I host my site from Yahoo web hosting. I know some people say they suck, but it works for me. In there website it says it offers unlimited bandwidth to customers who host websites with them without abusing the service. What I wanted to know is generally how much bandwidth do they really offer until they start to consider it abuse?

Just wondering... Thanks for any answers in advance.

From a some of my earlier free hosting and even some paid hosting that offered unlimited bandwidth the abuse part is not considered on how much you use but how you use it. I used to make graphic heavy sites that were not optimized and it drained bandwidth like there's no tomorrow. The provider monitored the files transferred and has never hassled me.

Now, this experience was not with Yahoo but I would think that most would work the same...

Typically we can not say if you use beyond a specific limit you are abusing the resources. They will put some CPU or RAM usage limit and if you go over that they may consider as abuse. For a normal site no need to worry of such things.

As I recall it, Yahoo was also emphasizing the importance of how fast your needs grow.

Typically though, hosts will use CPU/memory/input&output usage levels as a reason for suspending an account. This means that there is not real limit on bandwidth value, as things will depend on your type of site. Someone running a forum will reach the limit much sooner than someone hosting a pictures-filled static website.

Maybe you can describe your type of site and usage, and have them give you a rough estimate of when an upgrade may be needed.

Every host have allocated a sizeable amount of bandwidth to the website hosted with them.
They will allow your site to use the resources fully. If you like to exceed it heavily, they will temporarily suspend your site for the particular month or until your resource level meter to replenish.