The Real Deal with Unlimited Bandwidth in Web Hosting Service and Why It Doesn’t Really Exist – Part 3

CLICK HERE FOR PART I
CLICK HERE FOR PART II

How It Works

From any web hosting company’s point of view, it’s quite logically simple. For the hosting company to get the desired profit margin there has to be a minimum number of accounts that must “exist” in each server. That’s simple business mathematics.

Anything that endangers the host’s ability to obtain their profit level has to be “eliminated”. Thus, at any given package or price, if a customer’s site becomes a danger to the server’s stability and performance by using too much of anything, it would result in the dreaded action called “account suspension”.

Web hosts use this misleading marketing strategy simply because other hosts do – it’s the name of the game! They figure that mainstream consumers don’t have any inkling how little bandwidth they actually need, and will probably never know that unlimited is really just an illusion. And for the most part, most consumers don’t really understand bandwidth.

Here are a few ways you can be tricked into the “unlimited bandwidth” mentality:

• The secret of “unlimited” is actually concealed in the web hosting company’s Terms of Service. It may come as a surprise but in truth, “unlimited” = 15 GB. Read the fine prints.
• A lot of web hosts outline ion their Terms of Service that your site may “qualify” for unlimited bandwidth if you use less than, say, 5 gigabytes per month. Once your traffic goes beyond that, you no longer qualify for the unlimited bandwidth and they either start charging you for excess or deactivate your account or worse, cut off your downloads altogether and force you to move your site. In other words, it’s unlimited as long as you stay within the limits – cute, isn’t it?
• The host may restrict the types of files that you can host on their server. Image galleries and audio/video files attract huge downloads that can result in higher bandwidth consumption. So with this restriction, you’d be allowed all the bandwidth you want, provided you don’t offer mp3, zip, tar, exe and a number of other file types that are larger than standard HTML and graphics. Moreover, they usually require that all files stored in your space be linked only from your own pages; which means that you can use all your files only on your website and you are forbidden to let other sites link to them (except linking to your HTML).
• Almost all web hosting companies have the fair usage policy buried somewhere deep within their Terms of Service. It’s a very good technique to obscure the reality that there is in fact a limit on how much bandwidth you can use, without telling you what that limit really is. The fair usage policy gives the web host the right to discontinue services should they deem your use of their web hosting services “unfair” to others. The can define the term “fair” or “unfair” according to their whim, of course. Unfortunately, it always involves drawing an invisible line somewhere on the amount of bandwidth you can use. And when you cross that line, your web site is a goner.

The All-Important Questions

Given all that you know now, you’ve come to the point where you ask: Where does that leave you? What’s the best thing to do? Should you or shouldn’t you get those “Unlimited” plans?

Being “old school” myself, I’d say that the best course of action is to plan ahead. Work out what type of bandwidth and disk space you require for your site. You can roughly calculate this by having a realistic estimate of the size of your average web page, multiplied by the number of visitors you are likely to get in a one-month period.

To put it concretely, let’s say that your main page is 75 KB and you’re expecting around 1200 site visitors in thirty days, your bandwidth usage should be around 90 megabytes. You can multiply this figure by 2 for good measure, just to allow for expansion; in effect, you can peg your bandwidth requirement at 180 megabytes.

If you’re just starting and your web site is not very huge and it’s not very popular yet (i.e. you don’t have any audio/video downloads and not a lot of people visit your site), then you don’t really require a lot of bandwidth. In which case, unlimited bandwidth plans may work for you.

Although you already know that there’s no such thing as unlimited bandwidth, it would give you time to gauge the actual amount of data transfer your site gets each month and there shouldn’t be any immediate problems with the web hosting company.

On the other hand, if you’re going to put a lot of music or video files – or any other large files, for that matter as when you set up an e-commerce site, for example – you might just run into problems if your web site suddenly becomes popular. In this scenario, it is best to avoid any plans that offer unlimited bandwidth.

Although you may think that unlimited bandwidth plans are comparable to an all-you-can-eat restaurant, the similarity ends there. Unlike in a restaurant where you lose nothing even if they decide you’ve had enough before you’re ready, you stand to lose a lot more with unlimited bandwidth gone awry.

If the web hosts decide you’ve had enough, your website may be taken offline without warning and you can lose visitors, customers and yes, money, especially if you have a very profitable website. You could lose significant amounts of money while you sort out a new web hosting company, not to mention, go through all the hassles of moving your whole site to another server.

Wouldn’t you rather know exactly when you have to pay more for bandwidth and have the option to upgrade with zero interruption to your web hosting service? It’s absolutely more convenient that not having a clue as to when your host is going to deem your usage “unfair” and risk being “suspended” or “deactivated” resulting in major downtime that may cause you to incur losses, big time! My take is … Only consider an unlimited bandwidth hosting plan if you know your disk space and bandwidth requirements are really very low.

Final Word – Conclusion

The amount of bandwidth is only just one factor to consider when choosing a web hosting service that’s worth your time and money. You need more than just hosting bandwidth and disk storage to keep your website running smoothly. There are a lot of other attributes that you should look for, among these, the company’s reputation and capability.

Unlimited bandwidth hosting CAN be reliable to a certain degree. Technology has gotten to a point where web hosting companies can very quickly re-allocate server resources in the event that a shared hosting platform gets hit by a sudden spike in traffic. If the web hosting company can handle and manage their overselling policy efficiently, there probably is no reason why you shouldn’t go for it.

It is extremely important, however, to be very smart in choosing the right unlimited bandwidth hosting provider – or you may end up with a terrible, unreliable, slow hosting experience that’s absolutely frustrating. This is why professional web hosting reviews and customer feedbacks are extremely important.