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  1. #1
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    Confused about unlimited Bandwidth

    I see that many Web Hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth, what I might think that they are offering versus what they actually offer might something different?
    I have read that some users have had notification from there Web hosts that they the website have exceeded a monthly allotment and the website is now metered, for whatever that means?

    Could some people with knowledge regarding how some Web Hosting companies view unlimited bandwidth kindly reply to this request.
    Or maybe I am just mistaken?

  2. #2
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    A lot of companies offer 'unlimited' bandwidth as a way of hooking you in, these packages are usually accompanied by a large amount of terms and conditions which in actuality are rather limiting.
    It's best to read the ToS before commencing with any of these packages so that you fully understand what you are getting yourself in to.
    There is no such thing as an unlimited resource.

  3. #3
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    It's not difficult to offer unlimited bandwidth considering how most sites won't ever use it and bandwidth is cheap nowadays. Unless you are with a terrible host or you are doing things that you shouldn't, you should not run into issues.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Canuk_Al View Post
    I see that many Web Hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth, what I might think that they are offering versus what they actually offer might something different?
    I have read that some users have had notification from there Web hosts that they the website have exceeded a monthly allotment and the website is now metered, for whatever that means?

    Could some people with knowledge regarding how some Web Hosting companies view unlimited bandwidth kindly reply to this request.
    Or maybe I am just mistaken?
    Unlimited "should" mean no quota, which means you don't pay more or get reduced throughput no matter how much bandwidth you use. I've been investigating co-lo choices, and you have to be careful. A lot of them say they give you 10Mb/s, but then say 95th percentile, which means that you would have to pay more if you happen to go over 10Mb/s often enough. The 95th percentile is a scam in itself, as different systems will give different results for the exact same traffic. It's impossible to sync a meter with the provider; some count the ethernet header. An ACK is really 0 bytes of data, but cheap MRTG servers with charge you for 60 bytes. So metering is murky business in general.

  5. #5
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    I think its more of the space taken up then the bandwidth,bandwidth is cheap.

  6. #6
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    it usually mean you are not limited on using the bandwidth. this also applies fair usage policy. most host doesnt care how much users using unless they hurt other accounts on the same server.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by FBSDguru View Post
    Unlimited "should" mean no quota, which means you don't pay more or get reduced throughput no matter how much bandwidth you use. I've been investigating co-lo choices, and you have to be careful. A lot of them say they give you 10Mb/s, but then say 95th percentile, which means that you would have to pay more if you happen to go over 10Mb/s often enough. The 95th percentile is a scam in itself, as different systems will give different results for the exact same traffic. It's impossible to sync a meter with the provider; some count the ethernet header. An ACK is really 0 bytes of data, but cheap MRTG servers with charge you for 60 bytes. So metering is murky business in general.

    That's not accurate, meaning that the reporting is not "out of sync". All those applications like MRTG, uses SNMP. It just counts the difference in bytes sent by an interface. In other words it does not care about an ACK flat set, or what type of Ethernet frame is involved. I could see a discrepancy come from transferring internal traffic over the same interface used for public traffic, but with two NICs it wouldn't matter, and there is software that uses netflow to do the billing.

    Most sites will not use near the traffic limits of most hosts. If you are going to, you should know about it, and probably consider CDNs.

  8. #8
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    I would think "unlimited bandwidth" is just a marketing gimmick. You will be limited by network speed or by some other factor and for whatever you use you will come to understand everything actually has a limit. If I tell you unlimited disk space and limit you with 100 websites and also include a clause that you may not use your disk space for backups or any irrelative data to your websites you will end up using around 2 GB disk space at most. Same calculation can be done once I assign you 10mbit port and than tell you you have unmetered bandwidth you will come to know that even if you would use all your port speed at all times you would not be passing others limited quotas anyways.

    I hope this has helped you.

    Warm Regards
    Ceko

  9. #9
    Web Hosts can offer unlimited bandwidth, because of two things:

    1. Their fair use policy often clarifies a limit
    2. Regardless of whether the host is limited or unlimited there are other restrictions that apply which will naturally limit the bandwidth you are able to use.

    Now, some hosts are incredibly up front about the resource limits you are subject to, even if they are unlimited. Take GoDaddy for instance you get a clear list of the different resources they monitor, and a simple line chart showing clearly the resource usage \ allowance (this is on their new cPanel dashboard).

    Many other hosts have similar resource monitors, either in full detail, or covering more simple stats.

    I know alot of people on this forum will automatically discredit unlimited plans, but as long as you are aware of the other limitations (which often apply to limited plans) then you have nothing to worry about. Most hosts will have a fair usage policy. Best bet when choosing a host, if you have alot of traffic, or high resource website is to check that.
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  10. #10
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    I'm not really sure how, when or why did "bandwidth" become the measure for traffic. It's like saying your car can drive as fast as X miles per month! Really...

    And if the hosting industry really used the term traffic instead of bandwidth, then unlimited traffic would not be false advertisement. Simply it would mean no limits on the TRAFFIC.

    Just like there would not be limits on the miles you can drive with your car per month, as long as you know it can go UP TO 100 MPH depending on the road conditions...

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by wndml View Post
    I'm not really sure how, when or why did "bandwidth" become the measure for traffic. It's like saying your car can drive as fast as X miles per month! Really...

    And if the hosting industry really used the term traffic instead of bandwidth, then unlimited traffic would not be false advertisement. Simply it would mean no limits on the TRAFFIC.
    Some people call it "data limit". Some people call it "traffic limit". Some people call it "bandwidth".

    The terms are somewhat interchangeable in the context of selling package limits for basic shared website hosting.

    ie: You won't see a host that defines both "Bandwidth" and "Amount of data allowed to be transferred" at the same time.
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  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Canuk_Al View Post
    I see that many Web Hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth, what I might think that they are offering versus what they actually offer might something different?
    I have read that some users have had notification from there Web hosts that they the website have exceeded a monthly allotment and the website is now metered, for whatever that means?

    Could some people with knowledge regarding how some Web Hosting companies view unlimited bandwidth kindly reply to this request.
    Or maybe I am just mistaken?
    Because you can't just use unlimited bandwidth. No such thing. They can advertise it as a front line but there's always a limit ( read the TOS ).

    So, you can't just use 10Gbps for 5 dollars :-)

    Specially 4 U
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  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by besthostnews View Post
    Web Hosts can offer unlimited bandwidth, because of two things:

    1. Their fair use policy often clarifies a limit
    2. Regardless of whether the host is limited or unlimited there are other restrictions that apply which will naturally limit the bandwidth you are able to use.
    So, what you are saying is that it is OK for a host to lie and say they offer unlimited bandwidth as long as they have a policy saying it is?
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  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by RRWH View Post
    So, what you are saying is that it is OK for a host to lie and say they offer unlimited bandwidth as long as they have a policy saying it is?
    The same things that may restrict unlimited bandwidth could easily restrict a 500GB bandwidth plan. By "clarifies a limit" it could be for certain activities such as no. of emails allowed per day, or excessive usage in a short space of time just to name a couple of examples. Of course these may or may not apply depending on the host.

    What annoys me a little is when people argue points about unlimited plans, that could easily apply to limited plans. Are limited plans clear on other resource limits? I've seen unlimited plans crystal clear on the other limits, whilst limited plan companies try to upgrade people onto VPS for 50 visitors a day. So, the upshot is, I don't care about unlimited plans being described as such, just as long as it is clear in the terms and conditions, with bonus points for those that make it clear to the customer where they stand throughout i.e. with resource monitors on the dashboard etc(whether it is limited or unlimited).
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  15. #15
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    Now, I'm confused. I thought the question was about Unlimited Bandwidth, but now you are saying that All hosts have other limits? Well of course they do! It is just that anoyone who advertises Unlimided bandwidht then puts somewhere within their TOS or Policies terms that specifically limit one's ability to make use of what they think they are signing up for.

    So, rather than being up-front and honest and saying that we limit you to X, the say you can have as much X as you want, but we will limit your usage of a thru to w as a result of no limits of X. Yep, honesty to the core where someone advertises as such.

    There is no such thing as unlimited and it is used way too often as a marketing Hook.

    While there IS such thing as un-metered and is actually an honest way of saying that you do not measure specific usage of Bandwidth.
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  16. #16
    There is nothing more to say really. Your last post is pretty much correct. :marketing:
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  17. #17
    The unlimited bandwidth usually means unmetered traffic. It most apply to web hosting not for file hosting.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Canuk_Al View Post
    I see that many Web Hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth, what I might think that they are offering versus what they actually offer might something different?
    I have read that some users have had notification from there Web hosts that they the website have exceeded a monthly allotment and the website is now metered, for whatever that means?

    Could some people with knowledge regarding how some Web Hosting companies view unlimited bandwidth kindly reply to this request.
    Or maybe I am just mistaken?
    There's no such thing as "unlimited". Hosting companies just use this as a "catch" phrase. An ordinary / new website will never have much traffic and will not need much disk space.

  19. #19
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    Unlimited bandwidth usually means the user's web hosting site is limited/throttled per second instead of per month. The marketing term "unlimited bandwidth" does not mean that the user should expect to actually have unlimited bandwidth. For example, if an "unlimited" host says you get "unlimited bandwidth" per month and then rate limits your site to 400Kbits/second, then you don't really get "unlimited bandwidth" per month.
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  20. #20
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    The "limit" on your unlimited bandwidth is normally mentioned in the Terms of Service of each company. So read that carefully before going for any of these plans. Even though it states unlimited, what it really means that as long as you are not affecting the other clients by using more than the designated percentage of resources on the server, there are no restrictions on your account. As soon as you use excessive resources, then you start facing restrictions.
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  21. #21
    when see unlimited,go away,and also see their TOS

  22. #22
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    Remember the Verizon (and other) lawsuits, and why they don't offer "unlimited" bandwidth anymore on their data plans? Same needs to happen in this industry. Somebody needs to have their "unlimited" bandwidth throttled or capped or whatever, file a lawsuit, and see what happens.

  23. #23
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    There's no such thing as Unlimited Bandwidth. They may say it's unlimited, but that's just to gain customers through their apparent good services. You should really consider checking their Terms of Service as they usually state their limits there.

  24. #24
    Hello,

    unlimited bandwidth is often contradicted by a ridiculously small file size. If there is only a limited number of customers on each server, say 50, they might never even get close to constant 100mbps bandwidth consumption so the hosting provider just advertises it as "unlimited".


    Of course there is no such thing as unlimited, it gets even more ridiculous when they advertise everything as unlimited (bandwidth, hdd,mysql,..). Because no provider actually shows you the php.ini I turned away from shared hosting long ago..

    Cheers

  25. #25
    A lot of companies offer this type of catch all service, they do limit ti though as no such real bandwidth exists as they need to monitor all accounts to ensure others on their network don't suffer from slow speeds due to your account using too many resources.

    That said would you not be better moving to a managed vps with a generous bandwidth?

    and check out your site to see what is using all those resources see if you can cut back in any way. It will help you in the long run!...
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