By address space I mean the given ip address from the web hosting provider. I was under the impression that java would treat this routing the same from the application side independent of hosting provider (for example, "298.181.23.243", username, sha1 encrypted password) into some java api that establishes authetnication as I have done with web applications in the past. So i guess I should start with what web hosting service is cheap enough to accommodate a simple java program whose sole purpose is to authenticate and poll actions that refresh the form during turns  and do I need a java web hosting service?