Quote:
Originally Posted by Supz
as for borked. whoever is charging those prices either stole the servers or plans on having people sign 10 year leases with those prices. I know what those parts cost from distribution at the highest level of dell partnership and it just makes no sense what so ever. Just doesn't add up.
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neither, you can take one of them and then drop it in 1 month if you wish to waste your cash. I guess their logic is anyone taking one of those is going to be using it for at least 2 years (provide the excellent peering that they do, why would you move?) and so they are already making a profit. If you know what you're doing with a server, or have your own capable sysadmin, OVH is for you. Which counts out 95% of people here.
They are the largest B2B ISP in Europe, they have the largest network infrastructure in Europe and even have transatlantic pipes plugging directly into their own DC. They are also a beauty in peering, with 5 hops (2 in their DC) to New York and 6 hops to San Diego, from Paris.
They also offer me unlimited telephone lines (for $1.35/line/mo) unlimited European telephone numbers ($1.35 per # per month) with unlimited calling to 40 countries (I have 3 lines, 1 fax and 12 numbers for various projects I'm working on), with all the tools to setup my server as a call center, a free Cisco WifI phone that I can take anywhere in the world with an internet connection and call for free. For my enemies, I can have my server call them up daily at 3am to tell them "Hello". I have a number that I configured where when I call it on my cell phone (a freephone number) it asks me for my code, and which number I want to dial, and it then calls it, which means I can call internationally on my cell phone for free (and anonymously). All that for what, less than $20/mo.
For an extra $1.35/mo I could have a premium rate number where my server will distribute audiotel codes (micropayments) - hey I'd be my own biller of micropayments and it would cost me nothing.
I've just signed up for their ADSL offer, which will give me unlimited 28Mbs ADSL for $13/mo, saving me $20/mo when my current provider is cut.
Why are their prices so low? Well, I guess it's because they own their entire infrastructure, internet, DCs, telco, DSL, so it costs them zero, so everything nomatter how little, is pure profit. And they are not greedy, which is how they got to where they are today. The servers cost money, for sure. But for the vast majority of their clients they offer white box solutions and for their high end clients, they strike a deal with dell, add some serious installation costs to weed out the men from the boys and then give them their own
dedicated internet infrastructure for the best quality in bandwidth and connectivity and so they know they will stay with them.
I guess that's the business logic behind it.
Do I care, do I hell, cos I love them and they aren't going anywhere. Have a look at
this backbone map (live updated) - those boxes on the top row are their transits to the world. Have a look around at some of the names on those peering points. Lots of big-boy names (French, European and global) on there, all paying them to house their shit with this company. I don't think they will be paying $400/mo for the privilege...