Bandwidth question.

[CrazyPCG]

Why is that when you pay 15-20 bucks a month the swamp plan, they allow unlimited bandwidth. Yet, when you are paying 100-400 dollars for the dedicated they limit you?

[Goddess Dix]

Originally Posted by CrazyPCG

Why is that when you pay 15-20 bucks a month the swamp plan, they allow unlimited bandwidth. Yet, when you are paying 100-400 dollars for the dedicated they limit you?

virtually nobody uses all the bandwith (or storage space) they buy, so essentially, on a shared server, heavy bandwith users get access to the extra bandwith of low bandwith users.

on a dedicated, since you have full control of the resources, the price has to be in line with what it costs to provide. you're not being subsidized by other users.

[Eric]

Basically you're going to be suspended for high server loads before you are even able to use up all that much bandwidth. So I guess you can say it really is unlimited bandwidth.

[Woolf]

You don't actually get unlimited bandwidth with the shared accounts. You have virtually unlimited bandwidth. Let's say a server with 100 websites has a 5,000 gb bandwidth limit. Chances are, not all the sites will use that much bandwidth... perhaps 1 gb here, 5 gbs there, etc. Because shared sites usually don't use that much bandwidth, they can put an "unlimited" sticker on it.

If you use more than your fair share of bandwidth though (remember, you're on a shared server), then you'll probably be asked to move to a dedicated server. If you use a lot of bandwidth, chances are you're probably using more CPU usage than necessary too, so you'll still be asked to upgrade.

I'm not a HG official in any way, and I'm not saying HG operates this way - but this is how most hosts do operate.

[vitalmodels]

As others pointed out, the unlimited bandwidth is a marketing ploy. It means generally you don't have to worry about bandwidth.

I can also say, I have a client who used that plan, and his site gets about 1500-2000 visitors a day, and plenty of streaming video/audio, pictures, and downloadable video as well... Doesn't even come close to using all that much bandwidth in the scheme of things, and hasn't been suspended.

However, if you are planning on using UNLIMITED bandwidth, you are only looking to take advantage of something that is obviously too good to be true... and you will be asked to move/suspended most likely for using too much resources.

I can't think of many legal or even illegal sites that could use 2000gb++ of bandwidth without either being illegal download sites or needing an entire servers resources to do so (against the TOS)...