Following on from another thread, I would like to know peoples opinion on the following.

If a hosting company is based in the UK, registered in the UK, charge in £ and do their support in UK English but have their servers in the US.... .....are they UK hosts or US hosts.

My vote is UK. Is there actually a Law / Code that says they are UK or US.

Thanks in advance.
James

they are of course a uk host. their hosting is us hosting. the term uk host i have always taken to be in respect to the location of the person \ company not the service. how they charge is unimportant, they themselves are uk hosts, their hosting is us hosting:)

Originally posted by richy
they are of course a uk host. their hosting is us hosting.

lol...'nuff said!!!!!!!

I think it should be relative to where the company is actually located. So if you are physically located in the UK, you are a UK host, regardless of where your servers are located.

Question: If it had to do with where the servers are located, how would you categorize a host who has servers in 2 or more countries? :confused: :confused:

Vito

Hi,

Definately a UK host. For example, we are an Australian host with servers in the US (Rackspace) and even have a US office but we are definately an Australian host

Originally posted by NexDog
Hi,

Definately a UK host. For example, we are an Australian host with servers in the US (Rackspace) and even have a US office but we are definately an Australian host

Sorry....but you're an Australian company but a US host.....if you host in the US you're a US host....its pretty simple......

You might be AU based but you host in the US so you're a US host and an AU company!!!!

Anyway.....

We are an Australian company and we are a host. Therefore we are an Australian host. How does that not compute? :)

I’m new here so I may be wrong but does it really matter whether you’re a UK, US host or any other country for that matter? You can bill your customers in $ and be a UK host? Right?

Imitech

Geographicaly challenged hosts!

:D

Country in which the goods are sold from. UK, of course.

lol...'nuff said!!!!!!!

I think so too Jonny, seems you are the only person with this opinion.

Definitely a UK host. The law is simple... wherever you are doing business - i.e. collecting your money. It wouldn't matter if your servers were in a cave in Afghanistan, you'd still be a UK host and a UK company.

Originally posted by chrisb
It wouldn't matter if your servers were in a cave in Afghanistan, you'd still be a UK host and a UK company

I think it probably would.

I doubt I'd be signing up to Osama bin Hosting Inc.

Mind you, he seems positively mild compared to some of the hosts I've read complaints about here.

Well, since nobody seemed to address my question, I'll ask it again, because I think it's a valid one.

If one holds the opinion that you categorize a host based on where the servers are located, how do you classify a company that has, let's say, 1 server in the US, 1 in Canada and 1 in the UK?

Vito

one way to look at it is by support:

UK phone number - UK host
US phone number - US host
no phone number - plain old host (who cares where it is)

another way to consider it is by connectivity for those concerned with routes:

UK server - UK host
US server - US host
both - international host offering a choice of connectivity

I think I like International Host, problem is I only have servers in the US. We serve the international community though, maybe some one will say I cant be an international host because I dont have servers in all the countries in the World.

We will be "Limbo" host.

Originally posted by jgriff64
I think I like International Host, problem is I only have servers in the US. We serve the international community though, maybe some one will say I cant be an international host because I dont have servers in all the countries in the World.

We will be "Limbo" host.

We serve the 'international community' as well....the majority of our biggest customers are outside the UK !!!

The point has been well and truely missed here....

What i'm arguing for is the fact that a lot of newer UK companies who have reseller / dedicated / whatever accounts in the US are advertising like their server(s) are in the UK.

People need to know why the prices are cheaper and what the consequences of that are...

if you had servers in the US and the UK, you'd advertise the fact...

this doesnt go for *all* so dont get me wrong....thats why there needs to be a standards body of some sort so people actually know what they're getting.....

It doesnt apply as much in AU as the US and EU as i think people are going to assume your servers are in the US anyway.....

[QUOTE]
People need to know why the prices are cheaper and what the consequences of that are...
[/QUOTE}

There isnt much consequences, the speed difference isnt that great.

The fact is that most customers looking for a UK host mean UK servers with a good connection to LINX.

Also in the UK VAT regulations if your servers are in the US then your place of supply is the US not the UK regardless of where your banking or admin work may be done.

Anyway, UK server prices are coming right down
- watch this space.

Gordon

I would imagine that most customers looking for a UK host would not even know what LINX is.

Well you would be wrong then.

I spent a year trying to sell US based hosting in the UK and it was very tough going.
One of the first questions you get asked is "where are your servers" or people just do a traceroute.

In fact we still have the same problem.
Because the company is called Hostroute.com Ltd people often traceroute to hostroute.com which goes to the US when Hostroute.co.uk goes to the UK.
We are renaming the UK company Hostroute Holdings Ltd to try and avoid this happening.

I am not saying these things to be difficult.
If you want a UK hosting business to succeed, in my experience, you need to have UK based servers.
I know that not having UK based servers has been an issue for other UK hosts who have had to go the same way as us.

Gordon

I understand what you are saying, but we have not had this problem, we have been running for around 2 years. Almost all who have asked us where are servers are have signed up. We get most of our new customers by referrels from current customers, so they know our service is good.
Thanks all for your coments, there is a very mixed bag of opinion on here.

umm learn to differentiate the product from the seller people. if you are buying space on a us server from a companyin the uk you are buying US HOSTINGING from a UK HOST. its important to deal first with the company then the product.

as for companies that advertise they are uk and forget or lie they use us servers. thats false advertising and is illegal, just like using pictures of 10 million dollar sun servers because they are pretty when your hosting on raqs lol. scum will always be scum.

Originally posted by richy
as for companies that advertise they are uk and forget or lie they use us servers. thats false advertising and is illegal, just like using pictures of 10 million dollar sun servers because they are pretty when your hosting on raqs lol. scum will always be scum.


Thats my only gripe! And that would cover about 90% of UK companies hosting in the US......lol...only took 2 pages thankfully ;)

Cheers,

I can understand that.
I know no one has said that we, 38h, fall in to the false advertising categagory and I hope we do not give that impression. As this has never appeared as a problem before we have not looked in to this.
We dont actually say on our site we are a UK hosting company, we do charge VAT and have a UK Local number however. This has been a quite interesting thread and we as a company will take note on what has been said.
Thanks Jonny B for your input, I know I said I "did" have respect for you, well I maybe text that wrong.

I say, it depends on where your target audience is.