> In my experience the lag time to the US is a huge factor in overseas hosting. Otherwise I'd just have everything setup overseas because Telstra has the entire

> In my experience the lag time to the US is a huge factor in overseas hosting. Otherwise I'd just have everything setup overseas because Telstra has the entire industry by the nuts in terms of data costs (bring on the NBN!) It's not Telstra. There's plenty of non-Telstra international transit, and enough (but not plenty) of non-Telstra domestic transit. The problem is that to run a hosting business in Australia, you don't get huge benefits from scale, and you're having to maintain a high staff member-to-customer ratio. Customers have a lot of protection (a good thing) through Fair Trading, and it seems that (from my experiences working in the industry) Australian users have a higher expectation of customer service. Plus, there's also just the time-zone thing. Calling up mid-afternoon in Australia puts you at late-night in the US.