Web Hosting bandwidth/datacaps and "unlimited" traffic

[TonyC]

Hosting woes are topical........
I can understand Gabba getting more than a little frustrated and there appears to be various interpretations by Hosting services on what the term "unlimited" constitutes, by then imposing unpublished "fair use" policies.

I've been a customer of Clever Internet for over 6 years and when I signed up originally I took pains to confirm with them that "unlimited" meant just that. Since then, they've done two upgrades of their system and each time they did, I got constant nag messages about being over my data allowance. At least they emailed warnings rather than cut the service. The latest was just a fortnight ago. After many emails to and fro to support, I elicited from them that "unlimited" meant 2gb of total traffic (bandwidth, storage and ftp) per month. They have restored me back to my "unlimited" status, but it took a bit of a battle.

I checked out 1st Domains who are my domain registrant. For the equivalent deal ($5 amonth more than I'm paying now) they have a "fair use" policy which is reset daily which is far more generous (like 512mb  up and 512mb down of FTP traffic per day). So if you are thinking of signing up for a deal which shouts out in their advertising about "UNLIMITED" this and that, check with them what the fine print says about "fair use" before you sign on the dotted line.

regards,

Tony C.

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[gabba]

Agree - don't really want to wade into this one but to me it's all about being up front. There are a number of ways of doing that and a policy such as the one 1st domains have is far better than nothing.

Everyone has a view on this and it causes much debate. Here's a link to an article that fairly well represents my views.

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/web-hosting-forum/166944-danger-of-unlimited-space-and-bandwidth.html#post832879

There are other arguments as well, for and against, but the important thing I think is for people to understand what they are actually paying for, and what sort of hosting they are getting

I'll put my hand up for todays mess up. I've noticed the bandwidth going up in the last few weeks and I've been doing some work to understand why. I'd already bumped the bandwidth up once this month, and even looked at it again last night and thought it would last through the night. Unfortunately it didn't and I got distracted from sorting this out.

So my apologies for my part in this. We are probably going to hit 10Gb of bandwidth this month but normally do 3-5Gb, so you can see the scale of the problem I'm trying to fix on behalf of the forum. There are likely a combination of reasons for this, which I'm working through, and have been for about a month

[TonyC]

hmmm. The article is a good summation.
My reasons for bringing up this subject wasn't really because of todays events, but as it was topical, I just thought I'd share my experience with Hosting as probably there are only a few members running their own web servers.

As I said, probably if you ask the question, you'll get a straight answer as I did from 1st Domains. The trouble is that until you experience the problem, you don't know to ask the right questions in the first place.  The other problem is there is no uniformity between providers on what constitutes bandwidth. If 80% of the traffic is FTP then it's right that a "fair use" cap be placed on it, but the other services shouldn't be penalised and closed down because of overuse in one area. That's why I like the 1st Domains approach of placing limits on specific areas and re-setting them every 24 hours. That gives you a chance to identify the problem and address it quickly without penalty for the rest of the month.

cheers
TC

[OhauitiWeather]

Interesting discussion topic, especially for those that either have their own local WebServer or one in a DataCentre somewhere.  I feel that it is a bit of a pity that the article Gabba linked to is four years or so old, published 02/03/09 or is that 03/02/09, American or European date formatting.  It also looks like the article was based on the UK market and as the author was the CEO of a Hosting Company HastyHost I am left wondering how much of a vested interest he had.  I am also left wondering how well the practices and the stats transfer to the NZ marketplace.

A brief Bing internet search for HastyHost found only this website address http://www.hastyhost.co.uk/ with a single page website containing just this content "Sandbox Server... get your bucket and spade!  Sandbox Services.  This website is currently used as the Sandbox testing server for Redpandam Group websites. We intend to open Hasty Host in the future to the General Public for low cost Hosting Solutions. Thank you for your time."  Seems they are currently not an active ISP or hosting provider.  The hyperlink for "Redpandam Group" at the bottom of the page returns a message "Services Suspended".  I guess a lot can happen commercially in four years.  From a Web Hosting providers review site it looks like they were a "cheap web hosting | shared and reseller hosting" business circa October 2008, also interesting that this review site suggested they were targeting the US market, but hang on a minute they have a UK web address, seems a bit odd?

While the article might have been largely accurate when written an enormous amount of water has as they say gone under the bridge in the intervening four years.  Most people involved in the technology sector will tell you that comments in articles of that nature have a pretty short lifespan in an industry that continues to maintain an astronomical rate of change and development.  I have been involved with Computer Engineering and Software Development including websites for more than 30 years and unfortunately I am able to confirm this as an all to common occurrence.  The Hosting Sector of the IT industry is no exception to this phenomenon.  $400.00 for a Terabyte capacity hard drive is pretty steep by todays pricing, I can get a 2TB drive for just $115 and I am sure that datacentres can buy at much better rates than I can.  Oh that's right $400,00 was four years ago which just goes to show how quickly data and especially prices in this industry get outdated.

As one who hosts websites of my own and commercially for others as part of my own IT Business I can assure readers that modern Hosting accounts are nothing like what is described in that article, well at least not from us.  No over selling here and definitely no hidden small print, well none that we have either seen or know about.  Running an ethical business and being straight and honest with clients is core to the way we have always operated, any suggestion otherwise is totally unacceptable and abhorrent.  Here is a link to our Gold Hosting plan http://www.mecount.com/hosting so you can see for yourselves what it offers.  No fair use polices in place.

Gold Hosting Package - Key Features
Disk space = Unlimited
Bandwidth (Traffic) = Unlimited
Hosted Domains = 1
Sub-domains = Unlimited
POP3 / IMAP / Webmail accounts = Unlimited
Email Forwarders = Unlimited
Auto Responders = Unlimited
MySQL Databases = Unlimited
FTP Accounts = Unlimited
C Panel = Included

We have not yet experienced a single capacity, performance (Other than caused by DDOS or similar attacks), or bandwidth issue with our Server or any of our hosted websites.  We are currently Hosting 33 Websites with 36 MySQL databases, some of these websites are quite big (Several GB of data) and have a significant amount of monthly traffic, much greater that the 5Gb per month suggested in the article.  For us and also for our Datacentre Unlimited means just that, unlimited.

We have asked our Hosting provider and Datacentre more than once if there are any limits or caps on our Reseller Hosting account with them and the answer has always been a resounding "No" or "None", only those as detailed in the key features outlined above.  One engineer even stated "if you think you might run out of storage then give us a bell or drop us an email and we will just add another disk or array to your server rack", when asked how much the response was "no more than you are currently paying" but isn't that what unlimited actually means?

I host 5 of my own websites and the usage stats for those for July to date are:
****Private****
Stats to date 01.07.2013 to 25.07.2013
Disk Space (MB):  37362   
Bandwidth (GB):  37.369
E-Mails:  129   
Ftp Accounts: 74

This data does not seem to compare too well with the usage stats suggested in the article but then that was four years or more ago.

Four years ago you where lucky if you could get a home broadband plan in NZ of 20 or 30GB, mine was just 1Gb, now look, uncapped data or telecom 500GB cap, my current Broadband plan is uncapped (Fair use Pooled) and costs little if anything more than the 1Gb plan I was on four years ago.

Four years ago Maxnet who I hosted with until I setup to do my own had a Maximum Linux hosting account of 30Mb, I had a 10Mb account and my website was barely 2Mb, their limit on traffic was 2Gb per month total, you could host 3 domains and they provided 5 email accounts.  Compare that with our Gold Plan above, no comparison really, a quantum change in just four years.  In this timeframe we have also seen a quantum leap in website functionality and capability, Video, Music downloads, business data entry etc, websites are doing things now that were hardly conceivable four years ago, this will only increase exponentially as we go forward.  We have also seen the emergence of cloud based system like Office 365 from Microsoft and Google Docs in the last four years.  The pace of change will continue unabated.

As always it is prudent business practice to question and negotiate with any supplier and this should include ISP's and Website Hosting providers, us included.  It is unfortunate that some ISP's and website hosting resellers choose to change the features of their product without reference to their customer, that's why it is necessary to question because if you don't ask you don't know.

May the discussion continue but lets please use research data that is current and applicable to our market place.

[gabba]

Like I said there are arguments for and against each business model.  The article I linked to, as I suggested merely echoed my thoughts, and those who use a similar business model in the industry. There are many other reasons why a fixed plan is a better option, just as I'm sure there are many reasons why an unlimited plan is a better option

Obviously  we are never going to agree on what's best, but I think it boils down to the customer being aware and asking questions, not only around the hosting relationship they have, but also around the relationship between the hoster and the data centre.

My experience through 11+ years of offering hosting, and my work at one of the countries largest banks would suggest that it's not possible to stand up additional kit properly without someone throwing money at it somewhere along the line. This view is supported by simply understanding that hardware including backup systems have physical real world  limitations (including physical hardware cost, capacity, network throughput and the like) that will be managed properly by a capable supplier throughout the supply chain in some shape or form. I really struggle to see how a truly unlimited model can support this, throughout the entire delivery chain to the customer.

One of the values that I see a fixed plan model delivering is the ability to more clearly see what is going on, and the 1st domains solution is a clever hybrid between the two that allows this to occur. There are other similar ways around a pure fixed plan model, some of which my clients are able to utilise, and indeed are used extensively to support the nzlwn forum.  For example the forum currently has extensions above the base fixed account allowance in both space and bandwidth at no additional cost, so in the fixed world it's not so much about stopping when limits are reached but understanding why limits are reached, and then trying to fix the problem. In an unlimited world I just don't see how you can get that sort of visibility.

From a hosters point of view (fixed or unlimited)it's about managing those variances across a portfolio of accounts, and how successful they are at doing that reflects on the flexibility the customers have around their own hosting.

I think it is what the customer thinks is best for their situation, not what the hoster thinks is best, and the article simply points out that although you may ask for unlimited it is quite unlikely that is what you will get in practice. If you have managed to truly get an unlimited deal with your data centre then hang onto it, because it is a good deal.

My 2c worth anyway

[TonyC]

I probably should be posting this in the technology area, however.....
The interaction I've just had with my Host provider has got me thinking about changing my website to "in house". Is anyone using any of the NAS servers which come with website software such as Synology? Are they any good?
Keeping the FTP updating from the weather station on site would solve all my data problems as that traffic is far higher than the visitor bandwidth.

TC

[gabba]

Yes that's one of the key things about weather websites is that they need  plenty of bandwidth for ftping continuously.

No experience with the nas servers but you can setup your own server using a wamp stack such as the one at  www.easyphp.com. You will find though that the response time on your website will be limited by the connection to your pc more than anything else though. Also there is the security stuff you will need to deal with own ongoing basis. You will also ned to pay for a fixed ip address. Nice little project if you are interested tho

I've used similar stacks for development purposes but never put them online before ;-)

[Deano]

Tony, I use a WAMP package here.
Runs well. I do my own backups daily.
I struggle with a slow country ADSL line, apart from that it just works well!

[gabba]

Here's another one that is quite popular http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Thinking a bit more about this, using a nas server may not be your best option. You would be tied to the software update schedules for the server, which would be far less than software like xampp, so more chance for security exploits to remain unpatched.

[choc-a-holic]

I have used a QNAP which is Sysnology's main competitor in the Home and SOHO NAS market space.  The QNAP is very easy to use and comes with a load of tools to make it very easy to manage.  I have not used it for hosting a website thou as we live in a rural environment and lucky to have ADSL1 given the distance from the exchange...so we don't have the bandwidth to consider this as an option.

If you are keen at looking at building your own NAS then I have heard that FreeNAS is very good.