What Internet connection?

[Ellie]

I plan on running my own server(s) for my online game Vengeance (/shameless plug), and at the moment my Internet is the lowest Virgin Media one.

I know this probably won't suffice to run a game, so... what would you recommend I get?

I keep hearing about "dedicated connections", though I have no idea of anything about them, what they cost, what you actually get, etc.

I know most home ISP's wouldn't be happy with this sort of thing, especially the ones with download limits and all that.

(I tested my connection and found out I get an average of 500kbps down, 130kbps upload speed :/ even though I'm on 2Gbit)

I'm in the UK btw.

 

[___]

You are going to need a dedicated T1 line to get started and more later, ask your service provider whether they can provide one.  The bottleneck is going to be your upload speed and that's what a dedicated line fixes - it gives you exclusive, guaranteed two directional bandwidth.  That is, if they say you're getting a 24mbps connection that means you *will* get 24mbps, not around 24, not up to 24, not 24 until you exceed their monthly total bandwidth limit and they inform you they're canceling your contract, and it will be the same speed up and down.  A dedicated line will also get you a static IP address, which is absolutely critical if you're hosting an internet service.

More than likely the cost of this will be prohibitive, as there is a large overhead in running the necessary cables and of course it's not priced for home users.  A better choice may be to pay for a dedicated server at an offsite host service based in an area central to your target audience.  For me that would be godaddy, since they're based in the same city as me; for you it will probably be a place somewhere in the UK.

 

[Ellie]

Do you have any examples of T1 providers with actual prices?

Whenever I search, it just brings up sites like uSwitch (price comparison sites) which don't show the actual prices. And the only sites I have found are US, and you have to call them for a price; I'd rather know beforehand.

(Since I already own the server, and can't afford the cost of a dedicated server, that isn't really an option for me.)

 

[arcthemonkey]

Wait wait wait - this all depends on how many people you expect to be on this thing, and how heavy your server packets are. I used to host a Ragnarok Online server on a 3 Mb charter cable plan, that could handle, easily, 50+ players.

The reason I say you should try it out (stress test!) first is because T1 lines are often prohibitively expensive, even at the lower end.

 

[___]

Arc is right you're going to pay a lot for a T1.  broadbandreports.com is a good place to look for bandwidth costs.  You may find your ISP has some commercial plans with increased upload traffic that aren't as expensive as a dedicated line, you should ask them about it; in the area I used to live the standard service was 5mbps down / 512kbps up for $45/mo, but they offered commercial plans at 2mbps bidirectional for around $150 for instance. 

What you need to know is the upstream bandwidth needed on average and at peak for a given user.  Simple MMOs don't require much bandwidth per user, which is why you can get away with hosting small private servers, MUDs and such for a small number of users (maybe 50-200) on a residential line.  MUDs in particular and early MMOs like UO and EQ are from a limited bandwidth era where most users were expected to have only 28k modems, so they'd be designed around as little as a couple kbps traffic (MUDs even lower, a couple dozen bytes per second since they're only sending tiny chunks of text back and forth). 

Your usage is going to depend on how your service is structured, and you can go a long way toward figuring out your needs with estimates.  I was assuming you hoped to start off with several hundred to a thousand users and also assuming that your network code is not very optimized since you're an amateur developer, so maybe 15-20kbps per user or so with peaks for software downloading that are going to have to be reasonably fast, 60kbps is about what people put up with these days.  If you're not the one responsible for it get some info from your network code programmer and so some math, and be sure to stress test like Arc said before you go live of course

Oh yeah don't forget to ask for a static IP address.  It's not impossible to work with a dynamic IP but it can result in short service interruptions and it's a lot more of a pain in the ass.