E-mail Hosting and DSL Questions

[tiggerfan]

Slightly updated details below

This is my basic situation. I have two phone lines run into my house right now, one is residential line w/DSL the other is my office/business line.

Since I rarely, if ever, use the Residential line I am probably going to cancel it and use office line and cellular to get all calls, thus saving about $ 45 a month.

The issue I have to resolve is what to do with the DSL. I have a couple options to ponder

1) I can have a dry DSL line at/3MB speeed and pay about $ 45, but keep my current e-mail addresses. The business line averages $ 60 per month but would probably go up somewhat if I started doing personal calls there too. So figure net cost of $ 105-$ 110 per month.

2 ) I can get a bundle on the business line and pay about $ 100 for DSL (3MB) and the full business package w/unlimited calls. With taxes about the same as #1 but I have unlimited calls and able to deduct this expense on business.

But I would not be able to keep current e-mail addresses, so I'd have to deal with telling clients/etc of the change.

What I've pretty much decided to do is to do dry line first while I get my own domain and email address then eventually go to the one line setup

So I need input on who does a good job w/domain and email hosting.

Any comments ?

[tiggerfan]

Updated info above

[NeverNeverland]

My question is.. why can't you just do personal calls on your cell phone so the amount you pay for your business line doesn't go up?

[tiggerfan]

Well either way its pretty much a tossup.

If the business stays at $ 60 (which is where it is now) plus $ 45 for the DSL it comes to $ 105.

With the bundle its $ 100 plus taxes, so about the same.

So in terms of those plans I will pretty much play it by ear, probably start out with option 1 (keeping 2 lines in place w/old e-mail addresses) and then decide later if I want to consolidate.

However I do think getting my own e-mail domain would look professional (IE tiggerfan@lawoffice.com versus tiggerfan@att.com) so I will be doing that.

I just need to get input on what companies are reliable, which ones are not, and so on.

[Sambo]

Originally Posted by tiggerfan

However I do think getting my own e-mail domain would look professional (IE tiggerfan@lawoffice.com versus tiggerfan@att.com) so I will be doing that.

I just need to get input on what companies are reliable, which ones are not, and so on.

A lot depends on how much you want to pay, and what other uses you will have for the hosting. Will you run a business site?

[tiggerfan]

I won't run a business site in the sense of e-commerce or anything.

For those who don't know I am a lawyer focused mostly on bankruptcy.

So I would probably create a web site to promote my practice but it would be informational in the sense of telling who I am, what I do, etc with an option for them to e-mail me for a consultation.

I might also get a second domain for my blog.

But for the most part it would just be for e-mail and having the more professional looking e-mail extension of @lawoffice.com versus @att.com

As to what I want to pay, I'd like to keep it reasonably inexpensive since I wouldn't be doing that much. I've seen prices of around $ 10-20 a month on various sites and wouldn't want to go much over that

[HighLeveller]

Originally Posted by tiggerfan

I won't run a business site in the sense of e-commerce or anything.

For those who don't know I am a lawyer focused mostly on bankruptcy.

So I would probably create a web site to promote my practice but it would be informational in the sense of telling who I am, what I do, etc with an option for them to e-mail me for a consultation.

In this case, absolutely, it would be better. The main advantage is the site and email addresses will be yours forever if you keep the domain.

Originally Posted by tiggerfan

I might also get a second domain for my blog.

As you've probably found out by now, a lot of hosts will throw in a domain for free or very cheap if you buy a year of hosting up front. Webspace can have any number of domains point to it, so you could buy a second one for the usual $~35/year (from any registrar you want--doesn't have to be same company as your web host) and have it go to the blog portion of your webspace.

[tiggerfan]

I agree it is worth it. But do you have any places you suggest we use or avoid ?

[Sambo]

Three to consider:

www.valueweb.com

www.inmotionhosting.com

www.ixwebhosting.com

I have clients that have these hosts, and have great success.

Personally, I have a server on the Global IT Hosting Leader - but I don't think you want that sort of arrangement...

The two I would say to avoid have in the past two years bit the dust. No problem there, they deserved to fail.