I am budgeting out a web server, one to start, and plan to buy more soon.
The problem is, what kind of connection would I need?
I have a dsl line for personal computing, but would not use that for the web hosting.
I can budget around $100-200 a month for now.
I am on the east coast of the US.
Am i looking at a T1 or T3?
also what providers do you recommend?

You aren't going to get a T1 or T3 for $200 a month. Your best option would be to lease a server from a discount provider such as ev1servers.net, layeredtech.com, or similar. Then, you will have a similar machine in a real datacenter and on a real network, often for under $200/month.

thanks, but that still leaves me... what kind of connectin would i need if i did not have a budget

If you didn't have a budget you would need at least a pair of lines from different providers, plus battery and generator backup power, plus high-end hvac, etc. etc. In-house setups like this get very expensive, very fast.

Once you lease or colo some servers somewhere, your current DSL would likely be plenty adequate for your office.

Just for your info, T1 lines tend to be between $300 and $1200 per month depending on your physical location. T3's are probably going to run you between $2500 for a fractional and $8000 for a full per month, at least in my neck of the woods.

The answer is simple: You don't want to house servers at your home.

This is why datacenters offer rackspace, unless you plan to start a project in which you have all factors implemented, customers awaiting your servers for services I would not host servers at my home. NOW, hosting a personal page, and using a personal computer for file storage, and personal use is a different story.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but DSL isn't the best inet connection (64-256KB/s speed on average) for outside connections. Splitting this connection once would cause major lag.

Get some rackspace, mail your servers, and manage everything from home, thats the way to go. :agree:

You are right on on DSL not being the best for hosting, though in my neck of the woods at least DSL tends to be 1.5Mb to 6Mb down and 256k to 1Mbit up.

Hello,

Well I would suggest you to go for a broadband connection with 256 kbps speed. That should be enough for inital setup of a webhosting business. Once the business grows and you are able to invest more then you can go for lease lines.

Thank you.

Regards,

I expect that much off of our Cable providers out here in California, but i've yet to see a suitable DSL provider for me that can provide the hefty speeds for download/uploads. :P

A cable connection would be suitable for personal websites up to "maybe" 4-6 personal websites without much traffic. Just that can't pay the upgrade bill.

Then again there is that saying, "start small and get big." However, I still would not trust DSL/Broadband. Just go for a company, save some money.

thanks, but that still leaves me... what kind of connectin would i need if i did not have a budget

Even if you have millions of dollars, co-location in a real datacenter is still the way to go. The difference is that you would be starting small with individual-server co-location, whereas if you had a bigger budget you might have your own suite in the building.

You should have no problem finding co-location for your budget. You should be able to co-locate a 1U server on a 100Mbps burstable ethernet connection (compared to 1.5Mbps for a T1, or 45Mbps for a T3/DS3), and do it for around $100/month.

I would have to agree with everyone else in this thread: either go colocated or low-cost dedicated. If you had hundreds of thousands of dollars, you could possibly open a small datacenter, but, you have to consider the costs. You have to have staff to man the datacenter, the building, the internet connectivity, the racks, the servers, the switches and other network equipment, backup power (including UPSes and backup generators) and the list goes on (theres more, but, I can't think of it). Unless you have that much money to spend, just go colocated or dedicated.