OVH Initiates a Setup Fee on Budget Kimsufi Line

December 08, 2009 by sharky

Hold onto your Kimsufi. OVH has long been considered a friendly hosting provider for both torrent trackers and seedbox providers, despite a few hiccups along the way. For many DIY seedboxers - and even smaller trackers, OVH has been the host of choice - especially popular is their line of Kimsufi C-05G ‘budget’ dedicated servers. The C-05G was the last remaining OVH server that came without a setup cost, but all that changed last week when they dropped the bomb that a 50 Euro/GBP setup fee is now being applied "to bring it into line with the rest of the Kimsufis" which spans across subsidiaries Kimsufi.com and Kimsufi.co.uk - and both OVH resellers and seedbox providers will feel the pinch.

We will balance the costs of installation on the Kimsufi range. Starting tomorrow (November 30th), all servers will have installation costs equivalent to Q-1T. We will therefore increase the cost of installation of C-05G and decreasing i7-2T/i7-4T/i7-6T installation costs.

 

The goal is to make the range more affordable i7-2T/i7-4T/i7-6T and fight against the abuse now rampant on C-05G. (thread here)

The reality is; this decision has nothing to do with generating new revenue by gouging the average user into anteing up in order to put C-05G on an even keel with the rest of the Kimsufi line (as suggested by OVH) - it’s about moderating the widespread abuse throughout the network, targeted specifically towards their C-05G’s.

With nearly 70,000 servers out there, the number of cases of abuse is proportionally greater than about 10,000 servers. It is the same percentage, or less even. Except with 70,000 servers, the number of servers that cause abuse is proportionally larger for customers who are much more “professional”. Not to mention little more than simple abuse, but outright activity of destruction. Indeed, we see more and more often that our servers are used for malicious attacks as a way to bring down a site or game server or to perform a DoS. For 30euro for less than 1 hour you can have a server connected by a 100Mbps connection and use it as a bomb ready to destroy. Similarly for spam, turnover is havoc… With this kind of abuse, our network has sadly been ranked as the 3rd network for spamming in the world. All this with a few tens / hundreds of servers. (thread here)

According to OVH - they’re ranked the #3 spammer in the world among all hosting providers; all this with just under 70,000 servers. It’s been announced that most "abuse" is localized to 10,000 of their servers, most of which are Kimsufi C-05G’s - the servers with the highest abuse rates are coincidentally the same ones without a setup fee. While this is a commendable effort on the part of OVH to clean up their image - it’s seedbox providers, OVH resellers, and even trackers that use OVH to host torrents that are caught in the crossfire. But don’t blame torrents or P2P: Much more sinister abuse is being carried out, such as using OVH to send out mass emails, DDoS attacks and other malicious spam:

http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings.lasso?isp=ovh.net

Who’s Getting Hit the Hardest:

OVH Resellers. — Resellers are going to get killed here since the setup cost will be inherited over to the purchaser. Dedicatedpros.com hasn’t yet reflected the price increase due to new setup costs, but Dedisales.com has. A new "resold" C-05G will now cost in the range of £90 (for the first month).

Private Trackers. — You’d be surprised by how many smaller trackers and forums use the Kimsufi C-05G as their primary host. Not to mention as a cheap seedbox to host new torrents being added to the tracker; something which is a necessary step for the initial development of any new serious tracker.

DIY Seedboxes. — No longer can the hobbyist just purchase a C-05G and throw on a BitTorrent client. Well you can, but a substantial 50 £/€ pricetag changes the scenario. Most DIYer’s will move on to hosting providers that offer servers without an initial installation fee, such as Leaseweb.

Seedbox providers who use OVH. — While the setup fee only applies to new C-05G’s purchased after November 30th, this leaves little room for growth among seedbox providers who opt for the C-05G as their primary box. Profit margins are already tight as it is, and many won’t be able to afford the one-time setup cost. Look for seedbox prices to increase across the board, as providers will likely (and should) opt for a higher-end Kimsufi since the installation costs are now the same.

Our Opinion:

Personally, we like the direction that OVH has chosen for the Kimsufi line. While seedbox providers will initially struggle to restructure by either choosing different providers or even stay on with OVH (and eventually upgrade to servers with increased specs) - this evidently will translate into a better all-around seedbox experience for customers. Likewise for trackers that use OVH - the C-05G (an Intel Celeron D/215/220) was never a miraculous server for download speeds even when attached to a 100Mbit pipe, especially on initial-seed torrents that have a lot of peers (leechers). Installation fees aside - for an additional €25 more per month (with the switchport option) OVH offers a Quad Core Q6600 (Q-1T) which is connected to a 1Gbit line instead.

Needless to say; for those who own a C-05G - don’t let it go. We’ll muster up some competitive dedicated server options in our next article.

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