higher than anticipated demand for SMB products propelled us over the high end of our topline guidance range. Non-GAAP operating margin significantly exceeded expectations, buoyed by a higher mix of SMB and higher margin e-commerce revenue as well as lower air freight expense.”Netgear’s SMB business benefited from the reopening of economies worldwide, while the Consumer Home business was led by the premium segment. The company gained Consumer Home market share globally and saw its US market share in consumer WiFi climb two points in the first quarter. Netgear is on track to reach its goal of  650,000 subscribers by the end of the year, Lo said. The company added 44,000 subscribers in Q1, exiting the quarter with 481,000. 

Second quarter net revenue is expected to be in the range of $305 million to $320 million.

Tech Earnings More

Verizon reported first quarter revenue of $32.9 billion, up 4% from a year ago, with non-GAAP earnings of $1.31 a share. Under generally accepted accounting, Verizon had earnings of $5.4 billion, or $1.27 a share.Wall Street was expecting Verizon to deliver first quarter sales of $32.46 billion and non-GAAP earnings of $1.29 a share. The telecom giant said its core business was strong, but there were moving parts. For instance, Verizon’s consumer wireless lost 326,000 retail postpaid customers including 225,000 phone net losses. But Verizon’s consumer Fios business had 98,000 Internet net additions and 102,000 total Fios net additions. On the business side, Verizon added 156,000 retail postpaid net additions including 47,000 net phone adds. Overall, Verizon’s wireless unit had service revenue of $16.7 billion, up 2.4% from a year ago, with 170,000 retails postpaid net losses. The results reflect the battleground for 5G consumer lines is brutal as T-Mobile takes share. The first quarter featured heavy promotions for the Samsung Galaxy S21 launch. On the business front, Verizon is better positioned and has 5G traction for edge computing with a bevy of ecosystem partners.Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said the addition of C-Band spectrum will bolster its network-as-a-service strategy. That strategy was outlined on Verizon’s investor day earlier this year. Vestberg acknowledged the company is facing “intense competition” but delivering revenue growth across its three business segments. 

The company’s plan revolves around spending to build out its 5G Ultra Wideband and nationwide network. Verizon said it has also hit its 2018 goal of saving $10 billion in ongoing expenses.As for the outlook, Verizon is projecting 2021 non-GAAP earnings of $5 to $5.15 a share, service and other revenue growth of about 2%. Verizon will have capital spending between $17.5 billion and $18.5 billion to build out its 5G network as well its 4G LTE network.  On a conference call with analysts, Vestberg highlighted the business 5G traction.We continue with a high level of deployment of millimeter wave and fiber in the quarter. And we’re on the track to deliver on our operational targets for the year. We brought 5G service to several additional cities. We currently have 30 5G Home and 67 5G Mobility cities live and more to come. We recently signed our first European private 5G deal with associated British ports. We also expanded our 5G edge partnership with AWS with private 5G and edge computing to our customers. We continue to scale our Network-as-a-Service strategy across new markets and verticals through a diverse set of partnerships.Vestberg also said that the SMB market is showing signs of rebounding, but is well off its pre-COVID levels. Vestberg said:One of the hardest-hit businesses during the COVID-19 has been small and medium businesses. And for the simple reason that they are most vulnerable of these type of things and the economic recession.And we had enormously strong wireless business with SMBs coming into the COVID-19 that actually came down quite a lot. We have seen over the year that we slowly are coming back on that. And in this quarter, we actually had a very small growth in SMB.I don’t think SMBs are coming back immediately. But clearly, we see some signs of improvement in the base.Among large enterprises, Vestberg said the companies most hit by the pandemic are holding back investments. 5G and edge investments are underway. Recent developments:Key items in the quarter include:Verizon’s consumer business lost 225,000 net phone accounts and 171,000 tablet lines. The company added 70,000 other connected devices. Retail postpaid churn in the quarter was 0.97%.Verizon lost 82,000 Fios video customers, but customers are upgrading to faster Internet tiers for service and driving revenue growth. Among businesses, Verizon added 47,000 phone net additions and 79,000 tablet net adds. Verizon Media, which includes AOL and Yahoo properties, reported revenue of $1.9 billion in the first quarter, up 10.4% from a year ago.  More

The past year brought many new adjustments to our lives, lockdowns and quarantines key among them. However, these new adjustments in life also brought changes in the market. Many businesses were forced to shift their sales focus into the online environment; even many grocery chains started making the digital transition into ecommerce. Ecommerce and online stores are nothing new, but the pandemic brought a whole new wave of ecommerce businesses to the market.  Many people started their own online stores to sell their products directly to the consumer. Having a quality product to sell is important, but creating a memorable online shopping experience for the customer is equally as important. A website for ecommerce sales must have the functionality and design that keeps the customer on the site through the point of sale.  According to ecommerce statistics, only 9.6% of Gen Z customers report buying items in a physical store. Even when consumers made purchases in a brick-and-mortar store, 39% reported that they visited a brand’s website before making the purchase. So, building the right ecommerce website could mean the difference between a sale or a potential customer moving on to other brands.  

Drag and drop

Wix ecommerce is a great choice for entrepreneurs wanting to make a splash in the online marketplace. Small businesses, retailers, and large brands alike have used Wix to build, launch, and scale their online stores. You do not need to know how to code to make your storefront and stand out. Design features: With over 500 beautiful templates to choose from, you will have no shortage of options, and each is customizable. Wix hosts hundreds of SEO-friendly plug-ins to help boost your online store presence. Ease of use: The non-tech-savvy among us will love Wix’s ease of use. Users can build a basic online storefront in less than 10mins (ask me how I know). The drag-and-drop building feature makes the process painless. Brand building: Wix offers free business tools like Wix Logo Maker and even a Business Name Generator for those who need fresh ideas.  Manage transactions: Your products can be listed and sold on multiple sales channels. Online transactions like purchasing, tracking, and processing, delivery, refunds, or payouts can all be managed from the Wix dashboard and Wix Payments.Wix ecommerce pricing has three monthly plans: Basic – $23 | Unlimited – $27 | VIP – $49

$23 at Wix

Award-winning web designs

Squarespace is a popular choice for ecommerce creatives, such as podcasters, photographers, and other content creators. Though it is known for its superior portfolio building and blogging features, Squarespace also has some great tools for ecommerce businesses. High-quality design: Squarespace offers attractive theme options created by world-class designers. There are hundreds of layouts to complement your product.ecommerce options: Inventory management, shipping tools, social media integration, and consumer analytics, and SEO optimization are just a few of the features you get with Squarespace.Customizable checkout: Squarespace allows for ultimate customization, even at checkout. Support: Squarespace offers mobile support to ensure your website is accessible at all times. It also offers 24/7 tech support. Squarespace pricing features annual and monthly plans: Business – $18/$26 | Basic Commerce – $26/$35 | Advanced Commerce – $40/$54

$18 at Squarespace

Ecommerce for everyone

Volusion is an all-in-one ecommerce website builder that is ideal for anyone, no matter their level of technological expertise. The customizable storefront options make it easy to build your website quickly so you can dive into your passion and share it with others.  Customize your design: Volusion gives users a powerful site editor to customize the professionally designed themes, ensuring it has a look and feel you want. Drag and drop features allow you to curate your website with the media content you want.Payment setup: Volusion makes getting paid fast and easy. Payment services such as PayPal, Apple Pay, and Stripe can be easily integrated.Built-in tools: Order management features make bulk processing and order creation simple. Features like MailChimp allow you to set up, track, and measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns. A Live Chat feature makes sure your customers get their questions answered quickly. Analytics: Performance tracking is available with Volusion. Customer insights, such as spending habits, will help you understand and serve your customers better. Volusion pricing features three-month prepaid or month-to-month options: Personal – $26/$29 | Pro – $71/$79 | Startup $161/$179 | Business – $269/$299

$26 at Volusion

Anyone, anywhere, can start a business

Shopify is used by more than 1,000,000 businesses, and that number continues to grow. It has earned its reputation as being a reliable website builder devoted solely to ecommerce. The tech-experienced or novice alike can create a scalable online storefront with Shopify.Professional design: Shopify has over 70 customizable themes designed by professionals. Each template can be easily configured to your taste, allowing you to stay true to your brand and storefront vision.Mobile ready: Each storefront comes with a built-in mobile shopping cart, allowing your customers to shop hassle-free on the go from any tablet or phone.Shopping features: Shopify integrates over 100 external payment gateways, from PayPal to Bitcoin. If you want to reach international customers, Shopify’s online checkout is offered in over 50 languages.SEO and analytics: Getting found online is easier with Shopify’s customizable SEO practices. It also offers product and traffic reports so you can analyze your growth and sales and gain insights into how customers found your store online. Shopify pricing and monthly plans: Basic Shopify – $29 | Shopify – $79 | Advanced Shopify – $299 

$29 at Shopify

Build today, grow tomorrow

The name says it all. BigCommerce is a force to be reckoned with in the ecommerce website building game. Their mission is simple — help their users sell more. Whether a small startup or a mid-market business, BigCommerce offers a platform primed for scalable growth in the online market. Storefront options: BigCommerce gives non-experienced website builders a drag-and-drop solution with their visual page builder and editor as they work with customizable themes. You can even check your mobile optimization before launching each page, making sure functionality isn’t lost on mobile devices. Digital wallets: BigCommerce makes it easier for your customers to pay you for your awesome products, integrating PayPal, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, and more. International features: Do you want to reach customers worldwide? BigCommerce helps you serve global shoppers by accepting payments in over 100 currencies. Their content delivery network ensures your site loads quickly for customers around the world. Security and analytics: You can rest easy knowing your store’s data is backed up and secure. The BigCommerce Analytics Dashboard allows you to track important metrics and customer data, letting you know which marketing campaigns are working and what products are selling. BigCommerce pricing and monthly plans: Standard – $29.95 | Plus – $71.95 | Pro – $269.96 

$29 at BigCommerce

What to consider when creating a website Whether your goal is to build a website to sell products solely online or you are building one to compliment your physical store and increase sales, there are a few important things to consider before setting out to create a website.  Type of business: What are you selling? A product or service? Are you a new business or startup that is seeking to build a brand from the ground up? You need to find an online store builder that fits your vision, brand, and needs. Ease of use: You will need an ecommerce website that has the flexibility to fit your needs, one with SEO capabilities that help get your online storefront noticed online. Customizable templates and theme options are important for those who lack knowledge in coding or website design.Works with the tools you need: You will need to ensure the ecommerce website builder is able to integrate with the tools you’ll need for your online business; email marketing, customer data, mobile optimization, etc. Cost: Perhaps the biggest consideration is cost. Ecommerce website builders have varying prices, with monthly or annual price structures and web-hosting options. Selling products and services online is nothing new, but in the last year, we saw many businesses throw their hat into the ecommerce arena. Building an online store is an investment, one that pays off if done the right way. Choosing the best ecommerce website builder is essential in helping you bring your product to the internet market.  You want to choose one that is affordable, easy-to-use, and one that houses a host of online features that help you reach your customers while allowing you to stay true to your brand. 

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