I have my own 1/2 cab, AS number, ARIN allocated IP4 and IP6 space. It costs about $500/mo. It took maybe 100 hours to set up the basics and $6000 for the way

I have my own 1/2 cab, AS number, ARIN allocated IP4 and IP6 space. It costs about $500/mo. It took maybe 100 hours to set up the basics and $6000 for the way I built the hw (which is similar to servethehome's rack). I run everything on FreeBSD. I get to directly talk BGP and get bandwidth at .12c/gbit. Nothing else can come close to this level of low cost, control, learning, and autonomy.