Punkmusic Community News

us that due to rising bandwidth fees, Punkmusic.com will have to cease hosting fan sites. The main site itself will stay up, but staggering costs are forcing them to take this action. Click READ MORE to see Neal's statement on the move.Wow this sucks, we know what it's like to have bandwidth issue threaten the existence of your site. Keep supporting Punkmusic as they do some great work...

As many of you know, Punkmusic.com has been online since '96 providing services to webzines, bands, record labels, and thousands daily readers. Over the years the site has grown larger daily, especially over the last year. Last month alone, we served over 550 Gigabytes of data to visitors and received a bill in excess of $3000.

The Internet world has changed since we first started, and hosting companies are now charging outragious fees for bandwidth. Unfortunately we cannot afford to host other people's sites for free. We took a survey a while back to see if sites were willing to chip in to help pay, but 90% said they would not. Therefore, we have no choice but to discontinue hosting fan sites. But don't be confused, PUNKMUSIC.COM WILL NOT BE GOING DOWN- JUST THE HOSTED SUB-SITES.

Perhaps some of you reading this message are ticked off, but we honestly have no other choice. Many of you who have worked with us over the years have known that part of our central philosophy has been to help the punk Internet grow, whether through links, news stories, interviews, downloads, radio stations, free hosting for sites, and other services. In return, we've received recognition and respect, something we feel extremely greatful for. But we simply cannot foot the bill.

IMPORTANT

As of Thursday April 24th at 9:00PM EST all hosted sites on the server will be turned off. There is nothing we can do about this, and are sorry for the short notice, but we just found out today. Unless we find another host that allows unlimited bandwidth, this will be a permanent change. While punkmusic.com itself will not go down, all hosted fan sites will be removed, with the exception of Graynoise, UnitedFront, Punkshows.com. All mp3 downloads and streaming radio stations have been suspended until we figure out a solution.

We are looking to move one server somewhere that has extra bandwidth, or at least affordable co-location hosting. We welcome your comments, resources, suggestions if you have any. Please email me at neal@fastmusic.com.