In my search for cheap personal colocation, I found that the best place to start is with small local ISP's. They're often willing to offer you flat rate (i.e. not usage-based) colocation for any server you want (1U, 10U, server tower, whatever). The prices I found across the lake here in Wisconsin varied from about $150/month to $300/month, all for more-or-less the same thing: they'll put your server in their offices and hook it up to their backbone, letting you use however much bandwidth you want. Obviously these places don't have oodles of bandwidth (the place I went with had 3mb/sec total), but unless you're doing lots of filehosting or something that's probably not such a problem. Also, since these little Mom and Pop ISP's don't usually do much more than residential dial-up and whatnot their usage is primarily downstream, giving you fairly full usage of their upstream bandwidth.
If you're willing to travel to Chicago, DLS.net does 10mb/sec unmetered colocation for $300/month. I didn't go with them and thus have no personal experience, but they seemed pretty good, and they're much better-connected than most (100mb/sec to Genuity, 45mb/sec to UUNet).
BTW, I'm using my colocated box for pretty much what you're using it for -- a couple Quake III servers, e-mail, and whatnot -- and it works out pretty well. I pay $250/month, though, which is more than you seem to be looking for.
Maybe I'm missing something obvious (wouldn't be the first time!), but why not do something a little more simple, like just charge them for access to your land?
I don't have any clue how much this line is worth to your phone company, so I'll pick some arbitrary number: $2000/month. That's nowhere near enough for a T-3, but that'll get you a nice unmetered T-1 from a good ISP, with some change left over to upgrade your boxen and whatnot, and you won't have to deal with the phone company regarding the line -- let's face it, if they're paying directly for your line, they're going to muck things up every chance they get. But there's not much they can do to muck things up when all they're doing is sending you a check in the mail every once in a while.
Anyway, just a thought. Wish I were your in position, just for the simple pleasure of getting to mess with the telco instead of the other way around for once.
It's Episode 1 all over again...
on
D&D Trailer
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· Score: 1
The impossibly goody-two-shoes empress who believes everyone should be nice is gonna be the leader of the good guys?
Remind you of anyone? I'll give you a hint: in real life, Slashdot readers as a majority seem to favor pouring hot grits into her pants.
Thanks to that Scary Movie guy for proving once again that in action movies, black guys should play the scared comedic thief with no morals and a thirst for easy cash.
Mes-a name-a Jar-Jar Binks!
Blue lipstick??? That's supposed to look evil?
Well, red and black face-paint worked for Darth Maul...
If the dragons look like CGI at this resolution, can you imagine them on a movie screen?
Mes-a name-a Jar-Jar Binks!
"Then we'll make them go through a dungeon! Yeah! Because, you know, we've got dragons, but where are the dungeons? Huh?"
Sorry, I don't have any witty comment about that one. But you get the idea.
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If you're willing to travel to Chicago, DLS.net does 10mb/sec unmetered colocation for $300/month. I didn't go with them and thus have no personal experience, but they seemed pretty good, and they're much better-connected than most (100mb/sec to Genuity, 45mb/sec to UUNet).
BTW, I'm using my colocated box for pretty much what you're using it for -- a couple Quake III servers, e-mail, and whatnot -- and it works out pretty well. I pay $250/month, though, which is more than you seem to be looking for.
Maybe I'm missing something obvious (wouldn't be the first time!), but why not do something a little more simple, like just charge them for access to your land?
I don't have any clue how much this line is worth to your phone company, so I'll pick some arbitrary number: $2000/month. That's nowhere near enough for a T-3, but that'll get you a nice unmetered T-1 from a good ISP, with some change left over to upgrade your boxen and whatnot, and you won't have to deal with the phone company regarding the line -- let's face it, if they're paying directly for your line, they're going to muck things up every chance they get. But there's not much they can do to muck things up when all they're doing is sending you a check in the mail every once in a while.
Anyway, just a thought. Wish I were your in position, just for the simple pleasure of getting to mess with the telco instead of the other way around for once.
Remind you of anyone? I'll give you a hint: in real life, Slashdot readers as a majority seem to favor pouring hot grits into her pants.
Thanks to that Scary Movie guy for proving once again that in action movies, black guys should play the scared comedic thief with no morals and a thirst for easy cash.
Mes-a name-a Jar-Jar Binks!
Blue lipstick??? That's supposed to look evil?
Well, red and black face-paint worked for Darth Maul...
If the dragons look like CGI at this resolution, can you imagine them on a movie screen?
Mes-a name-a Jar-Jar Binks!
"Then we'll make them go through a dungeon! Yeah! Because, you know, we've got dragons, but where are the dungeons? Huh?"
Sorry, I don't have any witty comment about that one. But you get the idea.