Web hosting over home broadband...

Factual Questions
1

My local power company is going to be offering Broadband over Power Lines in the next six months or so, at around $15/month. Currently, that’s what I’m paying for dialup. I’m also paying $20/month for space on a shared web server. The hosting package includes a static IP.

The BPL will be 1Mbps up and down.

Webalizer shows my site’s peak average hourly transfer (1-2pm) is 20MB.

20MB * 1024 * 1024 = 20971520 bytes.

20971520 * 8 = 167772160 bits/hour.

167772160 / 60 / 60 = 46603bps.

In other words, during my peak hour, I’m serving at about 46kbps.

Is my math right?

As you can probably guess, the idea of slapping Debian on an old Celeron box and running a combined web host/gateway/firewall is pretty attractive, provided I can get an IP address from the ISP for a reasonable price.

Any thoughts? I’m running nothing but PHP and a couple of MySQL databases.

And yes, I’m aware of the ethical issues surrounding BPL. But I live in a downtown area, where the radio reception is terrible to begin with, and the power lines are buried.

2

I didn’t try to check your math.

But, I have a P3 500 MHz box serving a web page, smtp/pop3, and mp3s for me and family over a cable modem connection. I have never come close to saturating the link.

I have a dynamic IP and use a dynamic DNS service to make my site available.

Be aware that most ISPs specifically prohibit running servers.

3

Both the local cable company and local DSL company charge 5 to 10 bucks a month over the residential price for “business class” service with a static IP, and my guess is that the power company is going to do the same. I can’t help but thinking they’re going to assume that with a static IP, you’re planning on running some kind of server.

Good caveat, though.