Got a comment from Damien of GPLHost on my XenFu blog that they have started to provide Xen based VPS hosting in Sydney Australia. The data centre utilises MCI network, which has a nice 15-20ms return trip time from both my home ADSL connection and work.

Unfortunately Sydney is part of their zone 2 VPS which is twice as expensive 40% more expensive than their zone 1 services (VPS in Singapore, Florida and Paris). It would be very nice to have a high performing VPS near home for that satisfying “ssh experience”, but I think the price might not justify.

Although the service is in Australia, the monthly cost is actually in the US dollar — which makes the packages a bit expensive at the end. You can actually rent dedicated server with more memory, more space and more bandwidth for less than AUD$190 (USD$140).

However, there isn’t much competition for VPS hosting in Australia. The other company that I know which provides Xen-based VPS hosting in Australia is Dynamic Web Hosting, which is based in Brisbane. They are even more expensive, neither do they offer Gentoo as as node OS.

Hopefully we will see more web hosting companies in Australia endorse virtual private hosting, and provide them as a more cost effective alternative to dedicated hosting.

Update July 2006: Thanks to Damien from GPLHost to notify me that they have reduced the price of their zone 2 offerings, which certainly makes them more affordable now. Still no comparison with US-based services, but I can say that they are offering very good value Australia-based Xen powered virtual private server.