[vox] providing services from a broadband connection

[David Margolis]

Like a lot of you probably have done, I have forsaken my Comcast cable
internet acceptable use policy by running a small
web/mail/file/ssh/smb/etc. box out of my home network.

This is all experimental and fun, and I don't expect 100% uptime or
anything, but every once and a while my network connection just flakes
out.  It's not enough to complain about or bother calling tech support
about as it doesn't happen all that often, and when it does it's no more
than an hour or two.  It's no more flakey than anybody's DSL that I know,
and for the most part it's a real rock solid, fast, consistant connection
that I don't mind paying for given what I get.

The most recent outage was yesterday.  My cousin e-mailed me and said "hey
I can't access those pictures of your son you sent me."  I was I work, so
I tried to SSH in and...nothing.  A few hours go by, and
sure enough, it's back up.

My question is this.  If I want a bit more consistancy for my Web pages
and personal mail accounts, should I have to pay for monthly hosting ON
TOP of what I pay for broadband?  Part of how I justify my $50+ a month is
by telling myself that I'm basically getting free hosting out of the deal.
Sure Comcast provides Web space, but it's not very big, doesn't support
PHP/MySQL, doesn't support my domain name, doesn't come with a shell
account, etc.

Is anybody struggling with this sort of thing?  I have plenty of scattered
Web accounts so it's not like i'm lacking for Web space, but nothing
supports what I want to do quite like my perfectly customized box.

Let me reiterate that I don't think my internet connection is really to blame.
They provide what they claim to provide in a reasonable manner.  To
complain that I don't have a solid enough connection to provide services
I'm not supposed to be providing isn't going to fly anyway.

Just fishing for thoughts...is anybody paying for broadband, but also
paying for separate Web or Mail hosting?

Thanks,
Dave Margolis