June 16, 2010 by sharky
For those familiar with OVH flagships ovh.co.uk and ovh.com, purchasing a server is hassle-free as long as you reside in a whitelisted location. All that’s required is a valid mobile number (within an acceptable country code) and a SMS ‘text message’ 4-digit code is sent to the mobile device, which is used to validate the authenticity of the buyer’s country of origin. Easy peasy.
Unfortunately, no such SMS service is available (even if possible) through ovh.ie. As it stands - American and Canadian citizens are required to provide proper proofs. Potential ovh.ie / kimsufi.ie new customers will need to submit (via email) proof of identification (for example, a copy of a driver’s licence or photo ID card) and proof of address (a copy of a utility bill) before an order can be placed. These are examples; contact ovh.ie support for additional info.
Above is a screenshot of the checkout, asking for information about proof of location. At this point you’ll also receive a message to the email address you specified upon signing up; it too will direct you to a similar checkout page. However, you won’t actually be able to confirm or "make the payment" for the server (as indicated in the email below) without first being validated.
In reference to the announcement on OVH, this forum post appeared:
OVH is expanding to markets where it was not possible to order before. And this will be by doing additional checks for those who which to order. Once their approval has been given, they can order from OVH. But this looks like it is bound to be on a per user basis. Looks like a lot of work for the Customer support team
No VAT (Tax)
Going through the trouble to provide proof of residence within the US or Canada is still certainly worth it, considering the alternative is buying from an overpriced markup OVH reseller. While inconvenient, so far it turns out to be substantially less expensive than ordering directly from OVH’s EU departments since "VAT" (an extra 19.6% in FR and 17.5% in UK) is not charged to buyers on ovh.ie. The price you see is the price you pay - although pricing is listed in € (Euros); and servers are still subject to OVH’s setup fees where applicable.
It’s surely a bold (and smart) move on OVH’s behalf to open themselves to the western marketplace, a decision that likely has little to do with an expansion into a new ’seedbox market’. But let’s not kid ourselves - OVH knows it’s bread & butter. Considering that an estimated 75% of all seedboxes are on OVH, it’s palpable to assume that peering could soon shift from a heavily-dominated European OVH marketplace into North America, as a result of the success of ovh.ie.
FSF hasn’t yet tested any ovh.ie servers therefore it’s impossible to speculate on peering, redundancy, NA > EU connectivity, FTP transfer speeds, and so on. If popular, we suspect it’ll only be a matter of time before US & Canadian OVH resellers will surface that are able to undercut prices from European OVH resellers, and even possibly ovh.com/co.uk itself.
Other countries have also become available - Brazil & Portugal can now use ovh.pt to sign up; Spain & Andorra can visit ovh.es. Latvia, Lithuania, Russian Federation and Ukraine can use ovh.lt. All of the above use SMS. And Ireland can signup through ovh.ie as well.
Archived by FSFmirror
