If you know a bit about webhosting you will probably get bored reading this and then flame me for wasting your time at the end of it so stop reading now! ...lol - for everyone else who is looking in to webhosting but doesn't want uncalculable costs then you MAY find some helpful advice here.

I was reading a thread where someone pointed to this page (http://www.unlimband.com/) - normally I have just been a quiet reader here, but this page really pi**es me off, so I feel the need to rant a little! Here is why:

They make no definition between unlimited bandwidth and unlimited traffic. They don't even seem to realize that there is a difference!

Offering unlimited bandwidth is, as they quite truthfully say, absolutely impossible - there is no such thing. Bandwidth has nothing to with the amount of data that can be transferred, only the speed with which a given number of packets can get from A to B. A bog-standard Ethernet Card has a Bandwidth of 10MBit/s meaning you can squeeze ten-million bits of Data through it each second (i.e. approx. 1,2 MB) - a Fast Ethernet card (100MBit/s) can cope with ten times as much - there are even Gigabit Ethernet Cards now (1000MBit/s) which can do 100 times that - but anyway - that's not the problem here.

The thing is that the providers offering "unlimited bandwidth" don't usually mean that (how much bandwidth does a person need for a website?! Most people have a Modem/ISDN/DSL/Cable account, and any Webspace-Provider should be able to cope with downloads of lets say max. 150kb/s).
What they mean is unlimited traffic. This is how costs are metered on the web. Webhosters pay a certain amount of cash per GB of data the transfer (be it incoming or outgoing) and these costs have to be covered by the amount they charge their customers, naturally.
However I see no harm whatsoever in webhosters offering "unlimited" traffic to their customers as they will normally have experience with the average amount of usage per customer and so can calculate their costs accordingly - sure it means that some people will get more out of it than others, but most people who are looking for "unlimited" traffic just want to be absolutely certain that they will not be confronted with unforseen costs at the end of the month.
I think unlimited bandwidth in combination with an easily accessible "acceptable use policy" (i.e. no whopping-gread downloads and no ftp-mirrors etc...) is a good and fair marketing gimmick.

Besides - the people who actually own sites that generate the kind of traffic that would cause these firms to either shut them down or go bust are normally experienced webmasters who KNOW that these offers aren't without their limitations and would probably leave their hands off these offers to begin with... And the 1% that aren't small users and DO have a high-traffic website but still go for these offers thinking they will get something for nothing are - well - umm - idiots - and usually it is them complaing that they got their account cancelled.

Just for those who aren't sure whether their site is likely to generate lots of traffic: Our clanpage www.ut-mrc.de is relatively well visited (maybe 50 people per day) for a hobby-site and uses php, a mysql database, and even some more-or-less heavy grafix in places. We still only total on about 80 - 150 MB of traffic each Month. So - if you have a small business or wanna host a private website (maybe even one simelar to ours) then you might aswell go for an unlimited traffic account if you want to make sure that you don't get a nasty surprise. They won't cut you off cause of that kind of traffic - and if they do then they are frauds and you can sue them!

<<snip>>

..back to what I started off to say. The website http://www.unlimband.com/ contains (dis-)information that is directed at newbie-webmasters (cause experienced ones know it all, anyway) and really should get its definitions right because it is ruining plenty of business' chances to offer this kind of package without being under suspicion of fraudulant behaviour.

...I think I have said - errr typed - enough. More than enough!
I'd be interested to hear your view on this matter and especially whether you share my opinion that the website in question is a bit, well, misleading and should have its concept rethought?!

Sick of typing, now.

Greetz.
BrAiN.

So this is in defence off unlimited traffic??

What "unlimited" hosting company do you own/work for/want to start up?

Ya hadda ask.




Ya just hadda ask. :rolleyes:


Your defense makes no sense. Well, unless you would leave the "nice" off from in front of "marketing gimmick."

Originally posted by BrAiNDaMaGe


They make no definition between unlimited bandwidth and unlimited traffic. They don't even seem to realize that there is a difference!


There is a difference?



The thing is that the providers offering "unlimited bandwidth" don't usually mean that


They why do they offer it?


What they mean is unlimited traffic.


Again I can only get so much "traffic" before I use up all my bandwidth.


Sick of typing, now.

Greetz.
BrAiN. :confused: :confused:

Brian what I think you dont understand is that if your clan site used 60GB of traffic a month and you signed up with Host X for $3.99 a month than Host X is going to 99% of the time shut you down with some BS clause they have in there TOS hidden somewhere. It does not matter if you get this usages in traffic, hits, downloads or even if aliens are using up all the traffic you will get shut down for something that you were told that there was no maximum too, something you could never run out of. It pisses me off because these hosts that offer if get the customer which 99.9% of the time will not use really any bandwidth and end up staying not realizing the truth but the .01% that get booted and have there site shut down loose trust in hosts and we reputable hosts are left to pick up the peices.

Interestingly I don't! :stickout I am one of the people who has had good experiences in the past with "unlimited traffic" providers - and I know that, being a student, I didn't have the cash to cover the cost of an unforseen traffic-explosion! Now that I know how much traffic I need I have moved to a different (cheaper) but equaly good provider that gives me 10Gig incl. which (as stated before) is more than enough - I just felt like ranting about that website a bit cause it is a bit misleading for people who don't know much about hosting.

Greetinks
BrAiN

Originally posted by OKIHost


Brian what I think you dont understand is that if your clan site used 60GB of traffic a month and you signed up with Host X for $3.99 a month than Host X is going to 99% of the time shut you down with some BS clause they have in there TOS hidden somewhere. It does not matter if you get this usages in traffic, hits, downloads or even if aliens are using up all the traffic you will get shut down for something that you were told that there was no maximum too, something you could never run out of. It pisses me off because these hosts that offer if get the customer which 99.9% of the time will not use really any bandwidth and end up staying not realizing the truth but the .01% that get booted and have there site shut down loose trust in hosts and we reputable hosts are left to pick up the peices.



Agreed! While I am a reseller only host, I would have to agree with you here.

i think the basic problem here is how unmetered is being used. if i were to buy a server for hosting, and it came on a 10 mbps unmetered connection then thats fine. if the price is at least 350\500 bucks then it seems sensible. now if i were to sell hosting off that server and market it as unmetered bandwidth \ space, then its a different game, the customers dont know how much resources they will be able to use. they wont be privy to the current load of the server etc. if i was to throttle every account to 1 mbps and only put 10 accounts on then that would be different esp if i was selling the accounts as 1mbps unmetered. i.e. this is your limit you can use it all and cant go over.
its not so much the word, but how its done.

sometime when life settles down im going to get a few accounts with those unlimited hosts and thrast 13 shades out of their servers with my huge collection of pointless bitmap images. if anyone else if up for a laugh let me know in a few months :)

Originally posted by BrAiNDaMaGe
for everyone else who is looking in to webhosting but doesn't want uncalculable costs then you MAY find some helpful advice here.

I've tried the same argument on the gas company, the electricity company, the phone company, the local petrol station and the icecream van that drives by every Sunday afternoon around 2:30pm...

Unfortunately they all maintain that theirs is a usage based service and we must pay accordingly...based on usage. :)

So are we.

Cheers

Gary

. The website http://www.unlimband.com/ contains (dis-)information that is directed at newbie-webmasters Without getting into the discussion about whether offering "unlimited bandwidth" is any more defensible than is "unlimited traffic," there is a good point in the above. The site purports to educate hosting consumers, but glosses over a very important distinction that any such consumer should have a good understanding of: bandwidth and amount of traffic/transfer are not the same thing.

A prominent and accurate discussion of the meanings of these terms would help to make the site a much more useful resource.

I was kinda hoping for constructive discussion points. :( Any little people out there or are you all underworked webhosters (seeing as you have time to read and post here so much!?!) - lol - oh and enhancedhost gary: you can get a flatrate broadband connection to the internet through quite a few providers - how does that fit in? If the gasboard offered flatrate gas at the right price (rofl) I'm sure they would do good business with it without going bankrupt! They just need to get their calculations right!...

Thankyou JayC - something constructive at last!

His user name should sum up this thread

Gary, I tried that with the local water co, and they agreed to unlimited gallons of water for only $20 per month.
Unfortunately, I noticed that shortly after our agreement, they set my Gallons per Minute of delivery so low that my toilet won't flush. :angry:

ATST: Pull up your news-client and go to alt.comedy pls. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by OKIHost
Again I can only get so much "traffic" before I use up all my bandwidth.That statement hints at a misunderstanding of what "bandwidth" is, and is not accurate. You will never "use up all your bandwidth." Bandwidth, in fact, can not be "used up."
Originally posted by BrAiNDaMaGe
I think unlimited bandwidth in combination with an easily accessible "acceptable use policy" (i.e. no whopping-gread downloads and no ftp-mirrors etc...) is a good and fair marketing gimmick.That's exactly the problem with it... it's a "marketing gimmick." It counts on consumers not understanding what they are buying; and hosts who market that way are to some extent -- some to a greater extent than others -- attempting to deceive consumers. If not for there having been several well-known cases of "unlimited" hosts shutting sites down for, in fact, having "too much" traffic there wouldn't be the negative feeling about it that there is.

That said, I realize that some companies use that "marketing gimmick" not because they are hopelessly evil at heart, but because they feel that they have to -- "everyone else is doing it." Other hosts combat this, instead, by going out of their way to portray "unlimited hosts" as the scourge of the earth, and that's where sites like unlimband.com come from.

[re JayC]..another way of looking at it would be that they won't bill you out of house and home if your usage is a bit higher one month and then back to normal the next - plus - I have seen plenty of hosters that offer limited traffic and then charge absolutely outrageous prices per extra MB/GB... I reckon there are just as many bad-apples on the non-unlimited webspace market...! It just appears more serious if they charge like "per piece" - PLUS - how much chance does a normal user REALLY have of knowing, if they didn't just put a "0" on the end of the amount of traffic used - "unlimited"-hosters don't even have the oppertunity to lie to their customers about these things! Each coin has two sides... ;)

Brian, lighten up. I was simply showing the difference beween bandwidth and transfer in a way that some others may understand. I chose a toilet because thats where I think all misleading marketing should go. I agree with you on the part where the unlimband.com should more accurately reflect the defintitions of these things.
Some hosts offer unlimited transfer, but throttle the bandwidth. Others offer unlimited bandwidth (even though there is a very real limit, most users will never see the real limit because of their own ISP's limit) but limit the transfer. The thing is, most people see the words 'bandwidth' and 'transfer' as interchanagable, and being preceded by the shameless word "unlimited" it tends to suck them in. Many of these sucked in won't know the real meaning until they are told they have violated some rule. Then they go to real hosts with a skeptical attitude.
I think that site should acurately define it so that people can catch these deceptive lines on their own, once armed with the proper knowlege.

Or I we could all just give in and create our own twist on the deceptive marketing practices:
Sign on restraunt: All You Can Eat $9.95
After you are seated, the waitress looks at her watch and says "When I say 'GO' you have 15 minutes"

Sign at the Second To EveryOne Car Rental:
Umlimited milage on all our rental cars.
When you go in, you are given a choice of a red 1994 Ford Escort or a blue 1993 Ford Escort.

That said, I realize that some companies use that "marketing gimmick" not because they are hopelessly evil at heart, but because they feel that they have to -- "everyone else is doing it." Other hosts combat this, instead, by going out of their way to portray "unlimited hosts" as the scourge of the earth, and that's where sites like unlimband.com come from.

This sums up all these threads perfectly. What is even funnier is these host who put that 'reeks of small-time' unlimiband button on their sites. They are showing possible customers they support blacklist. :cartman:

I agree unlimited is BS, but so is a site that that does not clearly define everything it is supposedly educating people on and includes a blacklist (although cleverly represented as something else).

I can assure you this is not the case with all providers.

Hello all-

I have found that regardless of the REAL meaning of "unlimited bandwidth", most consumers understand the phrase to mean "unlimited everything"----"my site can't get shut down, no matter what." If you have in mind to re-educate the consumer base as to the difference between the unlimited terms, good luck. It should be done, but is probably a failing campaign.

Here's my example (keep the snickering to a minimum):

How many people know what a tremolo arm is on an electric guitar? WRONG! There is no tremolo arm on an electric guitar.

But, sure there is. It's also called a whammy bar.

No. It is actually a vibrato arm. But, no matter how hard guitar enthusiasts try to educate, it is---and always will be---the tremolo bar.

Stupid example? Yes, it is. But if you think to straighten out the public on unlimited bandwidth, unmetered, traffic, transfer, etc., you will run into the same thing.

What was the purpose of this post? Looking back over it....I'm not sure.:confused:

-Lamar

There are a lot of words that hosting companies use to define the amount of traffic you're allotted. Bandwidth, transfer, traffic, hits, etc. almost always fall into the same category. "Unlimited providers," such as the one I work for, are targeting a different group of consumers than most. We could come right out and out say that this account comes with X GB of bandwidth, but there is no set limit. While it's not *UNLIMITED*, since most of our machines are no faster than 45mbps, we use our best judgment to determine when abuse of this privilege has accrued.

Here's a snippet from our policies page:

"Home Net Web, Inc. customers are privileged to be offered unlimited traffic and storage for their websites. The intention of Home Net Web, Inc. is to provide a large space to serve web documents, not an offsite storage area for electronic files. All web pages (HTML) must be 'linked' with all files (.gif, .jpeg, .exe, etc.) stored on Home Net Web, Inc.'s server. Websites that are found to contain no HTML documents or a number of unlinked files are subject to warning, suspension or cancellation at the discretion of Home Net Web, Inc. management.
Home Net Web, Inc. will not host music archive sites that violate any copyright laws in any file format. Any sites that are found to contain this content will be warned, suspended or cancelled at the discretion of Home Net Web, Inc. management."

We feel that over time, our users will average out. Some will need lots of megabytes for their site, and some won't. Some will get lots of web traffic and some won't. We've been offering unlimited acounts for a while now and don't see any reason to change. A good example of this is AOL. They've heavily oversold their network, offering "Unlimited" usage of their services; allowing people to stay connected for weeks on end. While you may never connect to AOL when you want to, it's the #1 ISP in existence. They must have done something right, besides offering something they can't provide.

$0.02 + Tax.

Originally posted by BrAiNDaMaGe
I was kinda hoping for constructive discussion points. :( Any little people out there or are you all underworked webhosters (seeing as you have time to read and post here so much!?!) - lol - oh and enhancedhost gary: you can get a flatrate broadband connection to the internet through quite a few providers - how does that fit in? If the gasboard offered flatrate gas at the right price (rofl) I'm sure they would do good business with it without going bankrupt! They just need to get their calculations right!...

hehe didnt my post count as constructive discussion? lol i was nice for once as well :( that'll teach me.

And here we go again, educating hosts that do not know the difference between bandwidth and transfer. :D

Originally posted by Richard Ward
While it's not *UNLIMITED*, since most of our machines are no faster than 45mbps, we use our best judgment to determine when abuse of this privilege has accrued.


I think what all the unlimited-haters really despise is that sentence right there. It sounds very neat and simple, but what people are afraid of is the "best judgement" of the webprovider. If it's in my best judgement that 1gb of transfer is enough for any site and one of my clients goes over it, i could then, completely under the TOS, suspend or cancel their account. obviously this is a bit overboard, but I think my point is clear. When you have vague policies like that (and I'd say richard's TOS is pretty good compared to others I've seen) instead of clear limits, arguments and disputes always occur...

Brian, unlimband policies is just fine.


If you go to a site that has unmetered bandwidth the ISP should not pressure the client into a bigger package. They advertised unmetered bandwidth and the ISP shouldn't be harrasing their customers to upgrade. That is what they advertised, that is what customers expect without having the ISP breathing down their neck.

It would be a different story if a webhost gave unmetered bandwidth on a set "dedicated" connection. So say 10mb/s dedicated line. This can be unmetered because the ISP won't be asking you to upgrade. You're using the 10Mb/s bandwidth that you paid for and thus the ISP has no reason to bug the client. The dedicated server ISP's listed on unlimband push their customers to upgrade deserve to be singled out on Unlimband, because they don't say as they advertise. A client should pay for the service without expecting to be hit with spam mail requesting that they upgrade. Its "unmetered" so why is someone metering it and "suggesting" to upgrade??

Look below for the exact position Unlimband is referring to...

From Unlimband.com:--Unmetered bandwidth, basically means that you have as much bandwidth as the systems, and lines can hold. If the connection or server becomes overloaded with the amounts of bandwidth, the host may contact you about pricing on upgrading your site to a higher plan. We feel that hosts that do this should also be included in our site

Annoyance,

You have hit the nail on the head.

If you read the TOS of an unlimited host, you tend to find more restrictions on content than a limited host. For instance, you can't use it for file archives and such.

I'd love to find an unlimited host, which truly lives up to the word. My friends and I could quite easily put together a legal site, which would consume well over 100GB monthly transfer, or 1/3Mbit bandwidth.

I could pump well over 400GB on a legal site, if I set my mind to it..now to see if HostOnce will let me :)

Originally posted by dreamHOBO
I could pump well over 400GB on a legal site, if I set my mind to it..now to see if HostOnce will let me :)

Wow. That will show them. That will show them to get inline with your beliefs.

This is why these host have these restrictive Terms. They want to keep people like you away. "Hey, I have some paint - lets go throw it on someone wearing fur!"

If you read the TOS of an unlimited host, you tend to find more restrictions on content than a limited host. For instance, you can't use it for file archives and such.

Who cares? That is their offering. Their *Terms*. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Maybe these host know that by limiting these type of customers, then can deliver. Who knows?

Originally posted by Hostkookster
Brian, unlimband policies is just fine.


<snip>

Look below for the exact position Unlimband is referring to...

From Unlimband.com:--Unmetered bandwidth, basically means that you have as much bandwidth as the systems, and lines can hold. If the connection or server becomes overloaded with the amounts of bandwidth, the host may contact you about pricing on upgrading your site to a higher plan. We feel that hosts that do this should also be included in our site



How is that different then what EVERY host does for cgi resource use or any other high use of system resources? As long as a host can say "look, here is your use. Here is our Terms" I do not see what the issue is.

I know many don't give the customer clear Terms. They do not spend money having lawyers write the Terms. So they just bump them off at any stage. However, if a host clearly states what is allowed, and you can use as much as you want within those bounds, then how is that wrong?

Example. Unlimited milage on a rental care.

Terms. You can not leave the state. Car can not be used for commercial use. Etc... The customer knows they can use the car as much as the Terms allow.

Anyway.... :)

BrAiNDaMaGe, I'm assuming you contacted the owner of the site and discussed the misinformation with them first before posting here, eh? Something tells me you skipped that part, though I could be wrong...

Point being that while I don't really have an opinion of unlimiband, I don't think they are out to mislead anyone, and if something is inaccurate on the site, they'd be happy to discuss it and correct it. Has happened before, that much I know...

I don't think they are out to mislead anyone, and if something is inaccurate on the site, they'd be happy to discuss it and correct it. Has happened before, that much I know...

This is true. He has amde a lot of changes from his first releases. Mostly because he is closing legal openings. ;)