Re: [ILUG] box hosting

From: Wesley Darlington (wesley at domain yelsew.com)
Date: Wed 18 Aug 1999 - 10:22:04 IST


Hi Y'all,

On Tue, Aug 17, 1999 at 08:30:28PM +0100, Paul Jakma wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Thomas Bridge wrote:
>
> I understand the minimum charge for colocation (which is what you're
> talking about here) starts at around 250 punts a month with the larger
> ISPs.
>
> eek.. expensive. no way can i afford that... unless i split the costs
> with others. Justin: you still dream of justin.org?

Yeah, colocation is stupidly expensive. I've been talking to a number
of London-based `colocation shops' and several things have become clear:

o Colocation is expensive - Just to put the machine in their premises,
  without hooking it up to the net costs several thousand quid per annum.
  However, I think http://www.telehouse.redbus.co.uk/ might be reasonably
  good value.

o Really cheap colocation shops don't exist - People don't colocate for
  reasons of money, seemingly. They colocate because the colocation shops
  offer cool things like `power feeds from three power companies' and `Gas
  powered generators that kick in thirty seconds after a power outage'.
  If your boxes are crucial to your business, all this makes sense, but
  it sounds like screeching violins if you just want somewhere to put an
  old Pentium with linux on. ;-)

o Bandwidth delivered to your machine in a colocation shop is usually
  *dearer* than bandwidth to your business. I kid you not. I don't
  have my notes near me, but a reliable Megabit here in Belfast costs
  about fifteen grand a year. Many colocation shops charge up to double
  that and beyond!

o Colocation shops are invariable based in London's Docklands. Very handy
  to get at from Belfast or Dublin. ;-) However, UUnet apparently have
  or will soon have a pretty good colocation facility here in Belfast.
  So I'm told anyway. Should be interesting. Apparently they'll charge
  the same for a megabit to your office as to your colocated machine,
  but you'll have to pay for rack space aswell. Makes sense.

o One possibility might be http://www.telehouse.redbus.co.uk/
  I seem to recall they were fairly cheap for colocating boxes, but they
  didn't sell bandwidth - you had to get a price for that separately.

Hope I haven't bored y'all with my ramblings. :-)

Wesley.



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