# Running a web based business in Cyprus...



## Darragh34 (Aug 31, 2010)

Hi folks,

Well I'm living in Ireland and our economy is like some kind of basketcase economy, so I'm thinking of going abroad for a while, not so much for economic reasons, the place is just depressing at the moment, and even though I'm 34 I've nothing holding me here at the moment and I've been in Cyprus a few times and I fell in love with the place (Protaras/Ayia Napa). 

So the long and the short of it is that I have a web based business in Ireland, there's a good wage in it and I see no reason why I couldn't step out of the comfort zone and move to Cyprus and run my web business in Ireland from Cyprus.

Going for me, I'm a web developer and do all my own site development myself so there is no need for me to meet with people back here in Ireland to manage that aspect of things on a regular basis, as I do all that work myself. 

I'm curious though does Cyprus have good internet Broadband penetration and is it reasonably priced, as I'd need that to put this plan in place???

Also I'd love to hear from someone else who might have done this and maybe what I should be expecting to pay for a 1-2 bed apartment for 6-12 months...


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## voltron (Aug 19, 2010)

Yo,

Cyprus does have good broadband but stay in the towns and larger villages.. friends of mine are still waiting for a line after years ina village. Internet is more expensive here but as far as i have seen its pretty reliable.. also 3g coverage is pretty good as well


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## RonJeremy (Sep 17, 2009)

Hi, nice topic since I'm in very similar seat myself, I could also do all my work online so I've always thought why do I have to limit myself to my home country when there are wamer, cheaper and better tax countries out there 
So based on much research I found out that Cyprus is the best place for that (within the EU) but one thing I haven't found out is "why isn't everyone doing it?" there must be so many web developers and game developers that could benefit from it.

Many of the tax books and guides I've been reading says things like "we've helped many web developers move their self-employed business to Cyprus" but more than that I've not found a single case scenario of that, I guess they are too busy working to be trolling around forums 

So good topic title, however your exact questions can be answered by minutes of googling rather than wasting ppls time asking the same question that has been asked 1000 times here already.

About whether it's reasonibly priced compared to Ireland check this awesome website out: Cost of Living Index By Country


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## voltron (Aug 19, 2010)

Ron, 

I have a horrible mental imagine of web developers "trolling" now hahahhahaa u of all people should know what that is lol... 

Dude cyprus if fugging expensive! you will come out of the supermarket crying.. you just have to weigh it all up.. rent is ok council tax is small...shopping leaves you feeling like you have been abused but hey.. 

At this point you usually get a post that says "oohhh but if you eat what the locals eat and eat food locally produced... blah blah..." For the record the locals eat Souvlaki, drink coke zero and it is so bloody addictive you wont care about spending 10 euros a day on lunch.. its soo nice!

Wake up - Go to Zorbas for some treats and a frappay
Lunch - Go for a souvlaki or a buffet thing like avohea (i spelled it like its said sorry)
dinner - Pandora's for a pizza slice or some olive bread or soemthing. 
Then a shake to wash it down..

man in living like a god!


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## RonJeremy (Sep 17, 2009)

lol.. I guess I should, omg...

I have no experience with Cyprus (was there on vacation when I was like 14 but hardly remembers a thing) but I'm basing the "cheap"-argument by that country cost index (in my earlier post) which says that rent is very cheap (tho other numbers such as food is higher), 

Personally I'm not going to be out eating buffes and pizza, in UK I live very cheaply right now except that no matter how much I'm carefull with my money I still loose £455 (550 euros) each month in rent (+council tax) for a apartment I don't even like so I would think that cyprus would be way cheaper for me.
lol I'm not so sure I understand your argument against local food that coke zero is too addictive 

I... actually didn't know Cyprus had council tax :S I will look into that immidiately!


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

RonJeremy said:


> lol.. I guess I should, omg...
> 
> I have no experience with Cyprus (was there on vacation when I was like 14 but hardly remembers a thing) but I'm basing the "cheap"-argument by that country cost index (in my earlier post) which says that rent is very cheap (tho other numbers such as food is higher),
> 
> ...



There is a local community charge which is very low. Its the equivalent of UK council tax. We have a 3 bedroom villa and our community charge is about €175 per year.


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## theresoon (Apr 11, 2008)

voltron said:


> Ron,
> 
> I have a horrible mental imagine of web developers "trolling" now hahahhahaa u of all people should know what that is lol...
> 
> ...


A frappe alone will set you off about 5e in Nicosia. In New York City the expensive places have coffee/ice coffee at $2 and people complain that it is expensive.


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## kimonas (Jul 19, 2008)

Darragh34 said:


> Hi folks,
> 
> Well I'm living in Ireland and our economy is like some kind of basketcase economy, so I'm thinking of going abroad for a while, not so much for economic reasons, the place is just depressing at the moment, and even though I'm 34 I've nothing holding me here at the moment and I've been in Cyprus a few times and I fell in love with the place (Protaras/Ayia Napa).
> 
> ...


Cyprus is in an interesting place geographically speaking when it comes to the internet/www. Mainland Europe, West Asia / Middle East and North Africa are all connected together by the backbone lines that flow onto and over the island of Cyprus.
There is some very expensive and complicated routing equipment that has been put on the island by third-parties, and it connects three continents together.
However, Cyprus itself shares very little of this network capacity. This is because CYTA is a hangover from the 1960s British GPO that ran the networks, and in most places on the island CYTA still employ the same 1960s switchgear that was left in place by the British. It is running well over capacity already, and this is set to continue whilst they insist on keeping the price of telecommunications low and receive minimal investment from the central government pot.
Basically low central taxation = poor and unreliable network infrastructure.
Hence, although Cyprus is a strategically important technical resource for the rest of the world, it gets very little benefit from this as it cannot pay to access the resource.
The chances of success for your potential internet based business therefore will depend on where you base yourself. If for example you’re based near the coast, when it is windy, the telegraph lines fall over, and the Internet is cut off. This again is a hangover from the very old and minimally robust network engineering on the island which in the main part consists of ADSL over twisted-pair phone line). The upload and download speeds are therefore not usually balanced, and (where I am) limited to 2Mb/sec download, and 256kb/sec upload.
Also note that you will never actually see the quoted speed or capacity from these lines (you may get half of these numbers on a good day) because of the following:
a) the distance from the exchange causes signal attenuation meaning that data packets are noisy/corrupt by the time they have reached servers and
must be re-requested, and
b) the massive level of contention on the CYTA lines (how much you have to fight your neighbours to get your packet of data to the front of the queue before theirs).
These technical issues may be why the island isn’t overly flooded with internet based entrepreneurs. Just a few thoughts…


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## RonJeremy (Sep 17, 2009)

cool, you rarely think about how internet must be connected in some way ie. through some giganormous cable that goes at the bottom of the sea.

brittish technology from the 1960ies.. yikes, oh well I rather have bad infrastructure and low taxes than paying most of my salary in tax so my ned neighbers can drive their car and keep up their 1 ciggaret pack a day habbit on their combination of jobseekers-allowance, housing benefit, counciltax benefit & child benefits


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

Our business is web based and we spend a great many hours on the internet. 
Although it is slow compared to speeds inthe UK we have never had any problems
(except the rare occassions when some idiot developer cuts through the underground cables)
I do sometimes get a little bit frustrated when I am downloading large files or lots of high resolution pictures but on the whole I have no problems with the internet here.


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## Darragh34 (Aug 31, 2010)

voltron said:


> Ron,
> 
> I have a horrible mental imagine of web developers "trolling" now hahahhahaa u of all people should know what that is lol...
> 
> ...


Hey I live in Ireland where prices are just stupid! I remember feeling like Cyprus was about the same in terms of cost of living if maybe just a little bit more expensive.


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

Darragh34 said:


> Hey I live in Ireland where prices are just stupid! I remember feeling like Cyprus was about the same in terms of cost of living if maybe just a little bit more expensive.


Actually Cyprus is less expensive than Ireland and no matter what voltron says you can live cheaply if you buy local food and not British branded goods. Buy meat and veg from the local fruit markets not the big supermarkets and use shops like the Euro shop etc for toiletries and cleaning products.
Its nonsense to say Cypriots only eat souvalki, its is simply that souvlaki is the Cypriot version of fast food.


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## voltron (Aug 19, 2010)

I work in an office with around 30 cypriots and we go out every day for souvlaki.. ok some days thai sopme days buffett but generally its souvlaki.. pork, chicken.. its great! 

I only eat one meal a day now so in that respect its cheap.


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

voltron said:


> I work in an office with around 30 cypriots and we go out every day for souvlaki.. ok some days thai sopme days buffett but generally its souvlaki.. pork, chicken.. its great!
> 
> I only eat one meal a day now so in that respect its cheap.


Thats a bit different to shopping and eating at home though. As I said, souvlaki is Cyprus fast food but buying the ingredients to cook and eat at home is totally different. If you shop carefully it isnt expensive.
Oh by the way, frappay may sound like frappay but the correct spelling is frappe.


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## theresoon (Apr 11, 2008)

voltron said:


> I work in an office with around 30 cypriots and we go out every day for souvlaki.. ok some days thai sopme days buffett but generally its souvlaki.. pork, chicken.. its great!
> 
> I only eat one meal a day now so in that respect its cheap.


Thai, did you say Thai? Where is the Thai? You are in Nicosia right?


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## voltron (Aug 19, 2010)

Yep in nicosia... 

Thai etc.. 
deleted address and phone numbers


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## voltron (Aug 19, 2010)

I have only ever heard frappe said and not seen it in english... Its cold coffe to me yuck!


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

voltron said:


> I have only ever heard frappe said and not seen it in english... Its cold coffe to me yuck!


Yummy frothy coffee The best bit is slurping the froth out of the bottom of your glass with as much noise as possible


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## voltron (Aug 19, 2010)

update!!! Lunch = chicken souvlaki and shiftelia.. chips and coke zero!

im a bad man!


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## theresoon (Apr 11, 2008)

voltron said:


> Yep in nicosia...
> 
> Thai etc..
> deleted address and phone numbers


Thanks Voltron,

hehehe I got it Nikkis Avenue. I 'll find it.


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## Acestan (Mar 6, 2010)

I am moving to Pissouri in November and will need reliable Internet for my work.
Is Cytanet the only company I can use?


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## kimonas (Jul 19, 2008)

Acestan said:


> I am moving to Pissouri in November and will need reliable Internet for my work.
> Is Cytanet the only company I can use?


There are other providers, but choice is limited and restricted to certain locations. ASDL is the dominant (and unreliable) technology. Cable based internet is available in a few urban locations. Satellite technology is available at a price for corporate services islandwide.


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