Paul Mitchell, president of Elevated Hosting answers his own phone. So does everyone else at the company. In fact, it’s not unusual for a customer who calls the office with a question, or in need of tech support, to talk to Mitchell himself.

This direct contact is uncommon in the heavily populated and sectioned-off ranks of the monster hosting companies. And while it’s not exactly the mom-and-pop atmosphere of a small-town grocery store, part of the charm of Elevated Hosting is that it doesn’t exclude personal relationships from being part of the business arrangement.

"We are still small enough that every customer is important to us," says Mitchell. "We know most customers by name and try to deal with their individual situation in a way that solves their problem the best for them, instead of dealing with it as a large, impersonal organization." Mitchell and his two partners started Elevated Hosting in 1996. Each of them tote master’s degrees and a wealth of business experience. Two are programmers, and one is a communications specialist and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. They started the company because they felt professionalism was lacking in the adult hosting industry.

Elevated Hosting offers customized packages ranging from a basic plan, geared toward personal Web pages at $8/month, to more elaborate packages geared toward e-commerce and membership sites at $40/month.

With added value, the company is gaining popularity. "We’re adding users at a rate of about 6 per day," says Mitchell, "and that feels pretty good to us."

Emmanuel Samuels, webmaster at exotoys.com, a client of Elevated Hosting raves about the quality of service. "The support is excellent," says Samuels. "I am amazed by the speed with which they answer their emails. I am very satisfied with their service, and I plan to move a site from another host after the holidays."

Serving about 700 sites from machines stored in what Mitchell calls "a 100% Compaq and Cisco shop", the company has two redundant connections to solid Internet backbones, and is in the process of setting up a third.

In addition to the hardware, Elevated Hosting is a company that quickly embraces the latest developments in software. "We installed Windows 2000 Server in February of 2000," says Mitchell. "We were one of the earliest hosting companies to convert." Elevated Hosting has developed a Turn-Key package integrating the scripting for a pay site using iBill.com for payment services and Authentix for membership area management. Elevated Hosting resells and installs for free, Verisign Payment Services.

While already supporting streaming audio and video with Microsoft Media, Elevated Hosting is in the process the process of adding support for Real Audio and Video. The company has also recently partnered with Miva Corporation and offers Miva Order and Miva Merchant as an add-on hosting service.

The company offers design and consulting services, adding a level of polish that Mitchell feels is often lacking in adult sites "We want to produce only sites that are strikingly professional and innovative," he says.

What goes around comes around, as they say. And it seems that Elevated Hosting delivers the same professional and innovative service they expect to see in their clients sites.

"Our approach to hosting is to provide an affordable set of customizable plans," says Mitchell, "but we commit ourselves to providing performance and service at the level that we would expect from a top-level professional Web hosting service provider."