Hi, such a simple question. Do dedicated and co-location hosts usually measure bandwidth as being the sum of TD and RD (ie data going out plus data comming in) when measuring "bandwidth" usage or just the data being sent out by the server?

depends... most i belive just do outbound but there are some that might do inbound as well... you should always check with a host to make sure...

Thanks for the reply and I will indeed check with the prospective hosts I approach. Right at this minute, I am neck deep in developing the back-end script forthe web application we are developing. Then I hand over to the designer so that they can break all the scripts;)

I am amused, however, by the deafening silence of those hosts who frequent the forums on answering such a simple question. Mia culpa; perhaps I should have phrased it...

Dedicated hosts: How do you calculate the data transfer under the "average bandwidth" model. Do you calculate the sum of all ingoing and outgoing data or just the outgoing?

The reason I ask is that we will be offering email forwarding for members of our service (using virtual user accounts in Sendmail) with alias addresses @ourdomainname. Just curious to have some background on what is practiced in the industry.

Or do hosts only post meaningless, benign messages such to plug their business through their signature? ;)

I find the whole business of bandwidth measurement to be poorly documented by ISP's.

Most end up giving the customer the benefit of the doubt, but I hate that they aren't more up front in showing examples and giving you status on these complicated methods.

Thanks for the reply Stephen. I have found your posts surounding the ebay auction thingy you set up very interesting (sorry I have forgotten the name of the site) . If I remember correctly you have a dedicated server with Weinbar and one with Pegasus. What is the story with how bandwidth is calculated with those two providers?

Also, how are things over at Weinbar lately. I know that he as been experiencing staffing problems for a while now.