A small to medium client does not want much from a webhosting company - good speed ( http response time 0.3 to 0.5 ms) - good uptime ( 99.9%+) - most importantly - accurate and honest measurement of bandwidth - so that he does not have to pay for what he has not used. ( Also he/she hates it most when there has to be payment of penalty just becoz' the site got popular)

However it is disturbing and depressing to note the followings which may be just the tip of iceberg.
See this :

** In a recent post in wht forum it was noted

I tried this webhost last week, and when i check the site usage on the "site admin" page, it said "4 GB bandwidth tranfer" in 5 days,
and then i asked them, they said the "site admin" is not accurate, the actual bandwidth tranfer was "7GB".

WELL - WHY THEN KEEP A SITE ADMIN PANEL WHICH DOES NOT SHOW THINGS CORRECTLY ? How does a client knows what is what ? So one-sidedly the host determines what was the bw consumption !!

the site in question is terabyte which is otherwise popular.

**Another poular one in lowbudget area - wzpro net clearly states in the cpanel bw is not what is being shown - why then keep it at all ???

THROTTLING - PAYING FOR EXTRA GB
================================

webhosting companies should explicitly announce whether there is throttling ?
ie if 30 gig is the allowance does it mean 1 gig per day
OR
(if) 30 gigs blown up in a day - client gets charged at $... / gig
AND IN WHICH CASE
the host notifies by prior or post email or no email at all

SOME EVEN SHUT DOWN SITES without notice/email - is that fair ?


HELP - ANY SCRIPTS ?
====================
Any scripts or any helpful 3rd party utility that can show me daily bandwidth consumption HONESTLY AND ACCURATELY ? and whether it can be held up as legal valid document if the host charges for what I have not used ?
THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Another utility I will request hosts/ programmers to consider - so that I can set my own throttle limit on per day basis - for example if I have a 30 gigs bnwdth account I may require 10 gigs for some special occasion dates for 2 days and the rest of the month I may need just 200 mb - in such a case if my daily limit has been hard-fixed at 1 gig my site will get shut down on the day I need most .

Hope all of you will contribute so that our voice is heard .

Gotta admit I'm curious on this one..

How do hosts calculate what seems to be termed "Accurate bandwidth usage" as opposed to what seems to be getting logged/reported to users?

Thanks in advance.

Originally posted by rinchin
**Another poular one in lowbudget area - wzpro net clearly states in the cpanel bw is not what is being shown - why then keep it at all ???
CPanel can do more than just tell bandwidth usage. You use it to setup subdomains, mailing lists, forward email and transfer files to your account.

Hello

Cpanel only measures HTTP bandwidth, not FTP or mail so its not a true reflection of the real situation.

The bottom line is: if you use bandwidth you have to pay for it.

You use a car and you have to pay for the fuel.....

Gordon

Thanks for the bottom line
When did I say I will use the bandwidth and I wont pay for it ?
Please be kind to read the post again - I meant how things can be fair which they are not !!
Why keep an entry for bandwidth in siteadmin ( terabyte/others) or cpanel( wz /others) when you say that this is NOT accurate and when you ( the webhost) finally decides (what bw I used) from some data which I can neither access nor verify !!

"You use a car and you have to pay for the fuel....."
I do but I do that according to the meter which is very much in front of my eyes - I can also take out the fuel and measure separately if I want. Also depending on countries I do get discount the more I buy fuel - with bandwidth the more you use the more you pay.

Now you will say that telecom companies need to be paid and all that stuff - its unbeleivable with so much tech advancement in everything bw costs wont come down - rememeber these fat companies ( not the webhosts I mean the telecom giants) get fattier by making out of propotion profits - our problem is that it has been fed into our head :
"you use a car and you have to pay for the fuel"

surely internet is not going to go anywhere unless we all do something about this bw stuff ...........


"CPanel can do more than just tell bandwidth usage. You use it to setup subdomains, mailing lists, forward email and transfer files to your account." Atlantis

obviously it can do but here we were speaking of bw measurement - we pay for it and yet we dont get to know it honestly/accurately -
forwarding email and playing with files is charged a fixed rate - so no problem with that I guess

Originally posted by rinchin

Also depending on countries I do get discount the more I buy fuel - with bandwidth the more you use the more you pay.


You get a discount on unit of fuel (gallons, liters, whatever), but you pay more. Bandwidth is the same. If you buy an OC-3 your cost per megabit is cheaper than if you buy a T1, but you are paying a lot more money.



Now you will say that telecom companies need to be paid and all that stuff - its unbeleivable with so much tech advancement in everything bw costs wont come down - rememeber these fat companies ( not the webhosts I mean the telecom giants) get fattier by making out of propotion profits - our problem is that it has been fed into our head :
"you use a car and you have to pay for the fuel"

surely internet is not going to go anywhere unless we all do something about this bw stuff ...........


Keep in mind, there has been an explosion in fiber deployment over the last 10 or so years. This cost billions of dollars and that money needs to be recouped. Fiber has gotten cheaper, but it still costs a lot of money, not to mention the infrastructure costs that come with laying fiber. It will take a long time before that money is made up. Until then prices will remain relatively high, but they are coming down all the time.

When AT&T first layed telephone cable around the country even making a local call was expensive. As time went on, the prices of phone calls dropped significantly. The same will happen with badnwdith in time.

Originally posted by GordonH
...Cpanel only measures HTTP bandwidth, not FTP or mail so its not a true reflection of the real situation.

Ahah... of course... thanks for clearing that one up.

Got one follow on question for you...

When calculating bandwidth used we are referring to bandwidth OUT, correct?

Seems dumb I know but it's occured to me that I don't know for certain.

This is definitly one thing that concerns me. For CPanel to only show a certain part of the bandwidth used is totally useless and worthless. Not to mention it makes the host thats utilizing the CPanel for it's members look bad. Since our users are only alloted so much bandwidth per month, they need accurate reports so they can be sure they dont go over..

Does VDI care? I don't think so, or else they would have already fixed this problem.

My original plan when I set up hosting accounts was to use the interface on the cobalt raq's for bandwidth monitoring, however because its proven itself totally inaccurate, we created a monitoring system using the routers and firewalls. On all of our dedicated servers this method is reported to the Users, on shared hosting it just isn't possible due to the numbers, if I could remove the stats section of the cobalt raq's altogether I would, they cause more problems than they are worth.

Steve

Thanks for the replies.
Personally I respect both Keeg and Webdude and I have accounts with both tera-byte and wzpro - I will always like to beleive these are the two most wonderful hosts.

Why I entered this discussion was the report in wht how tera-byte has made 4 gigs bw to 7 gigs so much so that the customer left them - in wz forums ( surprisingly a service of terabytes stature dont have forums)also there were reports of customers leaving becoz they thought bw was inaccurately overshown shutting off their sites.

Keeg,
"on shared hosting it just isn't possible due to the numbers" - this is amazing - when so much marvellous advancement has been made ( mp3- huge compressions,huge databases where they deal with much more figures than your shared servers)CERTAINLY there can be some means/programme or whatever to report bw to the customer on shared servers becoz they also PAY.
It cannot be just impossible !!!
Well if you if say " I could remove the stats section of the cobalt raq's altogether I would, they cause more problems than they are worth." - CERTAINLY YOU CAN SAY CLEARLY IN TERMS AND CONDITIONS / MANUALS HOW MUCH EXTRA IS TO BE ADDED TO WHAT IS BEING SHOWN FOR EXAMPLE, ACTUAL USAGE = 4 GIGS + 30% OF THAT -SO THAT WE KNOW WHAT IS WHAT.

Webdude,
"Does VDI care? I don't think so, or else they would have already fixed this problem." - surely they will when all webhosts force them to care for the clients.Its amazing how we can be made to see our sites shut off, ccs charged extra and all that and yet not be shown the proper stats.

ACTUALLY - there is still not much user concern on this - more disturbingly some guys are happy and too satisfied with the fact that
"You use a car and you have to pay for the fuel" - IF THERE WAS A LEGAL SUITE , FOR SURE ALL "IMPOSSIBILITIES" AND NON"CARE" WOULD VAPORISE - EVERYBODY THEN SHOULD HAVE SIT UP STRAIGHT AND IMPLEMENTED " WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU PAY FOR "

uuallan,

telecom may have invested millions of dollars but they are earning also much more - dont trust on the stats you are fed - they monopolise and they make out of prop profits just becoz we are NEVER united - IF TERABYTE ,WORLDZONE AND OTHER WEBHOSTS WOULD START KEEPING THAT AMOUNT OF PROFIT-MARGIN WE SIMPLY WOULD BE NOWHERE. Unless you are willing to understand and if you are already too ""brainwashed"" you wont see my point here.

"You get a discount on unit of fuel (gallons, liters, whatever), but you pay more. " NO you dont - im many countries in many outlets you have fuel credit cards - the more the end-users use he gets discount or gets some extra litres free - also note frequent fliers get free tickets ( airplane fuel is costly also) - however with bw how much more you pay or how much more you use you never get any discount or any extra gigs free - you are REWARDED with having to pay blindly - on onesided stats which you have no access to and cant verify too - SAD :(

can the client ask for or specify a daily throttle limit ?
eg for a 20 gig account - 800 mb per day after which the site gets shut down for that day + automated email to him/her if h/she wants to ^^ throttle limit ?

I wil request all good hosts to think SERIOUSLY about this option - sure programmers can have a solution to this

Originally posted by rinchin

telecom may have invested millions of dollars but they are earning also much more - dont trust on the stats you are fed - they monopolise and they make out of prop profits just becoz we are NEVER united - IF TERABYTE ,WORLDZONE AND OTHER WEBHOSTS WOULD START KEEPING THAT AMOUNT OF PROFIT-MARGIN WE SIMPLY WOULD BE NOWHERE. Unless you are willing to understand and if you are already too ""brainwashed"" you wont see my point here.


Or, perhaps you are wrong. Perhaps there are people on this board that know a great deal more about bandwidth and telecom than you. Bandwidth prices, as with most things, are affected by the laws of supply and demand. As more companies have laid fiber, the prices have dropped. They will continue to do so. There are a couple of flaws in your logic:

1. The amount that has been invested is billions, not millions, and that money needs to be recouped.

2. Most, if not all, of the companies that are laying the fiber, and selling the access, are public corporations so they have to reoprt their profit and losses in documents filed with the SEC. So, you are welcome to shop around for fiber companies that are only losing money.


"You get a discount on unit of fuel (gallons, liters, whatever), but you pay more. " NO you dont - im many countries in many outlets you have fuel credit cards - the more the end-users use he gets discount or gets some extra litres free - also note frequent fliers get free tickets ( airplane fuel is costly also) - however with bw how much more you pay or how much more you use you never get any discount or any extra gigs free - you are REWARDED with having to pay blindly - on onesided stats which you have no access to and cant verify too - SAD :(

Okay, we are talking about two different things. Your webhost buys bandwidth from an upstream provider. When they buy bandwidth it is provisioned in lines, like a T1, T3, or OC12. Or, if they are in a data center they are provided with a set amount of bandwidth (such as a 10 Megabit connection). There is a finite amount of data transfer that can be pushed through whatver your line speed is. You can't push more than that amount of transfer through it.

When you are referring to free gas, that is not really free. The cost of the extra gas is factored into the price per gallon that everyone pays. In effect, you are paying for your free gas with higher prices overall at the pump. Ditto with the frequent flier miles. So, sure, you as an end user can probably find someone who will give you "frequent transfer discounts" (which is different than how bandwidth is provisioned to your ISP) but the free bandwidth will still be factored into the original cost.

Originally posted by neha
can the client ask for or specify a daily throttle limit ?
eg for a 20 gig account - 800 mb per day after which the site gets shut down for that day + automated email to him/her if h/she wants to ^^ throttle limit ?

I wil request all good hosts to think SERIOUSLY about this option - sure programmers can have a solution to this

You can set this up using mod_throttle. However, in my experience most users do not want this, in fact it irks them to have their bandwidth capped off.

I'll only add, if you want to blame someone, blame Cobalt for putting the worthless stats scripts and linking them to the admin panel. I've never seen it report anything even remotely accurate in any way, shape, or form, and if you look though the Cobalt forum, or really any of the dedicated forums, you'll notice that accurate bandwidth reporting is a problem. Not only for the server admin, but for the end user as well (since getting accurate stats is one thing, but having them viewable in realtime via the web for your end users to see is yet an additional problem).

ah ha uuallan - extremely good logic -
I wont draw this point further but you see however the calculations works the endresult with all other sectors ( gas fuel whatever) is that the endusers who uses more gets more discount - NO doubt about that - with bw - the more you use more the price goes up.

"....so they have to report their profit and losses in documents filed with the SEC"
that does not mean all the reports are clean - what is going on is a large scale exploitation of endusers ( making them pay unduly more)and a good amount of brainwashing about the billions ( not even the regular staff of telecoms may be aware of this)

If we sheepishly feed the facts they feed this is what we get - if we constantly clamour to drop prices surely that will have some effect - thousands of webhosts with millions of clients do have some strength - only they need to apply and demand ....

Also you missed the point WHICH IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO STRESS :
when I pay at the pump or fly a flight I know exactly for how much amount or what distance I am paying for. HERE I AM KEPT BLIND - THEY SAY WHAT THEY SHOW IS NOT TRUE - WHAT THEY SAY IS TRUE AND I HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT.I hope you will logicify this fact to bring some peace to my heart.


"I'll only add, if you want to blame someone, blame Cobalt " - chicken

The duty of blaming lies not just on me but on the webhosts also - surely Keeg with his 1.4 million users or Webdude with his thousands of clients have a MORE powerful voice to reach the ears of Cobalt or Vdi or the like - now question is whether keeg or webdude and their counterparts will together care to shout for us - the poor endusers !

Originally posted by rinchin
ah ha uuallan - extremely good logic -
I wont draw this point further but you see however the calculations works the endresult with all other sectors ( gas fuel whatever) is that the endusers who uses more gets more discount - NO doubt about that - with bw - the more you use more the price goes up.


It's fun to drag things on, that's what the Internet is for :D. The more bandwidth you use the better your rate is. In the most basic terms a customer who is transferring 20 Gigs of data a month will pay around $3 a gig, but a customer who is transferring 200 Gigs of data will probably pay $2.00 a Gig. To use an anology you alluded to earlier: if you buy a plane ticket from New York to Atlanta it is going to cost you less than if you buy a plane ticket from New York to London. With your logic you should pay a lot less for the ticket from New York to London because you are using it more.


Also you missed the point WHICH IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO STRESS :
when I pay at the pump or fly a flight I know exactly for how much amount or what distance I am paying for. HERE I AM KEPT BLIND - THEY SAY WHAT THEY SHOW IS NOT TRUE - WHAT THEY SAY IS TRUE AND I HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT.I hope you will logicify this fact to bring some peace to my heart.


Of course nothing would make me happier than to leave you at peace :). I would like to point out, that again your analogy is flawed. How do you know that the gas you pump is really Super Unleaded and not Regular Unleaded. Also, how do you know that pump is really pushing out a full gallon/litre of gas to your car? Pumps can be rigged :D.

I do agree that you should have an accurate measure of your bandwidth, but there are ways of finding out these measurements yourself, and you can compare that against what your host says you used.

he..he.. this is being crazy - are you a webhost or in telecom ..uhh?


"In the most basic terms a customer who is transferring 20 Gigs of data a month will pay around $3 a gig, but a customer who is transferring 200 Gigs of data will probably pay $2.00 a Gig."-- uuallan

I pay for my account at $9 for 20 Gb to start with ( per month) -which is around $2.2 Gb for 1 Gb - as soon as I use more than 20 Gb rates go high up - it becomes $3 to $5 per Gb - if you dont see that -I am helpless. While with phone,fuel,clothes everything charges come down for more purchase.Though I am NOT compalining about paying - I will be too happy to pay- I just want an accurate measurement.

".....Also, how do you know that pump is really pushing out a full gallon/litre of gas to your car? "--uuallan

The pump may be not pushing 1 litre but it is showing 1 litre on the meter and it is charging for that 1 litre- while the bandwidth meter shows 1 Gb but the host say you have to pay for 2 Gb [ see the post "does tera-byte bites?] - this is what is ridiculous - cant you see it ,pleeese?
also you did not read my post - to repeat in details - I said that in our land I can take my own measuring cylinder and I can take 1 litre petrol in that, also if I want I can do a lab test for the lead-unlead - with bandwidth it is absolutely blind - you pay what they say.

"I do agree that you should have an accurate measure of your bandwidth, but there are ways of finding out these measurements yourself, and you can compare that against what your host says you used."

Thanks - we all will be obliged if you let us know what those "ways of measurements" are and how THAT WILL BE ACCETABLE TO THE WEBHOST ALSO - I mean how I can make the webhost beleive that my measurement is accurate and theirs is not ?

THIS IS ENTIRELY RIDICULOUS - IT IS SUCH A SIMPLE THING THAT I SHOULD SEE WHAT BW I USE AND I WILL HAPPILY PAY FOR IT. IF SOME HOST IS FABRICATING THE VALUES THATS OK EVEN - BUT THEY SHOULD NOT SAY WHAT I SEE IS NOT WHAT I USE -I CANT BELEIVE THERE CANNOT BE ANY SOLUTION TO IT IN SUCH A TECH. ERA - YES MAY BE LEGAL SUIT ONLY CAN SHAKE UP ALL AND MAKE THEM SIT STRAIGHT.
MAY BE I SHOULD BRING UP THIS ISSSUE AGINST COBALT AND VDI OR WHATEVER IN PLANETFEEDBACK.COM BUT AS DIRECT PARTNERS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EASIER FOR KEEG AND WD TO DO THAT.

ONCE AGAIN - I tell that here I we are not complaining to pay for bandwidth but what we want is simple - show us what we use and we will pay by the online bandwidth meter ( even if that is fabricated) but dont ask us afterwards that your meter was faulty and I have to pay more than what my meter showed.


It would be nice UUALLAN if you joined our voice with your intelligence and knowledge rather than negating me everytime - I am too sad :( the way things are and are turning :(

I understand what you are saying. Just realize that hosts often use a certain way to measure bandwidth for your account and what Steve was saying is that it would be extremely difficult to set things up for customers to see. One script takes the readings, another to report and display the readings in an easy to read format and all of this accessible via the web or some log in area. I believe this is the issue, not that hosts don't have a way to determine your stats, rather they don't always have an easy way to display those readings for the customer to see.

There's a pretty good program for the RaQ (musita), though I'm not certain it displays usage for the end user, far as I know it only reports for the server admin (and thus we're back to the problem).

The other problem is that the FTP and HTTP bandwidth measurements go into different log files and ther eis no off the shelf program which will add the two together.

Gordon

Yes it's very simple, the software doesn't measure FTP bandwidth only HTTP. So I'm sure they are right about the 7 GB.

"I understand what you are saying. Just realize that hosts often use a certain way to measure bandwidth for your account and what Steve was saying is that it would be extremely difficult to set things up for customers to see. One script takes the readings, another to report and display the readings in an easy to read format and all of this accessible via the web or some log in area. I believe this is the issue, not that hosts don't have a way to determine your stats, rather they don't always have an easy way to display those readings for the customer to see. " Chicken

Thanks Chicken.

"they don't always have an easy way" - life's path are not always easy - I think no one ever thought or demanded this stuff seriously enough.May be Tim greer , if he is still on this boards, or some other programmer can have a solution to this.

"One script takes the readings, another to report and ..."
If there are several scripts or stats whose values are to be added - then LET US ALSO have access to 2 or 3 areas and we can make/know the total amont we have used. That may not be too difficult.


"I understand what you are saying. Just realize..."
I am having newer realizations everyday .. what I dont realize is that even if all this is so difficult WHY THEY SIMPLY WONT PUT A NOTICE PROMINENTLY that " Dear client - what you see on your bandwidth meter is all wrong - we decide what you have consumed and dont go by the meter" - SURELY PUTTING A FEW SUCH LINES IS EASY - just a few lines of html on the frontpage/package comparison page/aup/tos/toc - beleive me this IS at least easy.
The aup/tos/toc of webhosts do not say this and acc. to a friend who has been into law this is a weak ground on which they stand ( without clearly mentioning this stuff) and they will lose easily in any legal suite.

Obviously we the poor enduser dont have the money to fight legally and personally I have nothing against Keeg or webdude becoz I still beleive these are the two hosts which are STILL the best in the industry and offer the most good rates and good service - no - no one yet comes even 10% closer to the deals they offer. If both of them wants they can easily force Cobalt /Vdi or whatever to make a panel which shows bw accurately and by which the client can pay.

rinchin, if you want to know the current amount transfered, just ask them. If you don't trust their response, then why would you trust the results of any script made by them either?

Some of the readings are taken right off the switch itself and no one would give you access to that so you could see your transfer amounts. I don't know how else to explain it.

They don't 'decide' what you use, they measure it, and you will get a close, but not exact *estimation* of it via the control panel stats. I don't know why you think they can force the developers to make a panel which shows bw accurately.

I was going to go into the variations which would make this difficult, if not impossible, (such as mail and FTP servers located on separate machines, etc.), but like I said, if you want to know, ask your host and most likely they'll be glad to tell you what your transfer is at for the current month.

Eventually there might be something that takes care of everything, right out of the box, but at the moment there isn't.

oh no Chicken you too !!

You are missing my points or am I unable to make them clear :

"If you don't trust their response, then why would you trust the results of any script made by them either? "

I am willing to trust my webhost very much and as I said I have no greater trust on anyone other than terabyte and wzpro but only thing I said that any new customer SHOULD be made aware clearly AND PROMINENTLY that bandwidth meter in siteadmin/cpanel is NOT by what the measurement goes - if you read my last post you will find thats what I say. CERTAINLY the client deserves to be informed/educated about this AT the very beginning he opens an account rather than being told LATER that his actual usage is double of what is shown ( SEE the post 'does terab. bites)
oh boy ! HOW can I make you or anybody understand this simple point?

"I don't know why you think they can force the developers to make a panel which shows bw accurately."

you dont know ? amazing !! everything we consume goes by the meter - electricity - fuel - weight of foodstuff - why not bandwidth ?
then why keep the bandwidthmeter at all ? remove it simply or keep it but clearly state its uselessness and ask everybody to email to know accurate amounts.

"why you think they can force the developers " - its NOT just me who is thinking - read Webdude's post - he ( who hosts thousands of sites)ALSO thinks so - he has infact tried also to force the developers ( by his communications to VDi) - may be that would have gained force if Keeg and others joined too.( AND YOU TOO )

"Eventually there might be something that takes care of everything, right out of the box, but at the moment there isn't." - so why not that moment now ?? if you join our voice we can make move things faster for sure.

well...this has got substance -
just display in the manual /faq

your bandwidth = whats shown in panel
plus
whats meausred at switch
plus
ftp transfer

I am not sure how or what they do at switch but ftp if used for file upload only the client can easily nasure it from ftp logs on his own harddisc

I agree with Rinchin - webhosts should come clear about this - rather very clear and clean all the confusion and may be as a default should send email every week if no accurate meter is born yet.

Rinchin, pardon the slowless, heh. I'm all for it, and get what you mean now.

ummm...thanks ..Chicken
@--->-- {{}} for you :)

thank u ,Neha too.

hmmmm....but are the hosts listening ?

"The more bandwidth you use the better your rate is. In the most basic terms a customer who is transferring 20 Gigs of data a month will pay around $3 a gig, but a customer who is transferring 200 Gigs of data will probably pay $2.00 a Gig. " UUALLAN earlier in this thread


I dont know to whom or how these calculations apply but surely theres some very gross mistake in Uuallan's calculations and if he/she is reading this post he may be able to tell better ....

look at tera-byte's( since they seem to be the centre point of this thread) Pricelist - I buy a shared account for $9 per month that gives me 20 gigs transfer - ie a little more thas just $2 per 1 gig of transfer - the moment I use another 20 gigs more I have to pay $100 more at the rate of $5 per extra 1 gig -
there may be some complicated calculations which uuallan made re fuel, airflight etc but whatever - it is damn true that with cellphone charges,books,airtravel,foodstuff - everything the more you buy the rate per unit falls for you the enduser - with bandwidth it simply goes higher and higher , rather out of proportions from $ 2 to $ 5 -
well - there may be lots of geeky things to explain this stuff -but for a small to medium company/individual buying webspace the thing boils down to the fact that the more gigs he use he has to pay more per gig.

ah yes - thats true

so much so that if you need 40 gigs it will be better to do it from 2 accounts

consider this ---

1 account = $9 for 20 gigs
plus for extra 20gigs = 20 X $5 = $100
so for total of 40 gigs per month U pay = $109

now if you use 2 accounts eg mysite.com + shopatmysite.com

1 account = $9 for 20 gigs
another 1 account = $9 for 20 gigs
so for total of 40 gigs per month U pay = $18

Thus the guy who uses more from a single account is heavily punished and penalized.

In case you need 100 gigs of tranfer then go for 5 accounts - with
5 accounts that is real cheap
$9 X 5 = $ 45 per month
plus$1 X 5 = $ 5 per month ( for domainname charges for 5 accounts)
so at $ 50 per month you have got tremendous amount of space and gigs of data - while if you tried that from a single account you would be pauper



However remember the fact that while unlimited tranfer is a scam , limited tranfers such as 10 , 20 or more gigs are also not your cushion for a happy dreamy sleep for they may >>shut<< you anytime by saying you used too much sys. resources or you may find your bill is much more than what u thought ( unless as Chicken said - you care to email them every alternate midnight to know what is what)and you are in a soup.

hey somebody give us back the good ol days of html-text only - no gifs no php no perl - it was would be lot more fun !

bottom line is that :

#if you need more gigs go for multiple accounts ( domain names are real cheap these days)
# dont sit there and stare at the bandwidth usage on your cpanel or admin panel or whatever - becoz that has got >>no<< meaning - don't be a fool - if you want to know how much bandwidth you are using and want to plan your plans accordingly email your host
( dont tell me I did not warn you :) )
# to keep your host happy use plain html, ascii diagrams ( lot more fun that gifs), dont use perl-php - just keep a mailto link - make life easier 4 u and ur surfers - if some one needs to chat or pm ask them decently to come on the phone - did I make things clear ??



:cartman: :unhappy:

Originally posted by safu

I dont know to whom or how these calculations apply but surely theres some very gross mistake in Uuallan's calculations and if he/she is reading this post he may be able to tell better ....


My reference was from a purely colo/dedicated perspective not a shared hosting perspective. Shared hosting is slightly different. Generally shared hosting providers provide you with a certain amount of transfer because they calculate that only about 1/4 to 1/3 of their customers who select these plans will come any where close to using this bandwidth, so you benefit from the law of averages. On the other hand, a hosting company has to assume most dedicated/colo customers are going to use the amount of bandwidth they are contracting for. So they are charged more in line with what bandwidth really costs.

If you prefer, I'm sure most hosts would be willing to charge you a flat rate of $3 per gig of transfer, and then lower the amount as you use more bandwidth. Would that make you feel like things are more in proportion?


there may be some complicated calculations which uuallan made re fuel, airflight etc but whatever - it is damn true that with cellphone charges,books,airtravel,foodstuff - everything the more you buy the rate per unit falls for you the enduser - with bandwidth it simply goes higher and higher , rather out of proportions from $ 2 to $ 5 -


Again, you are wrong. My cell phone comes with something like 500 minutes of airtime for $40 a month, which works out to $.08 a minute. If I were to use more than those 500 minutes I would have to pay $.50 a minute.

"My reference was from a purely colo/dedicated perspective not a shared hosting perspective. Shared hosting is slightly different. "
------------------------------------------------------------

well - look at the top - this is >>General Web Hosting forum<<- we were not discussing colo/dedi here :(


"If you prefer, I'm sure most hosts would be willing to charge you a flat rate of $3 per gig of transfer..."
-----------------------------------------------------------

No obviously I wont want that :( but my point is that I get 20 gigs at
$9 and if that becomes $40 gigs it becomes $109 - SURELY thats weird - whatever may be the maths behind it. And surely neither your cellphone company nor any other business have that sort of out of proportion hike as your use goes up ( in our land a part in SE Asia - cellcalls go down the more you use - eg for 500 unit of currency you get 500 calls and for 1000 you get 1200 calls - like that)
It may be a geeky stuff but an 1200% increase in price due to using more is surely something unique - you can justify it by various things but the fact remains that 1200% figure is little bit too large to digest.
your cellphone company seems to be doing good business but sure you get discount when you buy jumbo packs of detergent,chocolate,diapers etc etc


"On the other hand, a hosting company has to assume most dedicated/colo customers are going to use the amount of bandwidth they are contracting for" -
-----------------------------------------------------------
so you have got lesser view point and lesser opinions/thoughts about shared users ??
we are economically poor not to buy dedi but our sites can draw 10 or 20 gigs ( see creepcolony's post)


Anyway Uuallan , I am not complaining here against any webhost - I beleive most of them are giving us really good deals - I will also thank you for participating in the debate - it appears you have your points !

ahem.........
peace.............
my point was not the price of bandwidth - whatever we are getting is quite fair.

***I was wanting to point out that we need to know our day to day bandwidth usage so that accordingly we can keep a tab on things ( what files to put, how much ftp to allow etc etc) and our expenditures too.
surely it will be less shocking to know to-day rather than at the end of month that I have no money left to take my girlfriend to a romantic dinner. ( excessive bandwidth breaking up relationships on the rise ..lol)
( my friend adds that to give her taste of chicken you can then take her not to restaurant but to wht forums and do a search on chicken.....sorry ...... I mean I apologise)

***the other thing I want to point out was that if there was some means /software/controlpanel like thing so that I could set my own day to day throttle limits - for example if July 16 is Chicken's birthday ( oh no chicken again - make it Hostexp/kunal/...)I expect everybody will be sending musical flash cards from my ecards section pushing up the gigs so that from 15th to 16th I need 15 to 16 gigs - for the rest of the month may be I will need 3 or 4 gigs - if I had the throttle in my own hand I could easily set things to my convenience WITHIN my total monthly allowance of 20 gigs

*** Chicken ( ??how come his name is coming again - not him , someone else) suggested to email my host - I guess they wont be very happy to get email every now and then and by the time they reply the consumption would have changed :(

May be Tim Greer - ( is he busy now ?) can come up with a brilliant solution / script to end this problem - who knows ? May be that will become the industry standard and every host will advertise " what you see on your magic bandwidth meter is what you pay "
( as a sideeffect premarital relations can improve and may be we go at restaurant for real chicken preparationnnn........no no ...some good veg items...........
*if reading the last line is confusing you read from top of this post again :)




;)

Originally posted by safu
(snip) with bandwidth it simply goes higher and higher , rather out of proportions from $ 2 to $ 5 -
well - there may be lots of geeky things to explain this stuff -but for a small to medium company/individual buying webspace the thing boils down to the fact that the more gigs he use he has to pay more per gig.

I've not followed this whole thread very well but it seems one point has been forgotten. A host will only have so much physical bandwidth possible over their connection.... If a user is starting to push their allocation or usage towards the point where it may be reaching their physical limit they may wish to dissuade the client by essentially slapping on an higher charge.

I very much doubt that hosting companies can simply just call up and have extra bandwidth capacity just added on... The cost, if nothing else, is no doubt horrendous and who's to say that the client using all this extra bandwidth is even going to stay with your company... What happens if they leave and you're stuck with all this unused capacity.

Anyway, hope that gives a slightly different slant on things and may'be helps explain stuff a bit better.

Real-time traffic usage displays in a shared hosting environment require that the logs of several different areas of the server be parsed continually via one or more scripts written for that purpose.

Any server administrators out there want to hazard a guess as to what that's going to do to the server performance, running a script like that continuously? Especially on a server with a number of busy sites?

It's something that would be nice to have, but a 'magic bandwidth meter' is unrealistic to expect in a shared environment.

And if you need the level of control that will allow you to manage and throttle your bandwidth on a daily basis, a shared environment may not appropriate fo you, you probably should be running your own web server.

have hearts !

shared users are financially most restrained - thus throttle and bandwidth meters are things they need most - if they had their own server or owned a dedicated one they would have much less to worry !


""It's something that would be nice to have, but a 'magic bandwidth meter' is unrealistic to expect in a shared environment.""
Whoever thougt of www even a few years ago ? and whoever thought of something as Linux before it was there ? and of running windows on linux by layering??

Nothing is unrealistic - just keep the dreams and demands always on - just keep reminding the facts and the needs to the community at large ( thats why these forums are for)- someone will come up with a solution.

Man would not have stepped on Moon if it was not for an "unrealistic " mind thinking some "unrealistic" thoughts!!

If the mindset is so hardcoded we are not going to get new softwares and reach newer horizons

Hello
I think this is really a mountain out of a molehill because most hosts have their virtual accounts set to shut down http when the http bandwidth limit is reached.

We have only ever had two accounts go over limit and they both went with the upgrade option.

Gordon

Originally posted by GordonH
Hello
I think this is really a mountain out of a molehill because most hosts have their virtual accounts set to shut down http when the http bandwidth limit is reached.

We have only ever had two accounts go over limit and they both went with the upgrade option.

Gordon


not really !! tera-byte ( which was being discussed initially) who are very dependable host as far as this forum goes actually does not shut down but goes on providing extra bandwidth adding charges to your credit card which may or may not be communicated to you immediately.
Also shutting down a site is no good solution - with wz pro sites remain shut for the rest of the month - thats tragic which you know you have put all ur money and labour into making a site
only if the client had some real time access to bandwidth consumtion he may have shut specific pages/files keeping live the rest of his entire site.

It may be a molehill to you but really a mountain to a client who has not much money but has put a lot of good effort and sincerity into his /her site

Originally posted by rinchin
Thanks for the bottom line
When did I say I will use the bandwidth and I wont pay for it ?
Please be kind to read the post again - I meant how things can be fair which they are not !!
Why keep an entry for bandwidth in siteadmin ( terabyte/others) or cpanel( wz /others) when you say that this is NOT accurate and when you ( the webhost) finally decides (what bw I used) from some data which I can neither access nor verify !!



Rinchin,

don't be dumb -- just because you can see some number in CPanel doesn't mean it is accurate and in this case it isn't. If you don't trust your host, leave.

quit trolling please.

-davidu

Well in actuality, the bandwidth for our silver plan is 3 gigs, but we put it to 4 gigs because of the wrong numbers in CPanel.

Not only is the CPanel incorrect, but so is Webhost Manager. The WHM shows a certain amount of usage, and then we are billed 3x that. So it is not only a problem with CPanel, but WHM also.

How about it Bill? I know you are reading here. What's your answer? You going to fix this problem, or ignore the issue? One of my guys has already called and discussed this issue with you since we seem to be getting charged a hundred+ gigs more than what I feel we are using..

Last month we paid what, almost 200 gigs in overage charges? You gotta be kidding me to think I will continue to pay these overage charges each month without substantial proof from VDI of actual usage... all I see now is stats that you claim are incorrect.

Originally posted by Webdude
Well in actuality, the bandwidth for our silver plan is 3 gigs, but we put it to 4 gigs because of the wrong numbers in CPanel.

Not only is the CPanel incorrect, but so is Webhost Manager. The WHM shows a certain amount of usage, and then we are billed 3x that. So it is not only a problem with CPanel, but WHM also.

How about it Bill? I know you are reading here. What's your answer? You going to fix this problem, or ignore the issue? One of my guys has already called and discussed this issue with you since we seem to be getting charged a hundred+ gigs more than what I feel we are using..

Last month we paid what, almost 200 gigs in overage charges? You gotta be kidding me to think I will continue to pay these overage charges each month without substantial proof from VDI of actual usage... all I see now is stats that you claim are incorrect.

WHM only shows http bandwidth - use a tool like Bandmin to check the full bandwidth usage ;)

And why would I be interested in only http traffic? As I said, the problem needs to be fixed. I am interested in being shown true bandwidth usage as I am charged, not partial and then be expected to believe it's actually 3x that. It doesnt say a word about that in the cpanel/whm pdf files.

You would expect better from a program that you pay a monthly license fee for..

"Rinchin,
don't be dumb -- just because you can see some number in CPanel doesn't mean it is accurate and in this case it isn't. If you don't trust your host, leave"


I have repeatedly said in this thread there is no question of mistrust - I trust my webhosts very much.
If you were careful to read the thread COMPLETELY you would have found what I am trying to say - if your electricity meter showed you consumed 100 units and at the end of the month you were billed for 200 units wont your budget plans for the month be upset ?? If the numbers are not accurate and I have to pay what my host measures and bills me I will be too happy to pay accordingly becoz he takes all the trouble to host and maintain my site - ONLY I WILL WANT THAT SOMEWHERE IN THE FAQ/MANUAL/WELCOME EMAIL it should be clearly mentioned that bandwidth calculation is different from that being shown in the panel - this IS IMPORTANT becoz as you have discovered we are dumb people and not much clever - if you have nothing to contribute for us may be you should have some sympathy for the dumber section of your clan.

Also you will find in this same thread that both Keeg and Webdude ( who all host thousands of sites )are not happy with the siteadmin/cpanel - both of them beleive there should be some better way out

Measurement of any quantity goes by a scale - not by trusting - when you weigh yourself you see the value on the weigh-scale - not just trust yourself to whatever mental value you have.

I understand that measuring bandwidth is a tricky situation and not as simple as measuring one's weight on a scale but for this very reason THERE SHOULD BE CLEAR AND NON-AMBIGUOUS INSTRUCTIONS to the client so that he can measure/have idea about his bandwidth accordingly - it is something which he needs to know on day to day basis and not at the end of billing cycle.

"just because you can see some number in CPanel doesn't mean it is accurate" -
funny ! - if that is so - shouldn't you leave a line below the numbers that "beware this is fun - it is no real number !!"
You confuse me - who is dumber ? me ? .... ? or the cpanel ??

Originally posted by Webdude
And why would I be interested in only http traffic? As I said, the problem needs to be fixed. I am interested in being shown true bandwidth usage as I am charged, not partial and then be expected to believe it's actually 3x that. It doesnt say a word about that in the cpanel/whm pdf files.

You would expect better from a program that you pay a monthly license fee for..

Yes webdude - what you say is so very much correct !

Originally posted by rinchin

funny ! - if that is so - shouldn't you leave a line below the numbers that "beware this is fun - it is no real number !!"
You confuse me - who is dumber ? me ? .... ? or the cpanel ??

This is _really_ dumb.

Here's a solution, ssh into your box, run a program called "tcpdump" -- count every byte that is destined for your website and add that all up.

If you are complaining about CPanel or _whatever_ -- don't use it. There are a MAJORITY of people who find it a waste of time, bloat, and constrictive.

-davidu

Hi,

Maybe the webhosts can add a comment in the panel about the bandwidth report... such as...

The above is your site's http bandwidth usage only... for overall bandwidth usage, kindly please check with support etc...

In this way, the end user won't think that the report from the panel is inaccurate as it is only showing the end user their http bandwidth only.

Choon

I have a better idea. How about they fix the CPanel instead?

Originally posted by Webdude
I have a better idea. How about they fix the CPanel instead?


LOL .... webdude .... thats not a better idea but the best idea .
I wonder where Keeg disappeared here and Chicken too . It would have been nice if they also ....

davidu ... has a nice solution after all to all the problems
"If you are complaining about something -- don't use it."
For example you have an aching limb or a running nose or may be diseased your entire body - Dr.david says "why use?" dont use your limb or your nose or may be the whole body - fantastic solution indeed !!

BTW - webdude - did you try that
"ssh into your box, run a program called "tcpdump" -- count every byte that is destined for your website and add that all up."
since we are "dumb " dummies we don't know much about that and maybe thats why all these WHM - Cpanel etc came
Anyway let us know how tcpdump can help dumb dummies

tcpdump is a fairly useless way to monitor unless you log it's output all day and then want to go back thru all that data.

The point is, for a program you pay a monthly license fee for that is supposed to show proper bandwidth usage, we shouldnt even be having this discussion.

Not only do my clients get inaccurate reports, but so do I. My issue with VDI is that I should either be charged according to what the WHM shows, or VDI should show me the proof of usage. Dont expect me to continue paying $500-$1,000 extra per month in bandwidth fees without proof of usage. Another point is, http traffic is always the largest, so how come what I am billed reflects 2-3 times what WHM shows? Is WHM even getting the http traffic correct?? Is VDI even getting it correct? It's an interesting note that as soon as we moved to VDI, we were doing 2-3 times more bandwidth here than what we were at OLM. Makes me wonder who's stats are correct and who's stats are wrong..

Originally posted by Webdude

Not only do my clients get inaccurate reports, but so do I. My issue with VDI is that I should either be charged according to what the WHM shows, or VDI should show me the proof of usage. Dont expect me to continue paying $500-$1,000 extra per month in bandwidth fees without proof of usage. Another point is, http traffic is always the largest, so how come what I am billed reflects 2-3 times what WHM shows? Is WHM even getting the http traffic correct?? Is VDI even getting it correct? It's an interesting note that as soon as we moved to VDI, we were doing 2-3 times more bandwidth here than what we were at OLM. Makes me wonder who's stats are correct and who's stats are wrong..

Really? The traffic from my e-mail usage is considerably higher than the traffic from my web usage....

If you have a dedicated server with VDI, do they provide you with MRTG reports from the server port? If not, you should ask for that, that should give as close to an accurate report as you are going to get.

If I was billed on the 95%, MRTG would be good since it shows average use, not exact bandwidth used. Supposedly, I am billed on exact traffic, not average use.

Regardless, CPanel still needs to be fixed. I shouldnt have to install and rely on alternatives since CPanel is supposed to provide accurate reports. I most certainly cant go installing alternatives for all my clients.

I fail to see why Uuallan has to negate each and everyone here who are trying to get the fair share of their deal.......

another thing
"The traffic from my e-mail usage is considerably higher than the traffic from my web usage.... " uuallan
- that may be true for you becoz you are unique - what make you beleive that that is true for us also ??

Originally posted by neha
I fail to see why Uuallan has to negate each and everyone here who are trying to get the fair share of their deal.......


Because he's cantankerous old man :D. I would say there are two reasons:

1. There are serious flaws in your arguments. If I point those flaws out, you can develop a stronger argument.

2. There are things about hosting you do not know. I am trying to explain them to you. Remember, it is entirely possible that I am right.

:confused:
There are serious flaws in your arguments

what are those ? anyone in his/her right mindset can see Rinchin, Webdude,Keeg , Choon and others are saying essentially the same thing. They are seeking a very simple thing - not arguing on particle physics!!

There are things about hosting you do not know. I am trying to explain them to you

surely webdude, Keeg knows quite a lot of hosting( hosting thousands and thousands of sites) OR DONT they do ?? and in any case you have taught an important lesson - we have to face things/people like these in life and not lose heart....also we have learnt WHY hosting technologies will remain monolithically backwards.... thanks

sorry...for being personal...this is the last time I am replying to you

no body seems to be much concerned as bandwidth consumption, it seems , affects only a few

those who need heavy bandwidth obviously go for ded or colo but if your site is low-budget( shared hosting) but high-traffic you get shut down and wait patiently for the next month - thats ok anyway - that helps anyway as it reduces your next month's traffic and if you ever doubt about the stats " dont use the host" - its very elementary :D

even with dedicated ones you cannot be sure - see below


Originally posted by Webdude
And why would I be interested in only http traffic? As I said, the problem needs to be fixed. I am interested in being shown true bandwidth usage as I am charged, not partial and then be expected to believe it's actually 3x that. It doesnt say a word about that in the cpanel/whm pdf files.

You would expect better from a program that you pay a monthly license fee for..


best is to have your own server in your own noc and your own telecom company :D

lol......you got that right

Bandwidth can be quite a pain to monitor. Bandmin works by using ip accouting which is built into most U*IX system's kernel, or can be installed. However it is only going to monitor by ip address. This means that all your NameVirtualHosts on the same ip are going to get lumped into one pile. The other option is to have apache log every byte. However it still doesn't log the HTTP headers, which can add up to a lot of traffic. This way you get a log for every "ip-less" domain as well. However its only going to be http traffic. You can setup a log for ftp as well. If cpanel sees these logs it will use them.

For anyone curious it uses this search order for the ftp bytes log

@LOC = ("/var/domlogs/$domain-ftpbytes_log",
"/usr/local/apache/domlogs/$domain-ftpbytes_log",
"/usr/local/apache/logs/$domain-ftpbytes_log",
"/usr/local/apache/var/logs/$domain-ftpbytes_log",
"/usr/local/apache/log/$domain-ftpbytes_log",
"/usr/local/apache/var/log/$domain-ftpbytes_log",
"/etc/httpd/domlogs/$domain-ftpbytes_log",
"/etc/httpd/logs/$domain-ftpbytes_log",
"/etc/httpd/log/$domain-ftpbytes_log");


Ok that would cover HTTP and FTP traffic (except for the HTTP headers), however you still have mail and other services such as DNS to account for. AFAIK bind provides no way to track bandwidth. It might be possible with exim, but you'd probably end up sucking up a lot of CPU time doing it. Still you aren't accouting for all the traffic.

Another soultion which is even less viable would be to trap every packet and reassemble them to figure out what site they are coming from. The CPU time required to do this makes this an invalid option.

So if anybody has a good way of monitoring bandwidth for "ip-less" domains, I'd love to hear it.

thanks bdraco...

well webdude so heres some explanation.

however why NOT mention in a clear , bold fonted one liner below the bandwidth figure in cpanel that this is just 50% or whatever of actual bandwidth - so that the ordinary client is not confused to the hell ?

surely writing an extra line is the easiest thing and least CPU -intensive:mad:

Originally posted by neha

however why NOT mention in a clear , bold fonted one liner below the bandwidth figure in cpanel that this is just 50% or whatever of actual bandwidth - so that the ordinary client is not confused to the hell ?

surely writing an extra line is the easiest thing and least CPU -intensive:mad:

neha -- as has been mentioned to you before, the people on the board are not the ones who write the software, why don't you address your concerns to the developers of the CPanel program:

http://www.cpanel.net/

That way you can be sure they hear.

sorry - uuaallan - pardon me if I am out of the line but did not read you several times in this same thread that even giants like webdude wrote/contacted several times the guys from cpanel - all in vain. Do you think they will reply to a single customer when they dont even recognise respected figures like webdude ??

also here is a posyt from a cpanel memeber - they dont answer the basic question - why they dont mention clearly that bandwidth in cpanel is a farce ?

Originally posted by safu

also here is a posyt from a cpanel memeber - they dont answer the basic question - why they dont mention clearly that bandwidth in cpanel is a farce ?

It's not a farce. It measures web usage, and I would imagine it does that pretty accurately. The fact that it does not measure all of the other types of bandwidth usage that could be covered does not negate it's value.

As to the company not responding, if only a couple of people have asked them...it's probably not enough. However, if they were to get 100s of e-mails that would be different, wouldn't you think? It works for Amnesty International.

It's not a farce. It measures web usage -uuaallan

wonder whether he knows or has seen what we are talking about -
cpanel categorically says it measures "bandwidth "
not webusage

cpanele or site admin of tera-byte/cobalt shows
webusgae+ftp transfer+mail usage separately - if we make a total of this 3 we get the amount we are supposed to pay for - ok if needed you can add to it the amount of http header and tranfer at switch or whatever - but how the billed amount can become 2 or 3 X of ( web+ftp+ mail) usage

thats why these meters are ridiculous - uuallan if you want to drag on you can - but no point - Keeg is not happy with that - Webdude is not - we endusers/clients are not ... you keep on saying we are wrong and you blast us !

As to the company not responding, if only a couple of people have asked them...it's probably not enough
when a company does not respond we come to forums like wht - hope you see that point and dont ask us
"why don't you address your concerns to the developers "


It measures web usage, and I would imagine it does that pretty accurately. The fact that it does not measure all of the other types of bandwidth usage that could be covered does not negate it's value

no one negated its value - if you want lets say its value is in gold BUT WHY IT DOES NOT MENTION THAT IT DOES NOT MEASURE OTHER TYPES OF BANDWIDTH ?

uuaallan are you sure you have taken a close hard look at cpanel and/or site admin panel and what are written there ????????????????

I think people here commenting have not taken care to read what is written either on the cpanel or the siteadmin panel - only if they had they could have seen what we were talking about.

Also as webdude said we are paying for something - it need to get its faults repaired .
when we buy a car and when it malfunctions we dont solve the problem by not using it or by switching to another one - we demand that it be repaired - obviously just as I wrote this I am damn scared that uuaalllan will come with some anti-logic and blast me :(

I am too now hearing about htis problem.



18,300=4.3GB traffic in June for a text only pages with 2KB graphics
12,600=4.2GB this month.

this doesn't seem right.

Imagine the difference you get when you get up into the 400-600 gig range..LOL

I can tell you it doesnt seem to read http traffic correctly either..

but who is listening ?

Exactly. This is why we just changed it to say (on the bandwidth page)

******************************************
Bandwidth

This will show how many bytes of transfer your account has done, if this feature is enabled. This measures only outgoing http traffic, not ftp or incoming traffic.

NOTE: WzPro does not gurantee bandwidth accuracy due to the CPanel program being third party software. Our license with CPanel does not allow us to correct this problem ourselves. We do not measure your monthly bandwidth by what is shown here.

I've attached a new version of mod_log_bytes. This one will keep track of http headers as well. This should go a long way in getting the numbers in cpanel up to something more realistic (Your milage may vary). This is still beta software, however I've tested it in a real live enviorment. Comments to nick[at]burst[dot]net If you don't know how to install it .. don't ..just wait for the next darkorb cpanel update.


As always all apache modules darkorb produces are under the apache license.

Originally posted by safu
sorry - uuaallan - pardon me if I am out of the line but did not read you several times in this same thread that even giants like webdude wrote/contacted several times the guys from cpanel - all in vain. Do you think they will reply to a single customer when they dont even recognise respected figures like webdude ??

also here is a posyt from a cpanel memeber - they dont answer the basic question - why they dont mention clearly that bandwidth in cpanel is a farce ?


I've had my ICQ number in my WHT profile for the longest time. Feel free....

Originally posted by Webdude
Exactly. This is why we just changed it to say (on the bandwidth page)

******************************************
Bandwidth

This will show how many bytes of transfer your account has done, if this feature is enabled. This measures only outgoing http traffic, not ftp or incoming traffic.

NOTE: WzPro does not gurantee bandwidth accuracy due to the CPanel program being third party software. Our license with CPanel does not allow us to correct this problem ourselves. We do not measure your monthly
bandwidth by what is shown here.

Actually thats not exactly true (but you were probably never told this so I can't see how that could be your fault *grin*).....

You are absolutly welcome to modifiy mod_log_bytes. The source code is in /usr/local/cpanel/apache/. If you are using the VDI version I'm sure its still there as well. The source is also avalible to cpaneld located in /usr/local/cpanel/cpaneld as it has been since the release of cpanel 3. I can only vouch for the DarkORB version... however I'm pretty sure the VDI version is still the same.

Glad to see you responding Nick. That's more than VDI has. By the way, I have seent you a couple of emails in the recent past, but you never answered. Did you get them? I think it was a darkorb email.

and dont stop responding now..LOL

Originally posted by Webdude
Glad to see you responding Nick. That's more than VDI has. By the way, I have seent you a couple of emails in the recent past, but you never answered. Did you get them? I think it was a darkorb email.

and dont stop responding now..LOL

Hmm.. never got them .. try resending them to nick@darkorb.net ...

hmmmmmmmm.....something is happening then

errrr...
this is of much concern..... I will like to know does anyone have similar probs with other hosts ?

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=16187

"But is it too much to ask why I'm being charged for 25.8GB of bandwidth this past month when the online report says I used 24GB for the past 2+ months?

If the online reporting tool isn't correct, how come customers weren't and still aren't informed of this when they sign up? Does "....." expect us to magically know that? Don't make us figure it out on our own after we've been charged for bandwidth overage.

And couldn't you have just sent an e-mail stating "We never told you this before, but don't trust the bandwidth reports from the online siteadmin. Instead, e-mail us for your true bandwidth usage." So instead, you ignore me for 2 weeks, I have a bandwidth overage charge that I don't understand, and I have to post on this forum to get a response from you." - kebirin in a recent post


Thats exactly what has been I was trying to say from the beginning.
This is the most important issue as here we have to pay a whole lot more than our hosting charges for one and only bandwidth. We dont complain that we have to pay more neither we mistrust our host but we want
1)to know what our exact usage are
2) and we want to be updated regularly on this by email or whatever if siteadmin and cpanels are wrong.

The mods NEVER really seriously took up this issUE but it will be of great help if a post is put up BY MODS IN ADVERT AREA OR ANY PLACE HERE and response invited from webhosts to answer in the following format

1) what stats the customer is expected to go by ? online stats or hidden stats
2) if its hiddeN stats will they as a default email the client daily/periodically of their usage ?
3) do they send prior email if they charge extra when bw quota is finished , allowing customers to opt for a higer plan ?
4) if bw need drastically falls somehow afterwards do they allow to downgrade plans ?
5) More importantly is there provision to switch on and off THROTTLE eg a 30 gig plan being allowed 100 megs per day in high - requirements months ?
6) Do they simply shut down a site without emailing ( like worldzone used to do for a certain time)the client ?
7) whether they keep on the plain html s - texts on even if bw is crossed without extra charge like westhost ?

I am hosted with both worldzone and tera-byte - I beleive these two are THE NICEST hosts with simply 2 MOST wonderfull persons like Keeg and Webdude but I beleive they are helpless about bandwidth - may be becoz of bindings to noc ( in case of webdude, noc charging him more than he expect) or to telcoms ( in case of Keeg, telcoms charging him more than he expect) - I need a 3rd account which will need high bandwidth to the tune of 10 to 15 gigs - a 20 gig account ( which goes REALLY by the meter as 20 gigs) - I want to know either from these hosts or any client of them if they can help me know on the above points -

terabyte
worldzone
valuablehost
site5
westhost
telaserv
xensei
qwk
dellz
dezines
aletia

actually - cobalt raq shows separately - http transfer,ftp transfer and mail transfer. so one should be paying for what these adds up to.

now if something extra is needed like that at switch it needs to be clearly told by the host - surprisingly they dont

actually we do, on the plan page it states:
*Web based stats are for general information purposes only.
Billing stats are generated differently.

and as of yesterday we now have a way for the customers to get that information automatically instead of emailing us, here is the url
https://ssl.tera-byte.com/bandwidth/
however as I stated at the beginning of this thread the problem with such a feature is its extreme load on resources, in the last 8 hours there have been 22,000 requests for bandwidth numbers. 4000 requests from one customer alone, on one website.


Steve

thats exactly why you need something automated, for sure. see webdude's post here above - he has some good points.

4000 request email ?? wanting to know bw ? in how many days ? thats amazing indeed !! and how many of those you could answer ?

in fact somewhere in this same thread it was stated categorically email is not a or a oor solution

keeg/webdude - you might find this helpful
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=123762#post123762

please have a look at this post if you are here

Hi all,

I started following this thread and wrote to several of the companies that make the hosting software that have been mentioned on this site. The only one that has replied was Smart Hosting Tools and my questions was as follows;

Inregards to bandwidth monitoring does your software monitor HTTP, FTP and EMAIL both incoming and outgoing as the total GB of bandwidth used on the account.

And the answer that was sent back to me was;

Yes it does.

:smokin:

webdude - go a nd grab it - what are u waiting for :D

well , I found at least one host --- they wont **** down the html - the plain vanilla html part while shutting other parts eg gif mp3 etc when the bandwidth is crossed. good - that helps to keep the site alive
- this is westhost - hope they mean what they say.

I found this topic to be good ...my addition will be :

1 . terabyte has added on the plan pages that billing stat is different than what is shown in the panel

2. some hosts like valuable host assure that bandwidth shown in the panel only is billed for - see their forum

also I find that bandwidth charges vary widely -
$3 /gig to $ 8 or 9 acc. to hosts

webdude with your new control panel does it have better reporting than the old cpanel you used?

Replying for Webdude since he can't be here.

Yes, H-Sphere is a lot more accurate than cpanel. You can also see what files are using the most bandwidth.