Hey Alex (and other content providers in the forums):



  • Does it bother anyone else that there is no more unlimited bandwidth content hosters anymore since the early 2000's? I don't remember the exact date, but it was probably around 2003, 2004 when we were hosting scifiducky.com through a company in san diego, and we had unlimited bandwidth and 200 MB of storage. The cost only went up for more storage (and to use an IIS server versus linux, but i wasn't doing any CGI or anything so i didn't care)

    Then came the advent of podcasting.

    Now you have to pay 100% of the time for bandwidth usage... or don't you?

    IF you know of a hosting company that doesn't require you to, what is it?

    IF not, then how does this make you feel? Especially since you don't host podcasts, or really any downloadable content...



  • I ask you, 

    Why would bandwidth be free? As a commodity it is more scarce than storage space and should, in simple economics, cost "more" than space (insofar as space and bandwidth are comparable units).

    If you don't have a lot of data to share, then you could choose to go for less bandwidth and save precious dollars. If you don't have any "downloadable content", then it's probably just a few pages, and you might even cut a deal with the host's server admin for a small bit of space in exchange for a basket your mom's cupcakes every months. Basic hosting remains dirt cheap.

    Note that while TDWTF doesn't have podcasts or file downloads, it does have a big database (much space) and a large vistor base (bandwidth).



  • http://phpwebhosting.com/

     Just have to know where to look. They've been great..  



  • @dhromed said:

    I ask you, 

    Why would bandwidth be free? As a commodity it is more scarce than storage space and should, in simple economics, cost "more" than space (insofar as space and bandwidth are comparable units).

    If you don't have a lot of data to share, then you could choose to go for less bandwidth and save precious dollars. If you don't have any "downloadable content", then it's probably just a few pages, and you might even cut a deal with the host's server admin for a small bit of space in exchange for a basket your mom's cupcakes every months. Basic hosting remains dirt cheap.

    Note that while TDWTF doesn't have podcasts or file downloads, it does have a big database (much space) and a large vistor base (bandwidth).

    I don't know why it would be free, but i think their logic was (and if i recall correctly it was) Small storage = small site.

    The basic rate was 5.95 a month plus a $30 setup fee (which included the first month) for domain name, DNS, email host, ftp, and their web frontend.

    We elected for the 7.95 package because 200MB was included.

    Bandwidth was unlimited, and we tested the speeds, they were very fast, and very reliable. their same service is the same price, except they only allow 500MB a month now, because every tom dick and harry can get their podcast syndicated via iTunes or whatever other providers there are.

    So instead i dropped the month on a DYNDNS custom DNS service (which i am told is a ripoff, but i like it well enough) and host it here on an apache based server. and the bonus is i get to use VB.NET CGIs!


  • ♿ (Parody)

    I don't think that unlimited bandwidth is a business model that can work. Looking at it from an ISPs perspective (or anyone that gives unlimited anything), all it takes is one consumer to ruin it for everyone. Immagine if a single hungry person in a city was able to consume 10,000 times as much food as the average person. He'd bankrupt all the all-you-can-eat buffets in a matter of months. Obviously, the human stomach has its limitations, so buffets are still able stay in business, but with bandwidth it's easy to go several magnitudes higher than another. I doubt podcasts have much to do with it, but I'm sure they didn't help.

    So that said, I don't mind the model.



  • @Alex Papadimoulis said:

    I don't think that unlimited bandwidth is a business model that can work. Looking at it from an ISPs perspective (or anyone that gives unlimited anything), all it takes is one consumer to ruin it for everyone. Immagine if a single hungry person in a city was able to consume 10,000 times as much food as the average person. He'd bankrupt all the all-you-can-eat buffets in a matter of months. Obviously, the human stomach has its limitations, so buffets are still able stay in business, but with bandwidth it's easy to go several magnitudes higher than another. I doubt podcasts have much to do with it, but I'm sure they didn't help.

    So that said, I don't mind the model.

    Unlimited bandwidth with a caped max speed. (which gives a max bandwidth, but that doesn't mean your content is inaccessable after 20 days)


  • @Daid said:

    @Alex Papadimoulis said:

    I don't think that unlimited bandwidth is a business model that can work. Looking at it from an ISPs perspective (or anyone that gives unlimited anything), all it takes is one consumer to ruin it for everyone. Immagine if a single hungry person in a city was able to consume 10,000 times as much food as the average person. He'd bankrupt all the all-you-can-eat buffets in a matter of months. Obviously, the human stomach has its limitations, so buffets are still able stay in business, but with bandwidth it's easy to go several magnitudes higher than another. I doubt podcasts have much to do with it, but I'm sure they didn't help.

    So that said, I don't mind the model.

    Unlimited bandwidth with a caped max speed. (which gives a max bandwidth, but that doesn't mean your content is inaccessable after 20 days)

    What planet are you from? That's limited bandwidth. "speed" is bandwidth. You appear to have been talking about transfer limits, while everybody else was talking about bandwidth.

    Data transfer: measured in bytes.

    Bandwidth: measured in bytes per second.

    Everybody worth buying from sells unlimited-transfer, limited-bandwidth packages. Anybody who doesn't  offer such packages should not be used - they suck, and they're out to screw you for every penny they can get.
     



  • @asuffield said:

    @Daid said:
    @Alex Papadimoulis said:

    I don't think that unlimited bandwidth is a business model that can work. Looking at it from an ISPs perspective (or anyone that gives unlimited anything), all it takes is one consumer to ruin it for everyone. Immagine if a single hungry person in a city was able to consume 10,000 times as much food as the average person. He'd bankrupt all the all-you-can-eat buffets in a matter of months. Obviously, the human stomach has its limitations, so buffets are still able stay in business, but with bandwidth it's easy to go several magnitudes higher than another. I doubt podcasts have much to do with it, but I'm sure they didn't help.

    So that said, I don't mind the model.

    Unlimited bandwidth with a caped max speed. (which gives a max bandwidth, but that doesn't mean your content is inaccessable after 20 days)

    What planet are you from? That's limited bandwidth. "speed" is bandwidth. You appear to have been talking about transfer limits, while everybody else was talking about bandwidth.

    Data transfer: measured in bytes.

    Bandwidth: measured in bytes per second.

    Everybody worth buying from sells unlimited-transfer, limited-bandwidth packages. Anybody who doesn't  offer such packages should not be used - they suck, and they're out to screw you for every penny they can get.
     

     

    By your logic, i am an unlimited transfer, limited bandwidth service provider... can i start charging people?

    Unlimited transfers is what i am talking about when i was referring to "bandwidth usage" Speed is always going to be capped at some point, be it by end-user's line speed or that damn oc48.



  • @GeneWitch said:

    Unlimited transfers is what i am talking about when i was referring to "bandwidth usage" Speed is always going to be capped at some point, be it by end-user's line speed or that damn oc48.

    Which is precisely why everybody was telling you that unlimited bandwidth can't work.



  • @asuffield said:

    @GeneWitch said:

    Unlimited transfers is what i am talking about when i was referring to "bandwidth usage" Speed is always going to be capped at some point, be it by end-user's line speed or that damn oc48.

    Which is precisely why everybody was telling you that unlimited bandwidth can't work.

    @asuffield said:

     

    Everybody worth buying from sells unlimited-transfer, limited-bandwidth packages. Anybody who doesn't  offer such packages should not be used - they suck, and they're out to screw you for every penny they can get.

    What did you mean by this then?



  • @GeneWitch said:

    @asuffield said:
    @GeneWitch said:

    Unlimited transfers is what i am talking about when i was referring to "bandwidth usage" Speed is always going to be capped at some point, be it by end-user's line speed or that damn oc48.

    Which is precisely why everybody was telling you that unlimited bandwidth can't work.

    @asuffield said:

     

    Everybody worth buying from sells unlimited-transfer, limited-bandwidth packages. Anybody who doesn't  offer such packages should not be used - they suck, and they're out to screw you for every penny they can get.

    What did you mean by this then?

    Uh, like packages where you get 1Mb/sec of bandwidth and can use as much or as little of it as you like? (Typically you pay somewhere in the region of 50%-80% of the actual cost of a 1Mb/sec pipe with the understanding that you aren't guaranteed to get that but should get it most of the time; all the big players will also sell you guaranteed bandwidth at 100% of the cost of the pipe)

    I fail to see what is so complicated or unusual about this. 



  • @asuffield said:

    @GeneWitch said:
    @asuffield said:
    @GeneWitch said:

    Unlimited transfers is what i am talking about when i was referring to "bandwidth usage" Speed is always going to be capped at some point, be it by end-user's line speed or that damn oc48.

    Which is precisely why everybody was telling you that unlimited bandwidth can't work.

    @asuffield said:

     

    Everybody worth buying from sells unlimited-transfer, limited-bandwidth packages. Anybody who doesn't  offer such packages should not be used - they suck, and they're out to screw you for every penny they can get.

    What did you mean by this then?

    Uh, like packages where you get 1Mb/sec of bandwidth and can use as much or as little of it as you like? (Typically you pay somewhere in the region of 50%-80% of the actual cost of a 1Mb/sec pipe with the understanding that you aren't guaranteed to get that but should get it most of the time; all the big players will also sell you guaranteed bandwidth at 100% of the cost of the pipe)

    I fail to see what is so complicated or unusual about this. 

    No man, you said "unlimited bandwidth" can't work.

    I said Unlimited transfer, capped bandwidth is what i was talking about (from a hosting company)...

    You said that anyone that didn't offer unlimited transfer wasn't worth going for...

     

    I only brought this discussion up because unlimited transfer isn't the norm anymore.

    Who cares if you're capped around 1Mbit/sec? You can still stream, host html, etc etc etc... I fail to see why you are arguing with me if you say that unlimited transfer should be standard, and i am saying it isn't, and asking why.

    Is it or isn't it standard?

    Can you have an upload transfer of 15G a month on your hosting service?

    How about 10 Terrabytes?

    That used to be 'normal'... that was my point. Podcasts and such killed that. that was where i was asking the question from.

    3G/day is pretty standard for a 768K upstream operating at full capacity (i used to host such a server)

    With current rates, i'd be paying multiple thousands of dollars a month to do this Offsite.

    I was saying that aplus.net had decent upstream, and unlimited transfers...

    what happened to unlimited transfers on 200MB of storage?



  • You're not making a great deal of sense, but anyway... 

    @GeneWitch said:

    I only brought this discussion up because unlimited transfer isn't the norm anymore.

    Who cares if you're capped around 1Mbit/sec? You can still stream, host html, etc etc etc... I fail to see why you are arguing with me if you say that unlimited transfer should be standard, and i am saying it isn't, and asking why.

    Is it or isn't it standard?

    This is standard for any serious hosting - anybody worth buying from will offer this option. There do exist people who only offer transfer-limited packages, but they universally suck (third and final time I have said that now).

     

    Can you have an upload transfer of 15G a month on your hosting service?

    Yes. That's roughly the capacity of an analog modem.

     

    How about 10 Terrabytes?

    No, that would require a 4Mbit/sec link. We don't have any running that fast, and ADSL lines can't support it in the upstream direction. But we could get it for the boxes at the colo if we wanted to pay for it (which we don't).

     

    3G/day is pretty standard for a 768K upstream operating at full capacity (i used to host such a server)

    No, it's 8Gbytes per day. 3G would be a little under half capacity.

     

    With current rates, i'd be paying multiple thousands of dollars a month to do this Offsite.

    Looking at the current price list on our colo firm, it's £120 per month for a 1Mbit/sec cap, plus rack rental (£175 per year per U for a basic rack). You'd pay more for guaranteed bandwidth, but I doubt that's what you're talking about. I don't have prices on dedicated server hosting because we only use colo, but colo is the more expensive option anyway.

    For onsite via ADSL, our current ISP can get us 8Mbit down/832kbit up cap for £80 per month, unlimited transfer. Of course you won't get that much bandwidth from an ADSL line, and SDSL is not available in this part of the country yet. Guaranteed onsite bandwidth would be leased line... that's about the only thing that costs into the thousands.

    I don't know what rates you're looking at, but they're way too high.



  • @asuffield said:


    For onsite via ADSL, our current ISP can get us 8Mbit down/832kbit up cap for £80 per month, unlimited transfer.

    I don't know what rates you're looking at, but they're way too high.

    I was paying $10 a month (or thereabouts) for unlimited transfers. Third and final time i am gunna say this, as well. You're talking about 120 Pounds for unlimited transfer or more (and 832K is slower than the speeds we were pulling off the web server, for what you are saying costs you <FONT size=4>156.04 U.S. dollars)</FONT>

    Ten Dollars... (that's 5.13 British Pounds) per month, with no transfer limitations is what were paying a scant 2 or 3 years ago.

    If it costs 15 to 20 times as much now, i'd say that there's a difference, regardless of whether it still exists or not.

    @asuffield said:

      

    Of course you won't get that much bandwidth from an ADSL line, and SDSL is not available in this part of the country yet. Guaranteed onsite bandwidth would be leased line... that's about the only thing that costs into the thousands.

    No offense, but 832k up ADSL and 832k up SDSL have the exact same bandwidth. 832k. I don't know what you're talking about here.

    I've been running QOS on my ADSL for years now and i've yet to have any limitation on my rated speeds. I didn't have to run QOS when i had SDSL (that and i didn't know about it) but, they're the same bandwidth for the same upstream rates.

     

    so in conclusion, while "unlimited transfer" packages may be the standard... they're 15 to 20 times more expensive now (going by your rates given)

    And that is BS.



  • @GeneWitch said:

    @asuffield said:

    For onsite via ADSL, our current ISP can get us 8Mbit down/832kbit up cap for £80 per month, unlimited transfer.

    I don't know what rates you're looking at, but they're way too high.

    I was paying $10 a month (or thereabouts) for unlimited transfers. Third and final time i am gunna say this, as well. You're talking about 120 Pounds for unlimited transfer or more (and 832K is slower than the speeds we were pulling off the web server, for what you are saying costs you <font size="4">156.04 U.S. dollars)</font>

    Ten Dollars... (that's 5.13 British Pounds) per month, with no transfer limitations is what were paying a scant 2 or 3 years ago.

    I was buying bandwidth 2 or 3 years ago, and I call bullshit. That must have been shared bandwidth or some crap like that. Bandwidth today is the cheapest it has ever been (that is, the real price of bandwidth, not the market price of packages where you share your bandwidth with other users). Regardless, your claim was "thousands" today, and the actual number is far less than that.

    Oh, and those figures I quoted were for real business service, where I call the service desk when the line goes down and they send an actual engineer out, to our actual site, right the hell now, to fix the stupid thing - and I don't get some Indian callcentre muppet telling me to "reboot". It's not 24/7 (about 12/6ish actually) but it does include a real SLA with time limits on how fast they have to fix things and financial penalties if they don't deliver.

    I expect you could get it cheaper if you wanted one of those consumer packages where you call them up to tell them that the service isn't working again, and they laugh down the phone then hang up. But it's the internet equivalent of drinking meths. I wouldn't touch it with a stick. 

     

    @asuffield said:

      

    Of course you won't get that much bandwidth from an ADSL line, and SDSL is not available in this part of the country yet. Guaranteed onsite bandwidth would be leased line... that's about the only thing that costs into the thousands.

    No offense, but 832k up ADSL and 832k up SDSL have the exact same bandwidth. 832k. I don't know what you're talking about here.

    832k is the maximum for ADSL upstream around here, and may be contended. SDSL goes much higher and is available in uncontended packages - just not in this part of the country yet. You cannot get guaranteed bandwidth on ADSL in this country, only on SDSL, ISDN, or other leased lines.



  • Yah man it wasn't a dedicated COLO or anything, we were just an account on a shell somewhere with a webified /home directory... my point was when i went to look at webhosting packages the prices for what we were getting back then have shot through the roof, and it's no longer worth it to offsite our small websites. (guild pages, etc)


Log in to reply