I'm looking for a web host that offers cheap, burstable, and
EXPANDABLE bandwidth. What I mean is, the host would charge you for
the bandwidth that you actually use at reasonable prices.

For example, the host will let you sign up for a flat rate per month,
and you would be given a nominal amount of bandwidth included. If you
go over that amount of bandwidth, you're charged for the overage on a
per gigabyte basis, with discounts for more bandwidth.

The site will not be shut down for going over bandwidth limits. 

The data transfer rate will not be capped but would be able to burst
to the available network capacity(that's what the "burstable" part
means).

The price per gig would have to be comparable to cheapbw.com's prices.
 The cost must scale down to around 30 cents per gig when traffic gets
very high, such as 10 terabytes, and must not be much higher than
$1.00 or so per gig overage when producing minimal traffic.

Hosts that require bandwidth to be purchased in blocks in advance
generally will not qualify, especially if the blocks are very
expensive for an initial investment.  The host must allow sites to go
over bandwidth limits and incur
overage fees for the bandwidth used, or be comparable to such a
business model.

Please note that sites offering "unlimited" or "unmetered" bandwidth
generally do not qualify as they all have clauses in their agreements
which limit network utilization.

The server must also support the ASP scripting language (windows
preferably, but chilisoft ASP would be OK) and have live stats.  It
would be nice if it were a windows server and also allowed unlimited
subdomains, along with MS-SQL or MS-Access ODBC database support.

Tier 1 bandwidth or a comparable network is also important.  I need to
leverage a major network with big pipelines, no small networks far
from the main pipes.

I've found a few that are close but no cigar like:
dynamichosting.com, gighost.com, superb.net, and infinology.com

A complete answer will list the pricing structure for bandwidth, a
link to the company providing the solution, and list the details of
the hosting plan that match or do not match the ideals mentioned
above.

I expect this search might require a few phone calls to some of the
hundreds of web hosts out there.  If the researcher does this type of
in-depth research and finds a host that meets these criteria, they can
expect an extra $10 in tip.

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Request for Question Clarification by cynthia-ga on 15 May 2003 11:39 PDT

Hi prophet,

I think there's a good chance this host is what you are looking for. I
host my personal site with them and chose them because of the
graduated pricing. Check it out, and if you decide to use them, let me
know and I'll post the link in the answer box.

http://www.linksky.com

--Cynthia

PS: If you do sign up, I'd like to give you my "referral link" --I'd
get one free month of hosting if you sign up from that link. It's
slightly longer than the one above.

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Clarification of Question by prophet-ga on 15 May 2003 12:17 PDT

Hi Cynthia,

I checked out the linksky site.  They are relatively cheap and
burstable, but their bandwidth overage is too expensive.  They only
offer 6Gb of transfer per site, and each additional Gigabyte is $2. 
That's about double what I need it to be.  I will greatly exceed 6Gb.

I can't find any information on their network, but it does not appear
they have direct pipes to major backbones.  They also do not support
ASP.

I've re-evaluated my need for ASP and if anyone can find a host that
meets all my criteria with the exception ASP support I will consider
it.

Thanks for trying,
Prophet

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Clarification of Question by prophet-ga on 15 May 2003 12:22 PDT

One more thing. As I mentioned in the question, the overage rate must
decrease as bandwidth increases. Linksky has a flat overage rate of $2
which doesn't decrease.

Thanks again.

These search results makes easy browsing of what hosts out there are charging:

overage gigabyte
://www.google.com/search?q=overage+gigabyte

You have done well finding your almosts, I could not find better.

if you plan on using a very significant amount of bandwidth (hundreds
of gigs) perhaps you should be asking about a dedicated server
hosting, as that will allow you to run asp (since you control the
server) and is usually hosted on a bandwidth scaling basis.

Thanks funkywizard, but I did not specify on purpose. I would accept
dedicated, colocation, or shared hosting.  Currenly my top choice is
dedicated hosting with the first of my "close but no cigar" companies,
dynamichosting.com.