Sorry about that. My web host decided to upgrade my server last night and it caused some issues. Everything should be back to normal now.
Not being in the business, but is renting a more efficient way to go instead of owning a server?
Just asking. 
It depends on how technically inclined you are, how much time you want to spend managing the server, and how much traffic your site needs to be able to handle.
I am a server admin as part of my day job, so I could definitely handle the technical aspects of having my own server. But since I spend all day managing a server at work I can't (and dont want to) devote that much time to my own server. If it went down while I was at work it would stay down until I got home.
And since most people don't have T1 lines running right into their homes, heavy traffic would impact the speed of a home server.
So for around $100/year I get a server with decent capacity, and my own 24/7 support team. It's a bargain, as far as I'm concerned.
OK, hypothetically speaking, I have pretty good speed and unlimited bandwidth on my cell phone. It also has router functionality. And static IP. In theory, I could host all of this site using one of my various PCs and my phone as hub and router perfectly happily.
There are, however, downsides. It becomes my job to maintain the link integrity 24/7. There is no contractual guarantee of any continuous coverage on my cell phone. I can no longer take my cell phone out of my home. If the server needs a reboot, only I can do it. If the server needs a part replaced only I can do it. And so on through many headaches.
I will grant that you could kill some of those issues by using a land line for the purpose or cable but that only addresses partially the issues. For example, nobody gets an SLA with their cell or cable or landline which guarantees 99% or better uptime. The servers that I own and operate are indeed owned by me, but they are situated in a co-location facility which does indeed offer that facility and are quite willing to hand moolah back if they fail to perform as advertised.
The bottom line is that you could very well host a web server on your home network, there is no reason why not, technically. But why would you voluntarily invite all of that overhead into your home for no good reason when one can simply rent a surrogate headache bearer?
