TeamSpeak hosting recommendations?

[DM Greg]

I'm going to be running a game come up here in April and with the volume of people I wanted to make the switch from Skype (which while free has had some static issues of late) to TeamSpeak - www.teamspeak.com (https://www.teamspeak.com) .

Does anyone else use a hosted TeamSpeak server and if so, which hosting company have you used?

Thanks,

[mr_h]

My group uses Teamspeak and it works alright. The sound quality isn't super great by default, but with some tweaking you can make it good. Ventrillo is another one, allows you to play sound files if I recall right.

I dont think I'd do a serious FG game without Voicecomms :)

For a hosting provider, we have our own server so we run it ourselves. I dont have experience with other hosters out there so I can't give you advice there.

[Xorn]

www.branzone.com

They do Ventrilo & Teamspeak servers--their pricing is very reasonable and I've been using them for... 3 years? I've never had a single complaint about them, every downtime (3 I remember in 3 years) has been warned 24 hours in advance, and lasted no more than 2 hours. Reliable, affordable... great service.

$57.12 for a 10-person server for a year. That should accommodate any FG2 game.

[Moon Wizard]

I started out trying to use Skype, but quickly came up against bandwidth limitations as well as the 5 person limit.

I looked at both TeamSpeak and Ventrilo to switch over to. After evaluating, I picked Ventrilo and I haven't had any problems. I use Anvox.com for Ventrilo hosting.

I also have a friend that uses TypeFrag for hosting his Ventrilo server, though he's had a couple hiccups over the last year.

Cheers,
JPG

[Xorn]

One pro going for TeamSpeak is you can get a full server for free if you host it yourself. You'll probably have to turn the voice quality down a little to keep from getting hiccups between that AND serving FG2, but it's not too bad.

Most broadband connections have 45 KB/sec upload rates. 7 people (DM + 6 players) on TS would probably eat up around 21 KB/sec while anyone is talking. Less if you lower the voice quality. I just like not having the voice server be dependent on my machine--but we use it for everything we do online, so it has a lot more value to us.

[joshuha]

I usually have a player volunteer to host the Vent/TS server so all my upload bandwidth can go towards sharing the maps out.

[DM Greg]

Skype upped the limit recently but once that occurred is when I started to notice some static and feedback.

I've hosted TeamSpeak servers myself (back in the Mechwarrior 4 League days) and I've got a couple Linux servers here I could load it on - but truth be told - I spend enough of my time troubleshooting my 3 PC's, 1 laptop, the wife's laptop, my kid's PC's, the xbox and wii connections that I just want to outsource it:)

Branzone looks pretty reputable so I'll give em a shot.

Thanks for the replies everyone!


I started out trying to use Skype, but quickly came up against bandwidth limitations as well as the 5 person limit.

I looked at both TeamSpeak and Ventrilo to switch over to. After evaluating, I picked Ventrilo and I haven't had any problems. I use Anvox.com for Ventrilo hosting.

I also have a friend that uses TypeFrag for hosting his Ventrilo server, though he's had a couple hiccups over the last year.

Cheers,
JPG