[Upcoming][Local] SA Hosting Service

[Nemeses]

Having hosted various servers either for gaming, or for secure Internet tunnelling, I have seen how many local, and international, people join this local service; because of low latency (locally), and a general rise in the integrity of gamers (both locally and internationally). Unfortunately, due to the low priority Internet in South Africa, and the all too relevant limitations of ADSL Internet, these services were small and limited in number, to keep the proportions of 'user-per-throughput' balanced.

I have been looking into finding a Local->International provider that not only provided higher quality services than these, but that also maintained a good integrity, held users in higher regard than most admins, and that actually understood (and did) what most users requested. This, however, seemed to be a fruitless search. All things considered, I gave up my general Internet usage and downloads to host services that people actually wanted to use, just so they would know there are people wanting to provide good, moral-driven services.

Recently, I have been given the opportunity to move my current gaming and app servers, as well as any new ones, to a dedicated host which will link it directly into South Africa's fiber backbone. "What does all this mean?" you might ask. Well, it will allow a virtually unlimited amount of International, and especially Local users to join. Better yet, this will be a local service, allowing very low latency (~30ms) to any South African users. Unfortunately, nothing comes for free (*cough*), and there will be an expense to the server.

Now, I urge you to read the rest of this post, as I am sure you will like what you see.

At first, we will be paying per mb used. This is because we estimate a relatively small user base, which will use a relatively small amount of throughput. Once we get enough people, we will move the server to piped Internet. This more expensive plan will allow us to have unlimited bandwidth and throughput. Why not keep on the per mb plan? Well, let’s say that we pay R1 for 1mb, and that the Unlimited plan is R200. The capped plan is cheaper for around 10 users, using 200mb. But passed that, it would be cheaper to get unlimited, and pay a fixed fee.

Your next question will unquestionably lead to what you, as the user, will have to pay to use these services. Well, we have actually thought about the most cost-effective way we could create a revenue, and to have users still wanting to join.

There will be the following services available, but will not be limited to these:

• Game Servers
• SSH Tunnelling
• Secure File Storage
• Web Hosting
• Emails

Game Servers
The majority, if not all, of the game servers will be free to play! We will be looking heavily on relying on Donations, and Paid-for items.

SSH Tunnelling
SSH Tunnelling will allow the user to securely connect to the Internet through the server. Think about it like an advanced, very secure proxy. But, instead of relying of Proxy forwarding, the user will have a client that will automatically connect to the server, and relay traffic through it. This will benefit users who are stuck behind proxies, firewalls, and have generally bad international Internet, to unblock and go to any site. Also, the traffic between the server and your client is encrypted. This will be a pay per month service, with different levels of integrity.

• General SSH Tunnelling - To unblock and encrypt sites.
• SSH Tunnelling and Port Forwarding - Like above, but you will now be able to play games, and use applications through this service (Also unblocks its ports, so no firewall / proxy difficulties).
• SSH Tunnelling, Port Forwarding, SFTP - Like above, but now you can unblock your FTP client, and encrypt any FTP uploads and downloads

Secure File Storage
This pay per month service will allow users to securely store files.

Web Hosting
This pay per month service will allow users to host their own websites, forums, or other web based information platforms.

Emails
This pay per month service will allow users access to their own personalized email service, either for personal use or the use of a company/clan/lan.

Note: All Pay Per Moth services will have an extended plan.
________________________________________

Although this seems like a per-user service, we urge LAN's, Clans, Guilds and other such groups to rent their own (Private) server. This will be at a larger cost, but will allow their users to rent the access to the server for much cheaper; or for free, if a LAN venue or the leader requests it.

Please participate in our survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6VRJF6B