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Hi, y'all.

Is there any good reason why web-hosting in NZ is so expensive when
compared with what's on offer in the USA?

I mean, I've seen several hosts in the USA offering shared hosting with
1500mb of storage space and 50gigs of data transfer for $US3.95/month.

But, with the hosting on offer here in NZ you're lucky to get 20mb and
5gigs of data transfer for three times that price, converted to the same
currency.

Why should that be the case if they're not price gouging?


Bling Bling

--
IBM: "Linux is not just another operating system. It represents a
collaboration of the best programmers in the industry coming together to
create an operating system that works on any hardware platform."

In article <pan.2005.04.17.18.12.06.609481@TRACKER>, Bling-Bling wrote:
> Hi, y'all.
>
> Is there any good reason why web-hosting in NZ is so expensive when
> compared with what's on offer in the USA?
>
> I mean, I've seen several hosts in the USA offering shared hosting with
> 1500mb of storage space and 50gigs of data transfer for $US3.95/month.
>
> But, with the hosting on offer here in NZ you're lucky to get 20mb and
> 5gigs of data transfer for three times that price, converted to the same
> currency.
>
> Why should that be the case if they're not price gouging?
>
>
> Bling Bling
>
Two things come immediately to mind.
1/. Economies of scale
2/. Efficiencies through automation

In article <pan.2005.04.17.18.12.06.609481@TRACKER>, Bling-Bling <> wrote:
>Hi, y'all.
*SNIP*
>5gigs of data transfer for three times that price, converted to the same
>currency.
>
>Why should that be the case if they're not price gouging?
>
Someone's gouging, but it's not the hosting provider. Check out pricing
for bandwidth out of NZ sometime. Be sitting down when you then compare
it to circuits of double or triple the capacity in the US.
Bandwidth is very expensive here. Hundreds of dollars per Mb of
international circuit, and that's cheap. Small customers can end up
paying over a grand.

--
Matthew Poole
"Veni, vidi, velcro...
I came, I saw, I stuck around"

My real e-mail is mattATp00leDOTnet

In article <>, thing <> wrote:
>Bling-Bling wrote:
*SNIP*
>3) Scale, a server, $10,000 odd, plus spares on site.
>
*SNIP*

What the **** are you buying?! I work in the business, and our most
expensive server yet has been under half that. Mostly we pay about
$1400 for P4s with dual SATA drives.

--
Matthew Poole
"Veni, vidi, velcro...
I came, I saw, I stuck around"

My real e-mail is mattATp00leDOTnet

Bling-Bling wrote:

> Is there any good reason why web-hosting in NZ is so expensive when
> compared with what's on offer in the USA?
>
> I mean, I've seen several hosts in the USA offering shared hosting
> with 1500mb of storage space and 50gigs of data transfer for
> $US3.95/month.
>
> But, with the hosting on offer here in NZ you're lucky to get 20mb and
> 5gigs of data transfer for three times that price, converted to the
> same currency.
>
> Why should that be the case if they're not price gouging?

I don't know about the storage space issue, but international traffic is
incredibly expensive in New Zealand hence the small data allowances.

I used to be in the webhosting business (I still run some dedicated
servers for people but that's it now) and I certainly am in no hurry to
return to it. It's extremely competitive and you make so little money
from each hosting account you have to have hundreds or thousands of
customers to be able to make any money.

The only reason we were able to do make any money from hosting is
because we were quite expensive by New Zealand terms, and were
primarily a web development company and could therefore quite easily
sign all our development customers up as hosting customers.

If you want a large amount of storage space and decent traffic you could
try www.webdrive.co.nz - they're who we sold out to and they have a
pretty good service with reseller plans etc.

--
Chris Hope | www.electrictoolbox.com | www.linuxcdmall.co.nz

Bling-Bling wrote:
> Is there any good reason why web-hosting in NZ is so expensive when
> compared with what's on offer in the USA?

economies of scale for one thing.

> I mean, I've seen several hosts in the USA offering shared hosting with
> 1500mb of storage space and 50gigs of data transfer for $US3.95/month.
> But, with the hosting on offer here in NZ you're lucky to get 20mb and
> 5gigs of data transfer for three times that price, converted to the same
> currency.

> Why should that be the case if they're not price gouging?

setup a webhosting company and see if you can do better.

Bling-Bling wrote:
> Hi, y'all.
>
> Is there any good reason why web-hosting in NZ is so expensive when
> compared with what's on offer in the USA?
>
> I mean, I've seen several hosts in the USA offering shared hosting with
> 1500mb of storage space and 50gigs of data transfer for $US3.95/month.
>
> But, with the hosting on offer here in NZ you're lucky to get 20mb and
> 5gigs of data transfer for three times that price, converted to the same
> currency.
>
> Why should that be the case if they're not price gouging?
>
>
> Bling Bling
>

I used to do this, indeed I still get asked to host sites.....

There are unfortunately huge problems with web hosting and especially in NZ.

1) Scale, if I was to do hosting I would need to do daily backups, DLT
tapes alone for a month add up to 20 x $130 = $2500 ish....With lots of
sites that becomes a small cost.

2) Scale, then there is a UPS, a decent one is $2000 odd.

3) Scale, a server, $10,000 odd, plus spares on site.

4) Servers are considerably cheaper in the USA and when bought in bulk.

5) Then there is the horrendious international traffic costs plus
telecom and clear effectively own the NZ backbone so their pricing is
not cheap either.

6) Admin of the single box....

7) Large diversity of software needs.

Clients expect you to do stuff that is clearly within what they
should be doing and are generally too stupid to do a web site safelt ep
cgi scripting making security a nightmare. Try explaining to Client A
that because Client B ran a bad cgi script that their site is defaced
and that the day's upload is lost as the backup is only overnight....

9) Clients whio dont pay....and that is quite a big %.

I gave up because see $4 or $8 US a month with huge bandwidth allowances
and wondered at my charges. Then there are people out there that dont do
backups, have no UPS, do not patch or maintain and so are cheap.....

If you want a cheap service I would suggest getting cable or adsl and
try doing it yourself.

regards

Thing

Matthew Poole wrote:

> In article <>, thing
> <> wrote:
>>Bling-Bling wrote:
> *SNIP*
>>3) Scale, a server, $10,000 odd, plus spares on site.
>>
> *SNIP*
>
> What the **** are you buying?! I work in the business, and our most
> expensive server yet has been under half that. Mostly we pay about
> $1400 for P4s with dual SATA drives.

Yeah I agree. I usually buy those Dell 1U machines with dual SATA with
RAID for my dedicated servers and they're under $1600.

--
Chris Hope | www.electrictoolbox.com | www.linuxcdmall.co.nz

Matthew Poole wrote:
> *SNIP*
>>3) Scale, a server, $10,000 odd, plus spares on site.
> *SNIP*

> What the **** are you buying?! I work in the business, and our most
> expensive server yet has been under half that. Mostly we pay about
> $1400 for P4s with dual SATA drives.

heh, I was going to comment the same.

even the most entry level machines are fine for webhosting as long as
you're backing up frequently enough.(Sempron 2200, 512MB ram, 80GB for
~$400)

Chris Hope wrote:
>>What the **** are you buying?! I work in the business, and our most
>>expensive server yet has been under half that. Mostly we pay about
>>$1400 for P4s with dual SATA drives.

> Yeah I agree. I usually buy those Dell 1U machines with dual SATA with
> RAID for my dedicated servers and they're under $1600.

which model?