Lomag was the second shell account I had (this was a long, long time ago). I remember when Lomag had one box and was called "Lomag's Internet Services". Since their launch in May of 1998, to say they've grown a great deal is an understatement. In addition to expanding its own service by adding new servers and features, Lomag has purchased several other smaller providers (ShellUx, Strategical, SparkHost) and brought them on as part of the family.

The majority of Lomag's servers are housed at Above.net in NYC on a 100mbit port. Standard denial of service attacks rarely affect them, because of that great speed. Alone, they have 6 servers, but counting servers from the other providers they've purchased and still operate separately, they have 10. This review is from shell2.lomag.net, which is an Intel Pentium III 850 with 1024MB PC100 SDRAM, and an 18.2 GIG SCSI HD. Uptime on Lomag boxes are usually very high, but lately it seems like they're having a bit of trouble. The newer DoS attacks are called SYN floods and frequently feature a program just spawning multiple real connections to the box, causing it to overload and reboot. However, Lomag says it has patched this problem and is now not succeptable to these attacks.

In the shell business, there two kinds of providers: The kind you hear tons about.. and Lomag. Lomag is one of the few providers that doesn't advertise, and doesn't give into the hype schemes. Depending on your frame of mind, that's either a plus or a negative. In the end, Lomag is definitely the top choice if you're looking for speed. They aren't necessarily the best choice if you're looking for a wide array of good vhosts -- they're average, but not spectacular.