Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : UK vs. US

[StreetHost.co.uk]

I am just about to start a UK hosting company. I have got a reseller account waiting to roll and I was just wondering whats stopping me from buying a US hosting account at cheaper prices and selling the space in the UK. A cheap dedicated server would cost just the same as a reseller in the UK and it would give me more control.

Or should I stick with good old British Web space????

[Jim_UK]

The difference in connection speed is very small but still noticable if on broadband (to me anyway). It may well be un-noticable to the average user but I spend all days browsing sites on uk and us servers so I've kind of got used to it.

Have a test of different websites which you know to be hosted in either and see for yourself.

Where do you expect most custom to come from, US or UK?

[gogocode]

Originally posted by StreetHost.co.uk
I am just about to start a UK hosting company. I have got a reseller account waiting to roll and I was just wondering whats stopping me from buying a US hosting account

Nothing. You'll find realistically that people won't notice. I'm a reseller for servers in the states, all my clients are in New Zealand. Often time's it's faster for them than thier old NZ server (admittedly, NZ has a fat pipe to north america).

The only real difference you'll see is latency when doing SSH, running game servers etc, SSH won't be an issue but game servers could be an issue.

[HostWithUs.co.uk]

I have my servers based in The Planet, Texas and am from the UK...

Personally the only difference I see is when running tracerts and the ping times are higher...Nothing actually noticeable to the naked eye for me

[.net]

For SEO reasons, UK customers prefer UK servers. Anyhow, for legal reasons such as data protection a UK located server is best.

But then again, depends on your target market. If your just planning on hosting individuals and friends, don't worry about it.

If your planning past that, have capital behind you and the business know how then I'd strongly recommend UK servers.

[HostWithUs.co.uk]

UK servers are very very expensive in comparison to the US servers for no apparent reason except that for some reason they seem to think that bandwidth is worth more than gold in this country..

I mean what use is a dedicated server with 120GB hdd, P4 CPU with 5GB Bandwidth...I see plans like this everywhere from UK dedicated providers. Whereas the US providers offer faster servers, with bandwidth in the region of around 1000GB for less money monthly...

And with no real difference in the performance to the general internet user I see nothing wrong with the US servers

[.net]

If your only interested in CHEAP offerings, don't expect anything more than CHEAP results. I suppose it depends on if your serious about value, excellent customer service and reliability.

[HostWithUs.co.uk]

I am not only interested in cheap offerings, but take your VPS1 for example...

I can get a

Intel Celeron 2.4ghz
1GB Ram
1200GB Bandwidth
99.9% Uptime

for around £30 monthly ($69 Monthly)

I dont use these servers for hosting, but its just an example of whats available in comparison to most UK providers...

I provide amazing support and uptime and have no complaints from any of my customers...I am very serious about customer service ad reliability....and have well over 8 months of 0 unplanned donwtime...says it all really

[ant0]

Originally posted by StreetHost.co.uk
I am just about to start a UK hosting company. I have got a reseller account waiting to roll and I was just wondering whats stopping me from buying a US hosting account at cheaper prices and selling the space in the UK. A cheap dedicated server would cost just the same as a reseller in the UK and it would give me more control.

Or should I stick with good old British Web space????

If you use UK servers for the UK market then can can use that as a positive selling point and highlight it in your marketing material.

[GordonH]

You can compare the speed of UK and US web hosting here:
http://www.hostroute.co.uk/compare/

[Posting that link probably breaks the boards rules which shows just how silly they are. If someone else had pasted the link there would be no complaints.]

The main differecne is not speed but connectivity issues. Its quite common for UK ISP's to lose their US routes when a carrier or router goes down, this looks like downtime at your end but of course it is not. By hosting in the Uk you will reduce these sorts of incident and as I have often said on this board, the difference im price between quality servers in the UK and US is actually quite small.

if you are wanting to do 99c a month hosting then the price difference is important but if you are in the mid priced area the increased reliability of hosting in the UK will improve sales.
That was my experience when we got our first UK server in 2001.

Interestingly oneandone host their UK customers sites in germany (from the traceroutes I have done).
Host Europe host their sites in Nottingham and the ping time is not much faster than hosting in the US.

[Vortex-Steve]

You can compare the speed of UK and US web hosting here:
http://www.hostroute.co.uk/compare/

The difference here was so small I think I might of blinked and actually missed the loading difference! A better test would involve multple images loading rather than just that one as the download speed from either countries on something that small will be fairly similar. And doing it on dial up might show a bigger gap as well.

Our servers are actually in the US, however as we expand then things are going to be coming over to the UK. After a quick look at planning we are fairly sure that we can keep actual server costs quite similar, it's just the data transfer each month is going to be much less. We will be getting about 1/5 as much in the UK as the USA for similar prices. To be honest though very rarely have we ever got near even 500GB per server so it shouldn't be too much of a problem once things are in the UK.

[GordonH]

The difference will depend on your ISP's US connections.
If they have good ones it will be faster.

[.net]

Originally posted by HostWithUs.co.uk
I am not only interested in cheap offerings, but take your VPS1 for example...

I can get a

Intel Celeron 2.4ghz
1GB Ram
1200GB Bandwidth
99.9% Uptime

for around £30 monthly ($69 Monthly)

I dont use these servers for hosting, but its just an example of whats available in comparison to most UK providers...

I provide amazing support and uptime and have no complaints from any of my customers...I am very serious about customer service ad reliability....and have well over 8 months of 0 unplanned donwtime...says it all really

The difference is that our VPS is a dedicated hosting solution comprised of hardware, software, and managed services. Even in comparison to unmanaged US dedicated servers, our product is extremely competitive.

[HostWithUs.co.uk]

I am not having a go at your product, just simply stating the difference in cost.... And I assure you that those servers have high quality, fast bandwidth...and are managed by proffesionals with an almost perfect uptime record...

I am simply pointing out the difference in cost for the the original thread starter

[GordonH]

Money is not everything.
Anyone runniong a web hosting business on a £30 server is certifiably nuts.