I have a Multiplay VA server and a HFB NY server. Here are my observations:
The VA server attracts a LOT more players. Maybe they're giving lower ping times to more people. Remember it's not all about location, but network peers and quality of infrastructure. Neither server gets any advertising or promotion, this is all just from people finding us in the server list.
I'm located about halfway between the two with a FIOS connection using Ethernet. VA's ping times are typically 20-50, whereas HFB is typically a little higher. Both sometimes jump into the 90s.
HFB took about 14 hours to set up the server. Multiplay took two minutes.
Gameplay on both is superb. Very little stuttering / lag even with two dozen players on.
I haven't had to use HFB's support, mainly because we haven't been playing much. I did have to ask Multiplay for assistance when I couldn't log into Clanserver, and I got a response within about 15 minutes. Note that I used their ticket system.
I'm going to step up to annual payment on Multiplay to get their sweet, sweet 20% discount. Both are good providers, but I'm sticking with Multiplay for now. Highly recommended.
From my experience, both were able to set up your server almost as soon as you paid for it. Multiplay's customer service is horrendously bad on multiple levels whereas HFB will pretty much bend over backwards for you. I think the biggest difference is the control panels. HFB you've got complete access over everything and with Multiplay you can pretty much stop, start, restart, and wipe the world (not character data) whenever you please but when you need anything other than those options you have to send in a ticket. Which will take approximately 1-2 days of waiting. Fortunately I've never experienced any lag with either of them they were both located quite near to me however.