European Hosting Providers

This post is the result of a frustrating 2 week search for a decent dedicated server provider in Europe.

My conclusion is: there isn't one. At least not without paying a heavy price, often double or triple of what you'd pay with a US provider. And even at that price, you often get a service that is far far bellow the quality of service you receive with many US providers.

I simply can't believe that things that are considered rather normal and expected in the US require you to pay a premium price with many EU hosting providers. I'll list just a few:

99% Network SLA
Seriously? 99%? Most providers I see in the US have at least 99.9% if not 100%. Running a good network is essential for every hosting provider. Do they distrust their networks or are they simply incapable of managing a stable reliable network for their clients?

Hardware Replacement SLA
This is a good one. Many hosts I found either have none, or they have insanely horribly... horrible ones! One example: 8 hours within office time. So what if your server goes down on Friday night? You'll be doomed until Monday, and even then it can take them all day to fix it as far as their SLA is concerned.

Others require you to pay a premium price to get a better SLA. I saw one host that wants something in the area of 150 euros for a 2 hour hardware replacement SLA. I could get another server for that.

Support
This is really a gem. Trying to find any sort of fully managed provider is nothing short of impossible. Many advertise it, but if you contact them and ask specific questions the answer is mostly "Huh? You want what installed / configured?". I did manage to find some German ones that provided decent answers, but they were German only.

Price
Last but not least, I simply cannot believe the price difference I see when comparing US to EU providers. I usually find the following combinations:

- Cheap server, expensive addons, expensive SLA options
- Expensive server, cheap addons, expensive SLA options
- Cheap server, expensive addons, horrible SLA with insane price to upgrade to a better SLA

I don't understand how the EU providers expect to receive double or triple of what you pay in the US for perhaps half or one third of service.

Reading LeaseWeb support horror stories and lately a lot of Ecatel ones too I really do wonder how those companies plan to operate in several years. I'm pretty sure that if it weren't for their larger clients they would seriously reconsider the way they operate.

I have been in the hosting market for roughly 6 years now. Started from shared to VPS to dedicated. All those 6 years, the service has improved with most companies I've had business with and service expectations have also risen quite high.

However, here in Euroland it seems providers live in some sort of relaxed state where after work hours, things are not really their problem anymore until next day.

So tell me, what am I missing here? Am I nuts, or is it really such a big difference? Why is there such a big difference and what do you think will happen in the future with many big European hosting providers?

And please don't take this personal if you live in Europe. I live in Europe myself and I really tried to find a service acceptable both in price and features, but so far this didn't work out at all.