Bandwidth Usage Vary with Listeners?

[mweiss]

This is a confusing question, but let me try to clarify:

Does Shoutcast server use any upstream bandwidth if no one is 'tuned in' to the server at that particular moment in time?

Two issues:

It seems my upload speed when I send large files to an FTP server is at full speed when the Shoutcast server is running but has no one tuned in. When I had a listener tuned in and I ran an FTP session, my upload speed seemed to be less by the approximate bitrate of the Shoutcast stream.

My ISP has a 'no servers' rule in the ToS. I would like to know if an idle Shoutcast server eats up bandwidth continuously or not. Since most of my traffic is sporadic, my average bandwidth usage MAY be okay ASSUMING Shoutcast doesn't really use bandwidth when there is no stream being listened to from an outside computer.

Can anyone provide an informed answer to this question? I just want to avoid being detected by metering /ISP /bandwidth snooping that look for continuous longterm bandwidth hogging.