With the outrageous dedicated server hosting prices in the UK
(why on earth is it so expensive?!), we are thinking of hosting
our servers in the United States.

The designated users, however, will be mostly from the UK.

I'd appreciate some input from someone who has done something
similar in the past. How bad have you found the latency to be
as far as the user experience for UK based users in such a case?

Anyone who can shed light on this matter is more than welcomed
to drop his thoughts...

Thanks in advance. :)

Hi,

Its never been a major problem here though try and get on a server near the East Coast (New York if possible). This way you'll get much better ping times.

I spent quite a while researching this and found the best pings from the UK can be acheived using:

1/ NAC
2/ ServInt
3/ Global Compass

Hope this helps :)

Hiya,

We send all our servers to NAC in the USA, they are fantastic - have direct UK peering and have had no complaints from any customer yet. When you explain to the user that their site is in the USA most sound suprised due to the good access times etc.

If you would like I can put you in touch with a few companys that we deal with get you some good prices etc on servers.

Drop me an email - craig@Flump.net (also msn messenger) or icq 26721271 if you want to talk about this in more detail.

Craig

We too have servers in USA... NAC to be precise. We have never had a problem and can definitely recommend it.

You are right, UK prices are over the top. Bandwidth is the real killer.

Good luck. :)

Same here - we host several business sites on a dedicated in the US. No problems with the connection and no loss of "customer" contact to our websites. Our main site continues to be No 1 in all keyword listings in the major engines.

The cost of the server and the support and assistance we have received has been far greater than anything we received in the UK. Pronicsolutions rocks!

All our servers are in the USA and the majority of our customers are UK based, no problems :D

What dedicated providers use NAC (+ url's)? Thanks

www.pwebtech.com
www.site5.com
www.dedicatednow.com

The only problems you'll find hosting Internationally is the higher ping times - which should not matter for webhosting - but will matter for some situations like game servers etc. And some clients may prefer lower ping times because it looks better.
Also there may be problems with International links from time-to-time, which may lead some customers to prefer a local server.

But given the costs are far less, it is often a good solution. It may be worth offering select customers a local solution, as well as a cheaper International solution.