ISPs for the Little Guy? 118
jjshoe asks: "While access to the Internet varies greatly, depending on where you are in the USA, I recently went on the hunt for an ISP that provided me the ability to have a 'broadband' link to the Internet. I am looking for would be the ability to lease/rent static IP's, so I could host my own DNS/WWW/E-mail server. I was wondering what ISP fellow Slashdot readers use for themselves, as well as what they pay. I have gotten quotes for $50 a month for a single static IP on top of my monthly DSL fee. This seems slightly outrageous to me. Colocation is not an option as it generally runs $150 a month and does not provide me Internet access. I am open to any other ideas the community might have."
Remember (Score:4, Informative)
I know I once payed Verizon ~$70/month thinking I would host my own site, only to find out they don't allow home website hosting.
Omsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Omsoft (Score:3, Informative)
Speakeasy.net (Score:3, Informative)
speakeasy.net (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Omsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Re:speakeasy.net (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Powweb (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Go to a hosting provider. (Score:3, Informative)
That kind of depends... If you've already got ADSL, with static IP, then the added cost of hosting is very small. If you want to host several hundred MB of MP3s or JPGs you're not going to find a cheaper commercial solution.
I've had some pretty poor experience of dedicated service providers. They go offline for a week, every day promising it will be up in 2 hours. They lose backups. They arbitrarily change hosting software and interfaces. Expensive ones may be robust, but "cheaply" and "robustly" don't seem to go together. If I host it, I control it. If my server goes up in smoke, if I care that much about reliability I'll go out & buy another one today (or swap over another old PC).
I don't recommend hosting your own site unless you already need "fancy" service (multiple static IPs, fast upstream) for other reasons.
Depends where you're coming from. I host my own web and email. I've learned a huge amount doing so. I have far better access to the server than I'm used to with commercial services. It means that MB stored data cost nothing (so all my music & all my photos are there, available from home or office, but pw protected). I can play with different languages. I can learn about virtual hosting. And yes, it opens up the possibility of home-based webcams, home automation etc.
Hosting your own can be great fun. Start with a limited-functionality webserver such as tinyweb [ritlabs.com] - less to learn, less to go wrong, fewer security holes. Don't host an email server until you're certain you understand about open relays, and then test it at http://www.abuse.net/relay.html [abuse.net]
Back to the original topic. I'm in the UK, so can't help with US providers. But I use Zen ADSL [zenadsl.co.uk]. GBP23.82 per month, single static IP. No blocked ports.
Re:Ask Slashdot (Score:3, Informative)
Funny thing is that this exists. Dunno about the US, but my ISP in Sweden offers a
Well, the differance is that it's more like $40 a month.
http://www.noip.com/ (Score:1, Informative)