Thank you for asking this question.

The 8% hosting fee is scheduled to cover security, infrastructure upgrades, portal setup (tentative. the format for hosting has not yet been finalized.), central servers, (this point is also under consideration), data fees, replacements, and maintenance.

Additionally it covers firmware updates and on/offsite support.

The hosting option still remains to be finalized, and there are several options being researched. There are many items which must come first in the project timeline before those questions can be addressed, and a setup fee may be unavoidable. The logistics of developing a cluster are vast, and the timeline for bringing the assembled miners online very small.

PSUs, cases, cooling, Switched PDUs, hosts, racks, and line runs are just a few of the hardware items which must be purchased for hosting. At a minimum, each batch of chips requires 250 amp service, which is an incredibly dense power requirement.

Skilled labor is available and has been reserved, and is not free.

I cannot answer those questions at this time, as I do not have any definitive answers.


As a personal note:
I as a member of bitcointalk.org and the Bitcoin community was a miner first. I understand staying up until 4 in the morning tweaking a miner to get the most efficient setup possible. I have spent many red-eyed nights pouring over spreadsheets and studying product offerings to make sure I chose the most effective solution. I know the feeling when you take the first big step and make the investment, hoping there wasn't a missed variable. I have experienced the elation when all those concerns melt away as the miners are brought online and the hashrate begins to climb. My mission is to help the community get the most cost effective, stable, reliable mining solution possible, as quickly as possible. I have approached each part of this project as if I were building my own mining rigs, because I am. I have been reluctant to release information not because I want to make it more difficult to calculate ROI or budget your coins, but because I do not ever want to be forced to tell you the price is higher than you had planned, or the timeline has increased, or the power usage was incorrect. Each phase of this project has been checked and rechecked, verified and tested, with backup plans implemented, to do everything in my power to make sure I never have to do that. I am not out to make a quick buck. I am not here to be yet another chip gateway. My goal is to add as much value and service to your purchase as I can, doing something I love, and hopefully produce something you can be proud to own. This approach takes time, and there are no shortcuts. This poses a problem as time is of the essence I know, but it takes twice as long to do it wrong. I ask that you bear with me and the information delays, and I thank everyone for their assistance in this thread.