People in need of hosting check this ideea out... What do u think?

[cbp]

Ok, so I have been looking for a paid host for more than 4 months now.
All I have found is either too expensive, and safe to go with, or too cheap, and not trustful enough.
Now, for me, $1/month makes a difference and probably for you too.
From what I have seen most (probably all) hosting companies get a server from EV1, ThePlanet, servermatrix, or managed and then resell to more people with a price that will ensure a profit. Plus that hosting company also makes you pay for customer service and also for some profit. From there comes the so expensive price.

Now, lets get to the point.

I was thinking that 20 or more ppl could get together and pay for such a server not more than $6/month each.
If you calculate you will most likely get at least the double space/bandwidth that you would get for the same price from any other hosting company. An estimate will be 3Gb space and 30Gb bandwidth for ~$6US/month. All resources will be divided proportionally to the total number of ppl and to the amount each one wants to pay. No profit, just pure cheap hosting.
If 20+ ppl get a server we bypass that intermediate host and we can get cheap hosting.
Now, I don't know all the details of how hosting works, (maybe someone can tell me) but this really seems an interesting concept.

Yes, the first thing you will ask will be "Can we trust each other?" and the answer is the same you would get if you would go with any other hosting company "No!". But we have to take a certain risk. For example we could pay for 2 months in advance and in case someone quits in that delay we can find someone else.

So, tell me what do you think? Is it worth the risk?
Would it work?

If you think this might just work then we need to gather up and discuss this on a chat or forum somewhere.

20+ ppl will be likely to join in very fast since this is a very tempting idea.

Hell, we could even give free web hosting for those in need and thus make more ppl join us and thus expand and make it even cheaper.

Now, I am waiting for your comments.

[ReFiNeD]

well,

sounds like a great idea!

Unfortunately, I can't trust 20 people all having root access, but that is just me :P

And who would manage the server?

And who would do the purchasing and handle people's money?

my $.02

[cbp]

Well, just one or 2 will have that kind of "freedom"
What I want is to make a nonprofit webhosting group with cheap hosting.


And who would manage the server?
well, the most experienced of us all. I certanly won't be able to do that. But, how hard can it be.


And who would do the purchasing and handle people's money?
Either one person with a bussiness paypal account, or maybe we can even talk with the ones we get the server from so that we all pay to them directly and we get a receipt of all transactions made.

Maybe there are other options more efficient.

Anyway, as I said a certain degree of risk is required for this.

[ReFiNeD]

Well,

Sounds like an OK idea; however, I don't think it will quite work out. Finding 20 people is a litter harder than you would expect, even if they are just paying $6.00 / month.

If you want you can contact me in PM.

Thanks,
Ryan

[bozley05]

I have also considered this idea, but in stead of having 20 people, more like 5 people (for resellers), but the sheer mechanics of running everything are just too mind boggling.

You might try setting up a non-profit hosting consortium that people could trust. You acting as a third party to offer people cut-price reseller accounts or something, i donno...

Good luck whateva ya do, and PM if you want any help ;)

[JodoHost]

You don't just pay your hosting company for disk space and bandwidth, you pay them for support & uptime. When you start troubleshooting your own problems and recovering your own crashed server, you'll realise why hosting companies exist.

[patwa]

I think it's a good idea, and in this day and age, it certainly seemsthe way people are going, i.e. we already have shared transport, shared internet usage in a street/block, but i have a few questions.

20 people isn't a problem, the law of averages is that you will get that number easily, the only stumbling blick is that people are suspicious.
it's cheap, but it also has to be reliable, both financially and also technically.
what other services would be offered, apart from just space and bandwidth?
People like to think they can trust each other, but here you are giving one sole person a lot of power, namely, the person who physically has access to the equipment, I know you're about to say it's the same with an ISP, but an ISP is publically registered and (in the UK anyway), if anything/anyone runs amock, there are desiginated channels through which you can claim recompense for any damage, BECAUSE it's registered, the users have that protection. Would there be such a thing here?
Because it's a group thing, there would that 'bond' between the users, i.e. it is more likely that the members would know each other. That in itself brings up questions. Only one person in charge? how about a rotating 'ownership' then people feel involved. after all, they are paying a reduce price precisely because they're sharing.

sorry for my rant.

[Webdude]

Originally posted by cbp
From what I have seen most (probably all) hosting companies get a server from EV1, ThePlanet, servermatrix, or managed

Well then you have seen wrong because we certainly dont....sheesh. I suppose you think AOL is the internet too, right?

[cbp]

Originally posted by Webdude
Well then you have seen wrong because we certainly dont....sheesh. I suppose you think AOL is the internet too, right? That is a harsh statement you just said there.
I said "most" and not all.
Anyways, most hosting companies I looked up are with those data centers. Maybe I looked in the wrong place, sry.
Oh, when I refer to "hosting companies," I do refer even to those hosting sites ran by (even only) one individual.
Sorry I offended you in any way Webdude. If you have a datacenter yourself that is cheaper, more reliable, and better suited for my (our) needs, please do share it with us. Those datacenters I mentioned were mere examples, that is all. I won't mention all the dc's on this planet, unless you really want me to. (and pay me for doing that :) )

And I don't get what you mean by the AOL being the internet. Maybe you also care to share your opinion on your personal beliefs of what you just said. Don't take it too personal. I look for no dispute with people (like you) who obviously know much more than I will ever do. And no, I am not being sarcastic.

[JodoHost]

Nice to see you are using HSphere webdude :)
Believe its much more powerful and stable than cPanel

[Jan]

Originally posted by cbp
All I have found is either too expensive, and safe to go with, or too cheap, and not trustful enough.
<snip>
I was thinking that 20 or more ppl could get together and pay for such a server not more than $6/month each.
So you would rather put your trust in 20 people (that you may or may not know) than just one host?

There are many reliable hosts out there who have low cost plans. Just ask and we can give you the names of many well established hosts :)

[Webdude]

Well you DID say "(probably all) hosts". Anyway, you gotta learn my sense of humour, it can seem dry at times. I'm the kind of guy who will walk into a corporate office to install a network, get asked how long I have been doing this, respond that this is my first day ever, never break a smile, and go straight to work. All to watch the concerned looks on everyone else's faces :biggrin2:

The AOL remark was just some funny stuff I hear coming from some of the idiot secretaries I run into where they think AOL "IS" the internet.

As for our DC, we can match anything Rackshack (aka: Ev1servers.net) can do.......just we arent as automated on the server setups. Our DC isnt as big as RS, but can push walls out as needed. It would take 1-2 weeks for me to build and setup a server for you because of red tape at the florida office, physical contract agreement, etc, etc.

Send your own machine, and we'll host it for $49 per month with 700 gigs bw allotted to it. Right now we dont advertise any of this, and wont for several more months. But we are about to put a few colo-ed servers online this week. So we are moving into that market. Right now, I am working on a monitoring server (named Sherona (might rename) :-)) that will monitor all servers we host. She will monitor processes, traffic, services, etc. Notice uptime at Worldzonepro shot straight up to 100%? That's because of my early implementations of Sherona. She restarts failed or down services such as mail, mysql, ftp, http, etc,etc. Will reboot the machine if it starts bogging down, can send reports to you if traffic starts getting high, all kinds of things. Something Rackshack cant touch for the price. Plus we have a new $15,000 program and machine that blocks such attacks as dos and ddos on the network. Another thing places like RS have no protection against for you...

Ok, well you asked :P Now everyone knows why I havent been around as much over the past few months..

[ReFiNeD]

Ok, I have a really cheap dedicated server I can offer...

Intel Pentium 4 2.4ghz
- 120gig hard drive
- 1000gigs of transfer
- 1gig DDR RAM
- cPanel/WHM installed (free)
- 100mbit/s connectivity
FULLY MANAGED (so you don't have to fight over who gets root)

$170.00 / month

..or the celeron

Intel Celeron 1.7ghz
- 120gig hard drive
- 1000gigs of transfer
- 512mb DDR RAM
- cPanel/WHM installed (free)
- 100mbit/s connectivity
FULLY MANAGED (so you don't have to fight over who gets root)

$140.00 / month

If you are interested, please contact me:

AIM: ryanrockman
MSN: refinedhosting
YAHOO: refined_hosting
EMAIL: admin@refined-designs.com

or PM me...

Thanks,
Ryan
(I will help you with payments, etc, I have a PayPal business account that I can help you guys with)

How you could split it
10 people
$16.00 / month each
12gb space / 100gb bandwidth

5 people
$32.00 / month each
24gb space / 200gb bandwidth

You could probably oversell about 25% so...

13 people
$12.00 / month each
12gb space / 100gb bandwidth

8 people
$20.00 / month each
24gb space / 100gb bandwidth

Not too bad, eh?

[outkast]

Originally posted by ReFiNeD
Ok, I have a really cheap dedicated server I can offer...

Intel Pentium 4 2.4ghz
- 120gig hard drive
- 1000gigs of transfer
- 1gig DDR RAM
- cPanel/WHM installed (free)
- 100mbit/s connectivity
FULLY MANAGED (so you don't have to fight over who gets root)

$170.00 / month

..or the celeron

Intel Celeron 1.7ghz
- 120gig hard drive
- 1000gigs of transfer
- 512mb DDR RAM
- cPanel/WHM installed (free)
- 100mbit/s connectivity
FULLY MANAGED (so you don't have to fight over who gets root)

$140.00 / month

If you are interested, please contact me:

AIM: ryanrockman
MSN: refinedhosting
YAHOO: refined_hosting
EMAIL: admin@refined-designs.com

or PM me...

Thanks,
Ryan
(I will help you with payments, etc, I have a PayPal business account that I can help you guys with)

How you could split it
10 people
$16.00 / month each
12gb space / 100gb bandwidth

5 people
$32.00 / month each
24gb space / 200gb bandwidth

You could probably oversell about 25% so...

13 people
$12.00 / month each
12gb space / 100gb bandwidth

8 people
$20.00 / month each
24gb space / 100gb bandwidth

Not too bad, eh?

not bad, but remember that after the actual formatted hard and OS/cPanel/other components (PHP/MySQL/etc) How much will be left?
usually, 120GB hards are 110GB after format. And around 1GB for all the software should be enough right?
so around 10GB per person on the 10 people choice.

Just my honest opinion

[ReFiNeD]

Originally posted by outkast
not bad, but remember that after the actual formatted hard and OS/cPanel/other components (PHP/MySQL/etc) How much will be left?
usually, 120GB hards are 110GB after format. And around 1GB for all the software should be enough right?
so around 10GB per person on the 10 people choice.

Just my honest opinion


Still, great deal :P

it would still be able to oversell

-Ryan

[InstaNet]

Originally posted by JodoHost
You don't just pay your hosting company for disk space and bandwidth, you pay them for support & uptime. When you start troubleshooting your own problems and recovering your own crashed server, you'll realise why hosting companies exist.

I totally agree what JodoHost has said, only a small portion of your monthly fee goes to covering server costs. Most of it goes to support, and keeping the server online. Although you might think, "I don't use support alot each month, or I've never issued a ticket into support"....

[ReFiNeD]

Originally posted by InstaNet
I totally agree what JodoHost has said, only a small portion of your monthly fee goes to covering server costs. Most of it goes to support, and keeping the server online. Although you might think, "I don't use support alot each month, or I've never issued a ticket into support"....


1. Buy my server (hehe, or buy from someone else)
2. Have it managed (I offered management free)
3. Pay for the extra support (I'd give support free, like any hosting plan)
4. You pay the price of a regular server, but the server would not profit any, just pay the cost of the server, etc.

I think it could work. You guys can PM me if you wish, I have a few options available...

[JodoHost]

I think ReFiNeD should clarify what he means by Fully Managed. I guess he intends to wake up at 2am in the morning to bring up a downed server, plans to make backups and create a disaster recovery plan for your server and plans to spends hours in performing custom tasks and troubleshooting.

If yes, I'll be the first one to signup. I think we could fire all our administrators then.

ALOT of works goes into server administration. It's not everyone's cup of coffee. There is a reason why hosting companies exist. Customers pay for alot of things that may not seem apparent at first glance.

[cbp]

I am going to take into account Webdude's advice to buy a server (anyway I need a computer) and talk with a company to host my computer. Practically, all I need is internet speed.
Now that I think about it, my university should be able to provide this for its students. I'll have to talk with my student union to see what they think about it.
Btw, universities should have fast internet speeds, right? How can I check my univ. internet speed?? (website is: concordia.ca (http://www.concordia.ca))

I am probably going try doing this with friends from my school, since I heard a few who were interested in this.
If this works, maybe we will indeed create a non profit organization that will manage the servers (students in CS can do this for portofolio experience).
Anyway, this first has to be thought through so that we can forsee all the downsides.

[InstaNet]

Originally posted by cbp
I am going to take into account Webdude's advice to buy a server (anyway I need a computer) and talk with a company to host my computer. Practically, all I need is internet speed.
Now that I think about it, my university should be able to provide this for its students. I'll have to talk with my student union to see what they think about it.
Btw, universities should have fast internet speeds, right? How can I check my univ. internet speed?? (website is: concordia.ca (http://www.concordia.ca))

I am probably going try doing this with friends from my school, since I heard a few who were interested in this.
If this works, maybe we will indeed create a non profit organization that will manage the servers (students in CS can do this for portofolio experience).
Anyway, this first has to be thought through so that we can forsee all the downsides.

If you already have a server (hardware), you can colocate it in a datacenter which will be able to act as a server. The downsides of hosting your server through your own connection would be the speed and reliability. I don't know about your school's internet connection, but I would doubt they would be able to match the speed given if you were to colocate your server.

[outkast]

some universities get great speeds. I've seen 5mbit+ on them easily. They do throttle most P2P, not sure about servers though

[ReFiNeD]

Originally posted by cbp
I am going to take into account Webdude's advice to buy a server (anyway I need a computer) and talk with a company to host my computer. Practically, all I need is internet speed.
Now that I think about it, my university should be able to provide this for its students. I'll have to talk with my student union to see what they think about it.
Btw, universities should have fast internet speeds, right? How can I check my univ. internet speed?? (website is: concordia.ca (http://www.concordia.ca))

I am probably going try doing this with friends from my school, since I heard a few who were interested in this.
If this works, maybe we will indeed create a non profit organization that will manage the servers (students in CS can do this for portofolio experience).
Anyway, this first has to be thought through so that we can forsee all the downsides.

First off, buying a good sever is quite expensive ($800+. Colocating the server is also another expensive option ($50-$300 / month). Buying all of the software needed ($400 +/- ), having a professional server setup ($200), and also, managing it (24/7).



I think ReFiNeD should clarify what he means by Fully Managed. I guess he intends to wake up at 2am in the morning to bring up a downed server, plans to make backups and create a disaster recovery plan for your server and plans to spends hours in performing custom tasks and troubleshooting.

If yes, I'll be the first one to signup. I think we could fire all our administrators then.

ALOT of works goes into server administration. It's not everyone's cup of coffee. There is a reason why hosting companies exist. Customers pay for alot of things that may not seem apparent at first glance.


What I mean, is that I will setup the software, help with problems, etc and provide 24/7 support via telephone (I am reselling this server/service). The server will be in a secure datacenter that provides free manual reboots...

If your server goes down, I will be notified and will do my best to keep it alive.

-Ryan

[Webdude]

We dont resell for anyone else, but we also dont do "fully managed" for that price either. As for reboots, our monitoring server automatically reboots any machine it sees that is inaccessible for over 5 minutes. Before that starts looking really good, it of course doesnt work if your machine is totally locked up and the monitor server cant get in. In that case, we can offer a dial-in solution that allows you to powercycle the machine (hard reboot) by dialing a certain number, and inputting a 6 digit code.. Our DC is 5 minutes from me too. If one of our techs cant fix the problem, I will go fix it myself..

[PULSE_Inspired]

But, how hard can it be.

I love that one. 20 people who don't know what they're doing sharing resposibility and expenses compared to using one professional host.

I'd be a riot to see what happens when the server goes down, and all the finger pointing.

There are reasons why people use profesisonal hosts.

[gulp]

Hi,

Ok buddy.
These are the few questions people would like to know before they even think of joining your 20 group :

Who do I pay the money to monthly ?
And what is his phone, home-address ?
And how can I be sure that what he provided is true and not some-body else' contact details ?

Do I get a physical recipt for my payments ?
If I get electronic receipts, you can always false claim I forged it.

Assuming that we pay you monthly then,
if I get ripped-off, how do I catch you ?

Are you really interested to start this 20 group just to save a few bucks and just to get some extra band-width ?
Does not sound convincing.
Will you go through all the hassle for those 2 things only ?
Who will maintain the servers ?
What happens if there is needs to upgrade hard-wares and softwares ?
Do we 20 have to pay all over again ?
Will you quit your job to maintain the servers ?
Or is there a real motive behind all this ?
Maybe, you want to raise money and then run-away with peoples' money ?
Or maybe, you want the servers and the great band-widths so that you can send out large number of spam and send-out viruses to your competitors and people who you have grudges with and then get us 20 people in the frying pan ?
Maybe, you want us 20 peoples to pay for high-tech resources so you can make use of them for your illegal commercial or personal purposes ?
Or maybe, you will see which partners receive the most traffic to their web-sites and then falsely claim that we have spammed so you can get rid of us because our traffics are eating up good band-width which you want to reserve all for your own ?

How can we be sure that you will never do any of these ?
Promises over the internet are worthless.

If for any reason you engage in criminal or unethical activities and the law snatches the servers then will you refund us ?
What liabilites will be on our shoulders ?
If you engage in anything bad then do we get sent to prison too since we are your "partners" ?

Who will make the decisions how the servers should be operated and what softwares should be installed on it and what not and what services should be provided and what not?
Who will pay for the softwares ?

How do you expect to attract customers ?
What unique services would you offer ?
Will we be making any profits out of it ?
If not then why not ?
If we make profits, then what will be the legal duties of us all as-well as legal costs ?
If we share the profits, then how can we be sure that you are not ripping us off ?
If we won't be making profits as it will be for our personal uses then how can we be sure that secretly behind the curtains you will not be selling web-space in other names ?


My friend, these are the basic suspicious questions any-one would ask and if you do not have readily available answers for these then you can kiss good-bye to your dreams.

In my ipinion, the more partners, the more hassle and dis-agreements, distrust and arguments.

If you really want my opinion, research why people are unsatisfied with their hosts and then provide them a satisfactory service.
You have already gathered that people are un-happy with slow and low band-width.
We all know, people hate ads placed on their sites by free hosts.
Anything else comes to mind ?
No ?
Well, I can give you one.
Web-hosts always allow us to install "programs" on their web-servers.
These "programs" are "scripts" (Perl Cgi, Php, Python, ColdFusion) which are only installable on the web-space or web-servers.
Web-hosts never allow us to install "programs" which are "softwares" which are for not for installing on web-servers and web-space.
Softwares such as "smtp", "web cache proxy server", "anonymous proxy server", "cache dns", "name server", "webmail" etc. these cannot be installed on a web-server.
Look at it this way, if I want to run :

"smtp", "web cache proxy server", "anonymous proxy server", "cache dns", "name server", "webmail"

then I cannot just upload them to my web-space.
I can only use them on my own computer or get the web-host to install it on his server which he is likely to refuse.
I do not want to install them on my own computer.
So, I am stuck.
I cannot make use of any of those softwares.
Why do not you provide a service which people can get you to install their softwares on your servers so that they can make use of it ?
Look at it this way, I wanted to run an anonymous proxy server so that when the public use it then I can display my sponsor' cpm banners on the top of each page.
This way, they get their anonymousity and I make some money.
But, I am not willing to install the anonymous proxy server on my own computer because I dial-up and my IP changes and I am not always on the internet.
And so, the best option is to hire a dedicated server but that is too expensive.
If the cost was something like the prices of hosting a web-site then that is ok.

I also wanted to run my own dns cache server so that I can monitor which urls get the most traffic so that I can link exchange with them or do some kind of deal to get a portion of that traffic to my web-site.
But, to run a dns cahe, I must install the software on my own computer and you know why I can't do that.
And so, like before the only other option is to hire an expensice dedicated server.

I also wanted to run my own webmail which will weed-out all spam.
I had thought of special features which will 100% weed-out all spam. I believe the webmail would be so good that people will dump hotmail and yahoomail.
I had already written up all the features and was gonna get it custom written.
But, again, I would have to install it on my own computer and we know why I can't do that.

So, you see, now you know what is holding me back from my ventures and I am sure you will find other people who are encountering all sorts of problems to start their own ventures.
Your best bet is to find-out their problems and provide them a solutionable service whether it be free or paid.
Providing such solutions may attract the number of partners you are looking for.
In-fact it may attract 2-3 partners who maybe willing to pay more than $6 and so maybe they can be enough for 20.

Frankly, I think if you are gonna bother yourself with the hassles to find 20 partners so that you can run your own web-host then make money on the side too because one day one or some of your 20 partners may become unemployed and fail to pay the monthly sum.
What will happen then ?
Your dream will come to a halt.

Look what I provided a solution to free hosts :

http://www.freewebspace.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=51057

http://www.freewebspace.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=51059


If you really want my advice.
Gather partners who want to make money but if your ventures fail then they would not mind.
You can make money by providing the free services that I wanted to provide (anonymous proxy, dns cache, spam weeding webmail, etc) and get the chance to display your sponsor cpm banners.
Infact, you can rotate each partners' banners or their sponsors' cpm banners.

[ReFiNeD]

Originally posted by gulp
<Mod edit/removed long quote>

Holy...

Wow! Raise this thread from the dead.

I think the idea is dead