The cost of obtaining a single or a block of static ip addresses is still rather high and the bandwidth provided is also low.

In order for the smaller companies to serve their own web pages and have their own domain mail, they will have to make the decision of eithier to get their domain hosted, get a static ip plan or make use of the dynamic ip addresses that they are allocated with.

Having the domain hosted would save companies intending to get a web presence alot of headaches but leave them with very little flexibility on the kind of pages they can serve on their hosting company. Some are restricted to only plain HTML or ASP pages (Windows-based) while others supporting only PHP and Perl but no ASP (Linux or Unix-based).

Besides that, there are also restriction on number of email accounts, web space allocated which also covers the space required for your mailboxes. If your web pages takes up 20 MB (which is common for ASP pages that link to databases' it will only leaves you with 30 MB for a 50 MB server size allocation. Price of this option (Windows-based' initial setup fee S$85.00 plus monthly hosting charge of S$65.00.

Alternatively, you can self-host. But the overall cost may not be lower because price of a static ip broadband connection is not cheap plus there is no service level assurance, meaning there is no guarantee on the acheivable speed nor the the uptime. Price of this option, monthly around S$280.00 for a 256k unlimited. There is also a initial setup fee for this at around S$150.00.

And the final option would be to get a dynamic ip broadband plan, utilise a dynamic DNS service provider that would allow you to periodically update your ip address on their DNS servers with an updater software. You may also need to get a backup mail server (which most dynamic DNS service provider will provide) to hold you mails in event that your broadband connection is down.

Price of this option, monthly cost of S$105.00 for a 512k 2 GB volume-based dynamic ip plan plus a yearly fee of around S$60.00 for a dynamic DNS service provider. Which works out to be S$110.00 and would be enough for most small and medium companies\' requirements.

You may also wish to look a freeware mail server softwares like Mercury and also its web interface portion SquirrelMail for a truely low cost option. Plus if you will be able to setup your website on any Windows 2000/XP Pro machine with its built-in IIS services.

The cost of self-hosting would have been cheaper in comparision if not for the high cost of DSL services in Singapore and for a bandwidth that is barely enough. It would only a fraction of what it is here in some other Asia countries which is supposed to have a more inferior infrastructure.

With the increasing speed & decreasing prices of business broadband plans offered by ISPs & the introduction of ethernet access which allows symmetric bandwidth both ways, hosting servers on a dynamic plan is becoming less popular with exception to web cameras & DVR servers.

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