I have read about 95th percentile way of charging bandwidth. OK, fine. My question is though, how can I figure out what a typical monthly bill will look like? Say a server usually has about 5BG per month of bandwidth (quantity), what could you expect the 95th percentile average to be? I realize that it depends on bursts but what can make bursts happen?

Also, what would be the best way to bill your customers down the line. Your provider bills you 95th percentile and you count bandwidth? That may not work out depending on bursts.

Just hoping anyone using this scenario can give an idea of what I should expect. Thanks!

http://www.svwh.net/products/95percentile.shtml
read here to get more info about 95th.

It will always be more expensive doing the 95%, try to get average billing from your provider if at all possible. Its basically the same as actual transfer, and can sometimes get you more bandwidth per month then actual transfer.

95% percent billing is crap. Try and get either average usage or actual gigs transfered. Stay way from 95%....its bad news.

The question he asked was not "is 95% good" or "what does 95% mean", his questions were "can I figure out what a typical monthly bill will look like?", "what can make bursts happen?".
Just a remark.

95% percent billing is crap. Try and get either average usage or actual gigs transfered. Stay way from 95%....its bad news. Crap or not, it does not really matter. That is how most larger bandwidth providers charge for bandwidth.

The 95th percentile can be very expensive if you have spikes in traffic. I promote adult sites and I will *never* go with a 95th percentile system again. I've ended up paying for much more than I used. Pay-per-gig is fair, 95th percentile is unfair and dangerous, *if* you get major spikes in BW.

hypnos

Well, fair or unfair , its the way all providers charge, if you can find me a reputable Oc3 provider who will bill me on average rather than 95% or 90% (level3) then i will order one in a heart beat.

The fact is that a site that bursts to say 2-3mbps but averages only 1mbps costs the actual provider the entire 3mbps, or else the users site wouldn't be able to burst to that 3mbps...

Most larger providers will allways bill via 95% until the line providers change the way they bill... their simpally passing along the costs to their customer.

...I can see how an isp might make a good chunk of extra change via the 95th percentile system though.

For example, my spikes might not even be spikes for the isp. The isp has 1000's of user spikes which end up being less spikey *overall*. So the isp doesn't really pay for my spikes, they pay for the overall spikes which should average out to a more level graph for *them*.

Then again my .02 might be wrong ;)

hypnos

That is true, it all depends on the case..

If its alright i'll just make a point about how i laid out the ventures system (i dunno if anyone else does it this way but i feel it does help out the smaller server owners and helps to protect somewhat from the spikes)

Basically

0 - 50gb is billed on actual usage upload only

50gb - 100gb is billed on total actual usage (upload and download, it helps cover the spikes without being as high as 95%)

100gb + billed @ 95% , but most customers who are on the 95% plan are using 400, 500k or more of bandwidth bursting to 1mbps for extended periods of time during the day....

So yes, it is possible to make a good chunk of changes but the above system (which may be refined even more) does help the smaller clients out.

Just my .015 cents worth ;)

Daniel~