The t1 line was in reference if you were going to do hosting from home.

The datacenter which you choose already has connectivity. They will more than likely have a DS3 or higher in their datacenter.

You didn't really specify what this server is going to be used for. I assume it is a web server? If you still want to do this from home, after you install your OS/Distribution, you can always opt to install XAMMP or WAMPP, which are bundled packages of Apache Web Server, PHP, MySQL, Perl, FTP server, plus more. They are very easy to set up within minutes.

If you are looking to do some serious web hosting, you should opt to go with a datacenter. Still, I'm not sure exactly what you are going to be doing with this server, so this may or may not be feasable to you.

HTH