pay per magabit or per gigabytes of transfers, average or 95th percentile ?

[TripleForce]

I plan to order my first dedicate server but I don't have any clue about these 3 type of payments : Pay per Megabit, Per GB and 95th Percentile. Could you please explain? Thanks

[Smegma]

Hi Triple,

I hope I can help.

Pay per Mbit is typically a good idea if you need more than 320 Gigabytes of transfer a month. Some providers will offer discounts if you order bandwidth at a base 1 Mbit.

Here is an example. Say 1 Mbit of bandwidth costs $295 a mbit, that bandwidth translates into $0.91 a Gigabyte of transfer / month. Most providers will ask you to commit to a "base" of 1 Mibt which means you will have to pay the $295 a month even though you may not use all of the bandwidth in that month.

When you purchase bandwidth by the Gigabyte a month, it's an bandwidth accounting method allow you to purchase bandwidth is smaller cheaper bandwidth increments. Some providers start as low as 30 Gigabytes of transfer a month (10% of 1 Mbit). It keeps your initial costs low. However, when you start pushing more bandwidth, it might make sense to convert to per Mbit pricing.

Here is an example. Say you sign up for 50 Gigabytes of transfer a month at $1.85 per Gigabyte / month. that's only $92.50 a month. A far cry from $295. But say you go over your 50 Gigabyte allotment for the month by 150 Gigabytes and use a total of 200 Gigabytes for the month and have to pay an overage of $1.85 a gigabyte... it will cost you $370.. it would have been cheaper to buy the per Mbit option at $295.

I'll copy and paste an article from Sean Adams for the 95% question... -

What is the 95th percentile, and why is it useful in measuring bandwidth?

The 95th percentile is the smallest number that is greater that 95% of the numbers in a given set. The reason this statistic is so useful in measuring data throughput is that is gives a very accurate picture of the cost of the bandwidth. Here's an example. suppose you are hosting a very busy web site that half-way fills your 1Mbit of bandwidth for several hours every day. This type of bandwidth is more expensive, because your ISP can't oversell their connection to the backbone as effectively. The important thing to realize is that it doesn't cost your ISP anything to sell you a pipe of any particular size - it is the sustained rate of data transfer that costs them money. The sum of the 95th percentile usage of all of an ISP's customers predicts the peak amount of backbone traffic that the ISP will incur (in a given direction).

Charging at the 95 percentile makes sense - it's a fair system where everybody pays for what they get. The advantage to the customer is that they get the performance of a high-speed connection, while paying only for their actual usage. ISPs like it because they don't have to worry about high-usage customers upsetting their overselling ratios.

-- Sean Adams

Now.. while your at it, check out http://www.xfr.com for dedicated hosting. :-)

i think smegma sumed it up pretty well

[Wiredoctor]

Smegma did a pretty decent job, but I cant agree with paying at a 95th percentile, 95th percentile is crazy. You can get it measured at 50th percentile,(average) at least thats what I pay at my host, and no it's not cogent either.

[Wiredoctor]

oops double post.

[shunga]

From almost everything I've read, and from personal experience, 95 percentile is a bad billing method 90% of the time for webmasters.

[RK]

Yeah, 95 percentile for an adult site is terrible. For example, one uses 5 Mbps for 2 days and 0.5 Mbps for 28 days and ends up paying for 5 Mbps per month.

The problem with buying per Mbps is that the connection is usually capped which means one of two things:
1) Your sites will be really slow during peak times
2) You will have to pay for much more bandwidth than you are actually using and it will actually be more like 200 GB per Mbps than 320.

What does that leave you with? average/actual billing.
You will pay for exactly what you use, never more, your sites will always be fast and you will not be penalized for traffic spikes.

We offer all of the above billing methods, ICQ me if you are looking for a good deal.

ps. 50 percentile and average are totally different things.

[Lensman]

95th percentile is bad news.

[Lightning]

Originally posted by Lensman
95th percentile is bad news.

That's the truth. If you don't pay on average for you outgoing bandwidth only, then it's a rip off, plain and simple.

[Tipsy]

95th is OK if your traffic is fairly steady but you only have to hit a peak for a day or 3 and your fucked. Not a good way to do it for most people but then everyone's just said that

[Moose]

Also...

Hosts who dont charge on 95% price tends to be higher.Unlike us of course ours is lower plug .
But find a host who offers average,95% and per gig billing . You will see differences in price per of each 3 + or - 20% .
So you pick average per meg and your price will be about 20% higher per meg.Or you pick 95% and your price per meg will be 20% lower. But figure your bill at the end of the mnth and there is not much difference.

Not saying this is always the case, but investigate first. and do the math.DOnt just think because you are being charged average you are "saving money"

[Tipsy]

True enough in most cases. Like I say if your traffic is steady and rarely if ever peaks much.....

[jojojo]

Wiredoctor:

Why are you continually bashing Cogent?

[shunga]

Originally posted by Moose
You will see differences in price per of each 3 + or - 20% .
So you pick average per meg and your price will be about 20% higher per meg.Or you pick 95% and your price per meg will be 20% lower. But figure your bill at the end of the mnth and there is not much difference.

That certainly wasn't my experience.

[Tipsy]

Originally posted by Moose
But figure your bill at the end of the mnth and there is not much difference.

Oops - missed that bit. If you get peaks there can be a HUGE difference

[Wiredoctor]

Originally posted by jojojo
Wiredoctor:

Why are you continually bashing Cogent?

As a shrink would respond "Why do you ask ??" all I can say is wait about 4-6 months, then ask me again.

Moose you write well but your wrong. I would have to say that if you have any significant spikes in the month, then your fucked big time at 95th percentile. There will be a Huge difference.

[Moose]

Originally posted by Wiredoctor


As a shrink would respond "Why do you ask ??" all I can say is wait about 4-6 months, then ask me again.

Moose you write well but your wrong. I would have to say that if you have any significant spikes in the month, then your fucked big time at 95th percentile. There will be a Huge difference.

No im not wrong wierddoctor
You have to compare apples to apples

Find host A who charges $250 -$300 mbit but on average
Find host B who chargees $150-$200 on 95%

One appears ALOT lower, run both for a month and tell me what you see ...

[Wiredoctor]

If you had any spikes during that month, you would be much better off at the 250-300 price, not even a question about that.

[Tipsy]

Done both in the past. Again, if your traffic has the occasional big peaks 95th can be far more expensive. It depends on many things not least on how buch BW you use. 95th works out fine in many case for big volumes as that sort of quantity doesn't get hit by large variations as a rule. Free hosts may be a good example of that. It may climb as people join but wont generally peak too much.

[Smegma]

95% is not a good idea for traffic of a bursty nature, however, for traffic that is consistently on the bell curve.. it works rather well.

An example of that type of traffic is below.



Although this port bursted up to 30+Mbits on a few occasions. the 95% on this would be billed 25.501 Mbits.

Some providers bill on the average, at the 95th, at the 100%, Average in + Average Out. Max in + Max Out. It just depends on your type of traffic.

Some say 95th is bad. I have several customers pushing over 30 Mbits per server port and they are comfortable with this arrangement. It?s fair to the SP and the customer.

[Moose]

Right now looking at a mrtg graph of one of our many boxes....run of the mill webserver server 100% porn tgp gallerys.

Its spikes go to as much as 12 megs and spikes to 8 -9 most every day while its average is only 5.6 .... while the 95% for the month is 7.8 megs.

Now this is your average server with your average spikes like any adult website.
I would rather pay the 95% myself on this, just like the customer is.

Now put the 250 to 300$ average billing price it comes to $1400 - $1680 compared to 95% of $1170-$1560 .

Who is the dumb dumb here? the guy buying average or 95%

Now again, this is only comparing across a wide array.Like i said "most" hosts who charge 95% only price per meg is a bit cheaper than those who charge per average. So there will BE a difference in this.

This is all im saying




I guess the best thing to do is find someone who will charge you the same average as they would 95% but always do the math.

[Moose]

BTW if you only want to pay average with me..No problem but the price per meg goes up 20% haha j/k

[Wiredoctor]

Based on that graph the customer would be billed around 20 mb/s if he was on average out?..he would have saved about 5 mb/s.

[Moose]

Originally posted by Wiredoctor
Based on that graph the customer would be billed around 2o mb/s if he was on average out?..he would have saved about 5 mb/s.

But would he really save?
How much is the charge for average bandwidth compared to if it was billed on 95% ?

Gotta know these things before you say things like that.

[Wiredoctor]

Originally posted by Moose

Now again, this is only comparing across a wide array.Like i said "most" hosts who charge 95% only price per meg is a bit cheaper than those who charge per average. So there will BE a difference in this.

Not all hosts play this price billing game. My host charges me less then 200 per mb/s and its calculated on average out. No its not cogent either. I'am not here to piss with you moose, or anyone else, I am just saying that average is far better then 95th percentile.

[Wiredoctor]

Originally posted by Moose


But would he really save?
How much is the charge for average bandwidth compared to if it was billed on 95% ?

Gotta know these things before you say things like that.

Read my post above. Yes he would save unless he was with the wrong host. Like a host that manipulates the cost like you state....

[shunga]

Originally posted by TripleForce
I plan to order my first dedicate server but I don't have any clue about these 3 type of payments : Pay per Megabit, Per GB and 95th Percentile. Could you please explain? Thanks

The simple answer is to avoid per per megabit, because you probably don't know the demand you'll have at this point, and 95th percentile because of the reasons stated. That leaves only one option.