Unmetered dedicated server
An unmetered dedicated server is a server that's unmetered on bandwidth usage, which means that you will not be charged for bandwidth overages.
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Types of unmetered bandwidth
There are two kinds of unmetered bandwidth:
Dedicated unmetered bandwidth
With dedicated unmetered bandwidth, the bandwidth is not shared with other customers. You will be able to use your bandwidth 24/7/365. Example: if you buy 20Mbps dedicated unmetered bandwidth, the provider may cap your server's switch port at 20Mbps, which you can push 24/7/365. If you do so, you can get near 6600GB per month.
Shared unmetered bandwidth
Shared unmetered bandwidth allows you to use as much bandwidth as you can, but the bandwidth will be shared with other customers. Therefore, you can't use your fully unmetered amount 24/7/365. Example: if you have 100Mbps shared unmetered bandwidth, your server will be on a 100Mbps connection shared with others. The provider may let you know how much GB you should expect to get per month. If they don't show this, just ask them.
Unmetered bandwidth versus unlimited bandwidth
When a dedicated server has unmetered bandwidth (dedicated or shared), the limit is the available bandwidth for that month, as explained above.
Unlimited bandwidth is bandwidth with no quota limit. The falacious argument against unlimited bandwidth is that it can't be unlimited because bandwidth, like everything else, has limits. However, web hosts that offer unlimited bandwidth are just not setting a quota in the service plan and may have a clause in their terms stating that accounts that use more than their share of resources or affect other sites may be terminated. In other words, they won't limit the amount of bandwidth you need but will monitor usage in some form to prevent server abuse.
Also beware of "unmetered" plans that state some sort of data transfer or bandwidth measurements. Unmetered bandwidth is "unmeasured" bandwidth. While the provider may give you the equivalent of an unmetered plan it is technically metered in order to measure bandwidth usage.
Sometimes the terms unmetered and unlimited for bandwidth are used interchangeably although they have different meanings. Think of Unmetered as "unmeasured" and can be differentiated more clearly when a bandwidth limit is defined.
See also
Web Hosting Wiki article text shared under a Creative Commons License.
