Brain, I think maybe what you need is some links to some hosting companies so that you can see what we're talking about. Sounds like you've been sticking with your ISP to host your websites probably from the start maybe and are unsure how this all works maybe?

Hosting would be something like GoDaddy or Hostgator or similar companies and sites. Their main business is hosting your websites. They don't have anything to do with your internet at all. They only provide services for hosting websites and key services that help with that. There are a lot of really reasonable hosting companies out there to choose from, I would suggest doing a Google search for Web Hosting and you'll find lots of them. If you have questions about any you come across though feel free to ask us about them in here as some have had some good and bad experiences with a good handful of them.

The main thing to realize is that internet and hosting are not the same things, your internet company is just providing that service for you for free. Most people don't use those for large sites at all, usually they use them for little personal sites to post their photos on for family and such. What you're trying to do is not usually done on a person's internet provider's little hosting setup.

Once you set up an account with a hosting company, they provide you with your log-in and FTP information so you can access your hosting space/website from anywhere you have an internet connection.
One usually gets some sort of control panel with the account that provides easy access to web mail, subdomains, databases, and all sorts of add-ons. All included in a very reasonable fee (I pay 3.99 dollars/US per month).

Actually My provider is the main one in OZ Bigpond That costs $90aud per month, but that includes land line. I could get them to host but as Brains indicated they are more expensive. I am satisfied with my host and have been with them for over10 years. The host for you depends on a lot of things. I have even used free hosts for some sites

Here we are Jo Ann ..Prism pays $90/month,I pay $50 and my phone landline + calls about $30/month so I pay $80/m so there is not much difference,only about 120 /year so.Being a pensioner rates me for phone cost less than most people and if the wife did not call her sister twice a day a lot cheaper..most calls I make are on the wife's behalf as well ..
Really not all that bad off for Australia after all..

Brains.... that is his internet he's paying for not hosting. That is not the same thing... I think you're confusing the 2 of them quite a bit here.

Hosting is a separate entity all together, not connected with your internet company at all. The only time you see anything connected with internet where hosting is concerned is that most internet companies do provide a small area of hosting for their customers. It's not meant to be full out business hosting, and it's not meant to be hosting for 100+ pages of a site. It's for cutsie little sites that people make to share with their friends and families for the most part. It doesn't have what you need.

Prism is talking about his internet company not the host where he puts his websites. We all pay X amount for our internet companies and then Y amount for hosting our websites (or in my case we provide hosting to others too). Separate entities completely. Two totally different services.

OK Jo Ann ..Prism is paying for an internet connection but has a hosting site in US but the point is ..He still pays $90 /m for the connection...
I pay $50/m and I have 50meg of site to use .I have used 24meg so I still have 26 meg to load up more pages on to but I also have a 200 GIG download per month so no I am not mixing things up ..
My ISP allows me to have 50meg which they "host"free as part of my fees and not for just some cutsie little site..
The only difference is they do not as part of the personal site,have PHP or SSI...

Therein lies your problem. If you want to use PHP or SSL then you need to find a new 'Hosting Company'. Just because you ISP provides you with hosting space, doesn't mean that you have to use it. In your case, if you need PHP and SSL then you're going to have to dish it out for hosting with another company. I think everyone here was just trying to get across the fact that there are numerous hosting companies out there and you'll just have to look around till you find one that meets your needs at your price. But you are right in that you'll still have to pay what you are paying for internet service if you want to keep those up/download ratios. Good luck.

Yeah I think you're still mixing it up just a bit hehe. The download amount and amount on the site are irrelevant also to your internet. When you deal with a hosting company they have their own upload amount (way way way more than 50 mb, in many cases unlimited), and that 90 that Prism is paying does not include his main hosting, that is just his internet. His internet most likely does provide a small amount of hosting (50 megs is a very small amount of hosting space) and it's totally separate from the hosting. The upload and download speed are not affected, and the amount of space is irrelevant where your internet company is concerned. What is important for you is as Gunsmoke mentioned and has been mentioned numerous times in this thread already.... you need PHP and your ISP does not provide it to you for the cost you're already paying.

To pay another $200 a year is a ridiculous amount just for having PHP enabled, most people don't pay a quarter of that or just a bit more and have all the bells and whistles they need. Your ISP's provided hosting is just not capable to do what you want it to do without an extra charge, price gouging you to the max. Might be great for internet, but you can do better for hosting by far.

The main thing here in my post is that yes you're still mixing it up a bit. Upload and download capacity of your internet company is irrelevant to what you need. Speeds will still remain the same for your uploads and downloads, and the capacity will most likely go to at the very LEAST 1 GB instead of 50 MB. And you'll have more features than you can possibly imagine.

Trust us, don't go with your ISP's hosting and adding that PHP feature on, waste of money big time.

I used to have WildBlue Sat. Internet. There is an upload/download bandwidth, as well as a maximum setting. If you go over the allotted bandwidth for a given period of time then the connection speeds slow to the point where dial-up would be faster! This actually has nothing to do with hosting, just connecting to the internet. I live in the country and that was the only way other than dial-up to connect to the internet. Thank heavens I now have another option!
Hosting Brains, is another matter altogether. You can 'host' with anyone and prices vary greatly. So does service. Shop around and find what you need. As Jo Ann stated, many host offer 'unlimited' upload/download service as well as hosting 'space'. I have such an account with Godaddy. The cost is about $149/year for me. My ISP service is another $35/month. Prices I have to deal with being in the country.

No I am not mixed up at all ...in the reverse you are not following what I said ...