This survey is being submitted on behalf of one of our members.
Hosts and clients, please provide your input. Thank you! -Chicken



I'd like to get feedback from both hosting customers and hosts themselves regarding preferred bandwidth usage for dedicated servers.

Please choose one of the four main methods of monitoring data transfer:

1. Rate Shaping -- Limiting a site to a dedicated connection. The server is allocated a certain amount of bandwidth. This contains the cost of bandwidth, but it does not allow for high amounts of traffic.

2. Actual Usage -- Billed based on the amount of data transferred.

3. Median -- Bandwidth is measured at certain intervals and is averaged together to come up with a total transfer for the month. The host generally allocates a specified amount of data transfer and charges a fixed price per gigabyte over the allotted amount.

4. 95th Percentile -- Bandwidth is again measured at certain
intervals and the you are billed at 95% of the highest usage point, multiplied by the number of days in the month.

-and for extra bandwidth, how would you prefer to pay:

1. Bandwidth sold in chunks, at a receding scale, eg:
50 Gigs for $150
100 Gigs for $200
200 Gigs for $250

2. A flat rate of $2 per gig.

[Edited by Chicken on 03-18-2001 at 02:44 AM]

2 by 1

Originally posted by Chicken
3. Median -- Bandwidth is measured at certain intervals and is averaged together to come up with a total transfer


Not quite sure... Median is not the same as Mean (average). So which one is this? median or mean?


1. Bandwidth sold in chunks, at a receding scale, eg:
50 Gigs for $150
100 Gigs for $200
200 Gigs for $250

2. A flat rate of $2 per gig.

Err... Why whould buying 50GB of bandwith in advance cost more than buying it in 1GB increment? Obviously, I will choose option number 2 (not even hard to decide). However, I like the 200Gigs for $250 ($1.25/GB).... But until I require at least 125Gigs (buying flat rate at $2/GB), I won't prepurchase that 200Gigs for $250...

cheers,
:beer:

dektong (note this isn't *my* survey but you missed one point that I'll help clear up)...

The question for point #2 is if you'd rather be charged a flat rate of $2 or if you'd prefer a sliding scale (moer expensive at first, but lower eventually).

You can't combine the two options. Most likely the per GB price for option #1 would be higher than $2 (something like $5 I'd imagine, but I'm not sure). I'll try to get the theoretical price for you.

Here's my 2 cents:

Since the cost to the upstream provider depends upon a combination of how much traffic is sent in total (obvious) and how bursty it is (bursty traffic means you need higher peak capacity), I think that it makes sense to charge based upon a combination of total bandwidth and 95 percentile level. Based on some technical work I've done in queuing theory I'd have to say that the "ideal" would be to charge based on (mean bandwidth used) + (standard deviation bandwidth used), but that is probably too complicated for any non-mathematicians to like.

As for flat vs. non-flat pricing, I'd definitely say to stick with a flat rate. Most customers start small, and using a non-flat pricing scheme simply makes things more expensive for your small customers.

I prefer to pay for actual bandwidth used and buy it in chunks. This is also how I like to sell it to my customers. It keeps everything simple for most circumstances.


Best regards,
Frank Rietta