The vertical lines are longitudes. The degrees (i.e. 50°) gives the width of each area in longitude degrees.

During 2006 Broadband has penetrated USA almost completely, to a great extent also North Western Europe, some places in the Middle East, especially so in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. This doesn't, however, mean you can disregard the download time variations. There are two reasons for this.

It's being said people on average wait 7-8 seconds before they move to the next website. This is still valid for slow connections (modem and telephone line), which is what the majority of the world is using. The other reason is; when a person changes over to Broadband connection, he/she very fast gets accustomed to the new greater speed. Now that person wont wait anymore so long, may be 4-5 seconds only.

You can do this yourself.

Take a small size World map and cover it with a transparent plastic sheet. Fasten the plastic sheet with thumbtacks or something like that so it doesn't move over the map. Then you follow the steps below:

1. Mark the Western limit of your target area (line 1).
   
2. Mark the Eastern limit for the location of your server at 120° (8 hrs x 15°) West of line (1). This gives you line (2). When the time is 05 PM (1700 hrs) at line (1) it is 8 hrs less = 09 AM at line (2).
   
3. Mark the Eastern limit of your target area = line (3).
   
4. Mark the Western limit for the location of your server at 120° (8 hrs x 15°) East of line (3) This gives you line(4). When the time is 09 AM at line (3) it is 8 hrs more = 05 PM (1700 hrs) at line (4).
   

If you leave 30° longitude for your target area it will leave you 90° of longitude (6 time zones) for your server location area. The wider your target area, the less is left for your server location area (and vice versa). The optimal location for your server is at the middle longitude of your server location area (blue area).

This means, when you have business hours in the yellow area, it's always outside business hours in the blue one.

Example.

If you chose as your target area (yellow area) Europe, then the Western limit of your target area (1) would be about at Glasgow/Birmingham (UK) = 008°W. This would give 008° + 120° = 128°W, which is just West of Vancouver (W. Canada) or just East of Hawaii/Alaska as the Eastern limit of your server location (blue) area (line 2).

The Eastern limit for your target area (yellow) could be just East of Cyprus = 034°E (3). This gives 034° + 120° = 154°E, which is just East of New Guinea/Australia as the Western limit of your server location (blue) area (line 4). Unfortunately the optimal location for your server would in this case fall in the middle of the Pacific!

Your server location for Europe as a target, could then be either Hawaii/Vancouver/California or East Australia/Japan/New Zealand.

If you, on the contrary, want to target Asia, then you should choose as optimal server location E. Canada/US = Quebec/Montreal/New York.

Compare your local time with Philippine local time below (in the 24 hour system).

Philippine local time right now:

(Local time is not included in the printer friendly version.)

You can also get a world map with time zones. Note: North Europe is using "Summer Time", i.e. Local time + 1 hour from end of March to end of October.