Misleading companies – part 1

Something that I’ve never understood is why some companies feel the need to lie on their websites. I’m not talking about ambiguous marketing twaddle about being “a leading provider” etc. but flat out deception. This seems to be particularly prevalent in the hosting/network/data centre industry for some reason.

This specific rant was triggered by a recent project which required an IP transit connection in Telehouse West.

This shouldn’t be such a hard task – Telehouse West is carrier neutral and the Telehouse docklands campus is one of the most highly connected places in the UK, if not the EU!

I did a bit of Googling for companies claiming to have network PoPs in Telehouse West. One of the companies which came up was ConnetU, who I’ve heard of, but never had actually any dealings with before now.

On the front page of their web site (http://www.connetu.com) ConnetU state:

With over 15 London data centres on our network, we cater for a full complement of project requirements including location, cost and performance, from being in the heart of low-latency Internet to high-density computation.

and if you follow that link, then you get to a page talking about their London network that contains quotes such as:

Enterprise metro Ethernet spanning 15 London data centres

Now, if you click on the network map, then you actually find 19 data centres (although I didn’t bother to count them at the time):

Telecity Harbour Exchange (HEX) 6&7
Telecity Harbour Exchange (HEX) 8&9
Telecity Meridian Gate
Telecity Sovereign House
Telstra London Hosting Centre (LHC)
Tutis Point City Reach (formerly QiComm, now Docklands Data Centre Ltd – DDCL)
Global Switch 1
Global Switch 2
Telehouse North
Telehouse East
Telehouse West
Telehouse Metro
Level(3) Goswell Road
City Lifeline
InterXion London
Croydon (I’m guessing Pulsant’s Croydon data centre)
Greenwich South London (I’m guessing the former BIS Anchorage Point data centre, now owned by 6dg)
London Bridge (I’m guessing the former Safehosts data centre, now GSDV)
West Byfleed (I’m guessing 4D Data Centres Sirius II)

Now, Telehouse West is clearly listed on there as a network PoP with 10Gbps fibre/wavelength connections to Telehouse North and Telehouse East. If you click on the IP transit link, Telehouse West is listed again under “Available PoPs” with a link to it’s very own page (http://www.connetu.com/london-data-centres/telehouse-west) detailing a few key facts about the data centre as well as a list of which services are available there (“IP transit” and “Interconnects”).

So, from all this, it’s fair to say that ConnetU are clearly advertising that they have a Point of Presence (PoP) at Telehouse West (THW) are are able to provide IP transit services there. So, I filled out the “Request Quote” form on the IP transit page, which again feature Telehouse West on the drop down “Delivery in” list

Now, imagine my surprise when I receive an email from ConnetU saying:

we’re still looking for a decent reason to PoP West as there hasn’t been much demand in there to date.

This seemed somewhat odd based on the description on their web site, so I queried this and they replied with:

We’ve been waiting for a good excuse to break-out West – it’s a fibre run away, which can be done fairly quickly upon order. However, enquiries to date have been so small they’re just not worthwhile.

So basically, they don’t have a PoP in Telehouse West, but they’re listing it on their site anyway and if they get a big enough order for it to be worth their while, they will have Telehouse run fibre from their existing PoPs in order to service it…

Not only is this completely misleading, but as someone looking for services in a particular data centre it’s also utterly frustrating as it makes my job so much harder and just wastes my time.

I don’t understand how companies think that they will benefit from this sort of behaviour. Surely it’s pretty obvious that all you are going to end up doing is annoying prospective customers because you won’t be able to provide the services as the requirement is too small for it to be worth you while building a PoP, or the price will be too high because you’ll pass all the costs of building the PoP onto the client or the lead time will be too long because you need to order space, connectivity, equipment etc. and get it all set up.

I would certainly think twice before considering taking services from ConnetU at any of their other locations due to this experience. Why waste my time getting in touch with them again? Who knows how many of their other PoPs don’t really exist? Plus, do I want to do business with a company which behaves in such a misleading manner publicly?

Owing to the size of this rant, I have split it up into three pats so that it is easier to read. Part 2 focuses on IX Reach and euNetworks whilst part 3 is about C4L.