GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - Hosting Question 95th Percentile VS. Average usage Billing.

sync · 09-04-2003, 07:50 AM

This is a rather hard question, but I'll stick to the basics and simplify this problem.

For argument's sake we can say that:

95th Percentile = 95th Percentile
Average = 50th Percentile

This of course would assert the claim made earlier that Average bills on less Megabits, but 95th is billed at a lower price.

Now, let's focus this discussion to the consumer's end because the ISP's already know all they need to.

If your provider gives you access to MRTG stats you should use the Daily graph to determine which is a better option for you, the Dialy graph is not an approximation like the Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly graphs.

The reason providers charge on 95th is simple, the Internet has trends and speaking based of EST time there are peaks in traffic at 10AM-12PM and 6PM-8PM, since everyone is using bandwidth at these times this can cause providers to pay as much as 2x what they push on average. Since this traffic is generated by their customer's they pass the responsibility as they should back to the consumer but allow them to drop 5% of their highest usage, a provider is able to do this because their top 5% is dropped by their provider and so on until you reach the very top where people dont really pay for bandwidth but incur the costs of building and maintaining the networks that they have built.

So in conclusion, take your MRTG stats, get a price X on 95th and multiply it out and get a price Y on average and multiply it out, the result might suprise you, in most cases (intelligent ISPs) the price difference is negligble but existent, something around $200-500 on a $10,000 bill.

09-04-2003, 07:50 AM
sync Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: NY Posts: 204	This is a rather hard question, but I'll stick to the basics and simplify this problem. For argument's sake we can say that: 95th Percentile = 95th Percentile Average = 50th Percentile This of course would assert the claim made earlier that Average bills on less Megabits, but 95th is billed at a lower price. Now, let's focus this discussion to the consumer's end because the ISP's already know all they need to. If your provider gives you access to MRTG stats you should use the Daily graph to determine which is a better option for you, the Dialy graph is not an approximation like the Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly graphs. The reason providers charge on 95th is simple, the Internet has trends and speaking based of EST time there are peaks in traffic at 10AM-12PM and 6PM-8PM, since everyone is using bandwidth at these times this can cause providers to pay as much as 2x what they push on average. Since this traffic is generated by their customer's they pass the responsibility as they should back to the consumer but allow them to drop 5% of their highest usage, a provider is able to do this because their top 5% is dropped by their provider and so on until you reach the very top where people dont really pay for bandwidth but incur the costs of building and maintaining the networks that they have built. So in conclusion, take your MRTG stats, get a price X on 95th and multiply it out and get a price Y on average and multiply it out, the result might suprise you, in most cases (intelligent ISPs) the price difference is negligble but existent, something around $200-500 on a $10,000 bill.