Re: [SAGE] US based company installing computer equipment in the UK

[Doug Hughes <doug@eng.auburn.edu>]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Robert Haskins wrote:

> My (US based) company needs to install several Linux machines at the
> London Internet Exchange (LINX). Being newbies at this sort of thing
> (installing machines in foreign countries), can anyone offer any
> pointers as to how to go about doing this? We think that sourcing the
> equipment in the UK will avoid US export/UK import headaches (is this
> true?). We have been told that Broadberry Data Systems

1) true - another big issue is VAT, which they will hit you with
on import ( as well as customs declarations)

> (http://www.broadberry.co.uk/industrial.html) is a good source (can
> anyone concur?). Does anyone have other equipment sources that they can
> recommend?
>
> Can anyone shed light on the process of installing equipment in foreign
> countries? Any horror stories you'd care to share? Email me directly and
> I'll summarize.
>
most computer systems have a switch that will work at least in US/UK
for 110/220 AC. If you are buying from a reseller in UK, you shouldn't
have any such issues. If you are installing network hardware you'll want
to pay attention to the difference between E1 and T1 or STM1 or PRI or
whatever, but 100BaseT is still 100BaseT for host based stuff (or gige).
If you ship, you also need to be aware that the power plug is likely
to be different as well.

I had several systems stuck in customs/VAT limbo for 3 months once
(shipped from US). Every subsequent system we got in EU and bypassed
those issues. Power (aside from getting the right cord) wasn't a major
problem.

	Doug