Hosting advice requested

[The Purple Panzer]

I'm considering leasing a host which will be dedicated to running a BZFlag server, and I'd be interested in any advice which people have.

I find the bandwidth metrics that companies publish to be a bit bizarre; sometimes it's ambiguous if they mean bits or bytes, and I suspect that there are various kinds of bandwidth sharing in place that may affect bandwidth availability at certain times of the day. Does anyone have any experience with particular hosting services that they could pass on? (I noted that there was a sticky FAQ here, but even then the recommendations was for "5kb per second per player": is this bits or bytes? (hey, it's only a factor of 8

I don't particularly care if I end up with a Linux, Windows, or other machine; I'd like to create a high-quality server, and it seems that getting the bandwidth issue right is the first step. I'm considering running my own T1 line, but it isn't cheap. Possible, but not cheap, and I don't have a lot of other requirements that would justify it.

[-shadow-]

i would say it would be bytes. a typical bandwidth of a player:i would take a lot more than 8 bits!(i think) i am running a server but it cant reach out of my network. I know it isnt the firewall cuz i was just playin on it with some1 on my network!

[loophole]

I am very pleased with my usermode linux account with www.etecc.net they call it a VDS. 18$ a month with a 50GB transfer limit.

I chose etecc because they had the lowest ping time from my home cable account. From my uml host I get 4ms ping times to google, wowee. I have noticed lag spikes occouring on 2 occasions but that seems pretty rare. Most people in the US get a 50-80 ping on my server.

run ping and traceroute on any hosting company you are considering.

edit:fixed link