fyi - my experience with Dreamhost - Re: [SGVLUG] recommend ahosting provider

[Emerson, Tom (*IC)]

> -----Original Message----- Of John E. Kreznar
> 
> Why don't people host their own web servers in these days of 
> broadband access?  The incremental cost for a static IP 
> address (if not already
> installed) must be less than these hosting services, and all 
> the technical and contractual problems are averted.

ISP's were quick to wise up about at-home hosting -- At my ISP [prodigy
-> pacbell -> SBC -> yahoo ->att], it's in the TOS that anyone
"provisioned after <some date of some year I forget now...>", may NOT
"host" any services -- as you might guess, I got provisioned before that
date :)  (Of course, the TOS may have changed again since I last read
it...)

Some ISP's will let you host.  Others will charge more for the
"privilege", and still others may do analysis and traffic-shaping/QoS to
ensure you "play well with others"

It's also possible that we're talking about usage levels that (far)
exceed what you can "pump out" from your home in the first place...
[and/or little johnny wants to play warcraft/soldier of
fortune/whatever-the-latest-shooter-is and that will chew up the
bandwidth anyway, not to mention downloading ISO's of the latest linux
distro...]