Qube says British businesses are being ripped-off by Web hosting contracts that claim to offer high levels of managed service, but in reality deliver lower levels of service at expensive rates. Some of UK's leading managed service providers are guilty of excessive charging for bandwidth and meaningless service level agreements, says the hosting provider.

"It is scandalous that so called managed service hosting companies are getting away with this," says Polly Arrowsmith, managing director at Qube Networks. "Many customers are unaware of the charges and service levels they can expect because their contracts are so misleading. Unfortunately, it is only when something goes wrong that they realize the mistake they have made. The industry should be building its reputation by providing colocation and managed services of the highest standards. The sooner we begin to get the industry's house in order the better and an industry code of conduct is the first step in that change."

In the meantime, Qube says it has launched a website (qubenetworks.co.uk/pain) dedicated to relieving businesses of their IT pains while an industry code of conduct to govern contract practices is hammered out.