Thats like over $16 a month if we were able to get all 8 of us to chip in. My (ahem) GUESS is that we have a fraction of that 8 (3-5) that would want to rent our own server. Thats like $24-$43 per person. If we can't set up our own free server, then my opinion is lets wait until we have a lot more BF2ers here that play together more like a team. Once that happens, then renting may be more justifiable and economic.
Yeah I can't find a way to do free. Even the folks I know that have server farms can't give away the bandwidth when they are charging a minimum $400 a month for a server.