I am looking at getting into the reselling business, then move to dedicated servers if things go well. We are trying to get our prices set and have been all over the net looking at what will be our competition's prices and services they offer.

It seems to me that nearly all hosts oversell bandwidth, maybe HD space as well. If you take an average server and figure out how many people they could host vs the space on HD vs the BW....it just seems that they are either loosing tons of money on their plans, or people never rech these set limits.

So I am curious, do most hosts oversell BW? And if so, is it ethical?


On this note, why do so many customers feel they need 3+ gig? What sort of sites are they running that they need that much bandwidth???? If you have 50 megs of HD space, on average how much BW do you use a month? With only 50 megs of psace, I cannot imagine that most people would even get close to 2 or 3 or more gigs of traffic....

thoughts?

So I am curious, do most hosts oversell BW?

Yes.

And if so, is it ethical?

As long as you'll be able to provide what a person paid for if they ever need it.

On this note, why do so many customers feel they need 3+ gig?

Some of them do need it. Many don't. Either they have no idea how much transfer 3GB is, or their thinking is that someday, their site will need it, and they want to be ready. Or something like that.

Hi,
Actually, I have found that most customers look for 5 to 10 gig of transfer, not just 3...

Though when they load their site, they use less than a few mb per month.

Customers that look for 600mb to a gig of space either don't know how much space they need, or they have a huge site full of downloadable items like zip's or mp3's... they will look for the largest bandwidth though, so less than 7 will usually keep them away.

The best way to go into reselling with the idea of getting your own server one day, is to add up how many customers you will need on the server at your average of plan prices to pay for the server,, then how much room you have left to put in more sites to pay you.

Most unix servers will hold 500 sites if using IP based hosting, and many times that on non IP based or name based hosting.
Figgure your average needed income from that, then how many disks ect..

Starting out is not that hard, but make a good business plan before you jump into your own machine.

Tim L

Originally posted by snikle
On this note, why do so many customers feel they need 3+ gig? What sort of sites are they running that they need that much bandwidth???? If you have 50 megs of HD space, on average how much BW do you use a month? With only 50 megs of psace, I cannot imagine that most people would even get close to 2 or 3 or more gigs of traffic....

thoughts?

I think lots of customers think they may need more than 3 gig of bandwidth because they have fairly active sites.

I don't know about you; but to me 3gig really isn't much at all; and it doesn't go far at all.

I have one site only taking up 20mb or so, and only has a few thousand visitors per month; but I use quite a lot more than 3 gig.

Out of roughly 1500 sites, most of which are on 3 or 5 gig a month plans, there's less than 50 that get close, and less than 10 that go over their allocated bandwidth. Now harddrive space is a bit different, tehre's a lot of people using what I've sold them, but heck man, harddrives are CHEAP so just drop a 60 or 80 gigger in there and be done with it :)

Most are right around a gig, including dixiesys.com itself, it does about 800K. Bearing in mind forums.dixiesys.com is not included in that.

People think they need a lot more than they do, so web hosts sell it to them, knowing they're not gonna use it, and oversell. The thing is to make sure that if people DO start using what you sold them that you can accomodate them. I feel REALLY worried when I see a harddrive on a "full" server at over 50%.

I completely agree with appletreats' comment. Again, web space has nothing to do with bandwidth. I had a site with only 2 Megs of disk space (that I used, I had an allowance of 150 megs), and I moved about 15 to 17+ GIG's a month. All it was, was HTML being transfered -- and very few images that were tiny (on purpose). It depends on how popular the site is, and what those 50 megs of files actually are, indeed. appletreats simply stated the rest, and I'm very much in agreement.

My site takes approx. 10MB and churns approx. 3gig of transfer every month.

And if so, is it ethical?

I don't see what Ethics has to do with it. If the consumer knows that they are going to get 2 GB of Space and 10GB of BW and they order that, why is it bad?

overselling... this is how you can make small business to work nowadays...

Originally posted by snikle
If you take an average server and figure out how many people they could host vs the space on HD vs the BW....it just seems that they are either loosing tons of money on their plans, or people never rech these set limits.
People do reach those set limits, however *most* do not.

So I am curious, do most hosts oversell BW? And if so, is it ethical?
Most hosts oversell (which is ethical so long as they actually provide what they claim to offer, as was said). Overselling isn't a bad thing. It gives the host the ability to offer more, for less. It gives the customers the same. Many other industries use it.

Where you get into trouble is that you ignore common sense and business and simply oversell the Richard off a feline. However, you shouldn't offer unlimted everything, just because most aren't going to use all of the features you give them. Oversell, but keep it in check.

In a general context, ethics can be relevant when the consumer goes to a site and sees an advertisement for a particular hosting package or deal. They are relying on the advertising actually being delivered without tricks, catches, or hidden references to the contrary. How many on this board have whined and moaned about some hosts using this to attract customers, only to give them the boot or hit them with excuses to move up into a higher package?

Would guess that many have on here at one time or another put their 2 cents worth into threads relating to this, in the past. Those hosts that have higher data allowances and do not stoop to using reasons that a portion of consumers would have no real understanding of, are using ethics in their approach to their customer base. The others however that use hidden clauses, etc, are not and therefore are deceptive in their business practices, and adherance to trading laws relevant to their location.

As previously stated, it's fine as long as you are willing to back up what you're offering if the gamble doesnt go your way.

Its just as ethical as air lines over selling their seats.

The only way it is wrong is if the hosts don't provide them or oversell and delete sites with out causes because they made a mistake **COUGH** DonHost **COUGH**



:D

Thanks

Then to state it more clearly, since it seems like some people don't agree with any analogy posed; It's fine to oversell -- as long as the company is able and willing (and do!) provide the client with the amount promised, when the time comes. I.e., allotting so much bandwidth for all the clients, yet they _all_ use all their bandwidth and you're about to run short -- so you buy another few hundred gig's to allot that to the clients you promised it to. It's not wise to promise 10 GIG's of bandwidth to each client, have 400 clients on a server and then just buy a block of 4,000 GIG's just to accommodate them, when you'll probably be pushing about 500 to 800 GIG's on average, and at most. Say, you pre purchase 400 Gig's... If you need more, or it's getting short, you assign the (should be a lot) left over GIG's other clients aren't using to the one's that are, so you can give them what they paid for. You're still giving the other people what they paid for too and if they used more, you'd let them have it too. If too many people start using too much, you see you'll have a chance of running short nd simply buy another few hundred gig's to have ready -- before anything would get messy. There's nothing wrong with that.

<Analogy>

It's like a buffet table. They allow anyone to eat as much of anything people want. One person could eat a lot, but most people eat reasonable amounts. You don't expect a buffet to allot 10 full plates of food for each person. The people that don't eat much allow for people that do, to still get what they want. If it starts getting low on supplies, they just prepare an estimated amount more food to accommodate everyone. It would be different if they could only offer the food you see on the buffet table, just as it would if someone bought 400 GIG's, hosted 400 clients and allotted them each 10 GIG's and couldn't get more bandwidth or weren't willing -- or perhaps weren't wise enough to make sure they even could. So, overselling is okay in the sense that people that do have ethics and do take a second to think about it, aren't actually overselling, but they are simply not going to just buy a lot of food that will inevitably rot anyway, they can always make more (and have a lot more on hand to do just that when there's any indication they'll run short). So, overselling and that's all they'll have to offer or will give, is one thing, but not just overbuying and wasting and being able and willing (and prepared and again, able), is quite another. However, I've seen people not plan well and run out of disk space (and I'm certain that's happened to hosts with bandwidth too -- if they don't plan well). So, it really depends on their planning and availability. I hope that's a better analogy. Huh, huh??

</Analogy>

Well, I gotta say you guys have pretty much changed my mind on this subject. I didnt think of the fact that if a host's server was getting close to their alloted BW, they could simply purchase more to cover those clients that actually did reach their alloted BW. I would have to agree with Tim_Greer and add that I think it is ethical to oversell, so long as you entend to provide the clients with the services you sold them (ie purchasing that extra BW when you need it).

Thank you for everyne who commented on this subject.