You have to evaluate your potential Web host to find the perfect one.There are some questions that you may want to ask:
- How does your host connect to the Internet?
This is very important. Possible options:
- T-1
A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at 1,544,000 bits-per-second. At maximum theoretical capacity, a T-1 line could move a megabyte in less than 10 seconds. That is still not fast enough for full-screen, full-motion video, for which you need at least 10,000,000 bits-per-second. T-1 is the fastest speed commonly used to connect networks to the Internet.
- T-3
A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at 44,736,000 bits-per-second. This is more than enough to do full-screen, full-motion video.
- DSL
Digital Subscriber Line offers a faster Internet connection than a standard dial-up connection. DSL uses the existing phone line and does not tie up the phone line. No more busy signals, no more dropped connections, no more waiting for someone in the household to get off the phone. DSL offers users a choice of speeds ranging from 144 Kbps to 1.5Mbps. This is 2.5x to 25x times faster than a standard 56Kbps dial-up modem.
- Does the host have a backup connection that will kick in and keep everything online if the host's primary connection to the Internet goes down?
- How much disk space does the host provide for you to store your files?
- How much data can you send through a connection?
This concept is usually measured in bits-per-second. A full page of English text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 15,000 bits in one second. Full-motion full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression.
- How much data are you allowed to transfer with your account?
Data is this case usually refers to images, text, or anything else that the web server must transfer to the user's web browser. As a general rule, 500 MB of data transfer is equivalent to about 20,000 page views.
- How are files moved between two Internet sites?
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a very common method. FTP is a special way to login to another Internet site for the purpose of retrieving and/or sending files. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in using the account name "anonymous", thus these sites are called anonymous FTP servers.
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