Unmetered vs Metered

Published on Friday, December 1st, 2006 8:45 am GMT
Category: Web Hosting

Hey,

I am sure so many people asked this question here…but I am thinking of getting myself a media server for one of my properties.

Should I start off with a 10 megabits dedicated line or 10 megabits dedicated unmetered line.

Is it better to go with an unmetered?

The only diference between the lines (if both are real 10mbps) its the price.. so, look at you pocket and think what type its the best for you.

Make sure the company is reputable if you are looking at unmetered.

I agree, even when a company offers unmetered packages that is not always true. There are alot of shady host that will find any reason to shut you down if you start to spike the bandwidth. Also READ THE TOS host will slide in a clause about unmetered packages that will give them the legal edge to suspend you for almost anything.

An unmetered line/port should be able of handling peaks (a.k.a. burstable), but you better ask your provider to make sure.

Generally speaking if you’ve got an un-metered 10mbit server, it’ll be capped at 10mbit/s maximum, meaning you can’t burst above that - so you’d only realistically get 7-9Mbit/s of usage out of it depending on how flat your traffic profile is.

How much bandwidth do you anticipate on using, what are you currently using?

Some providers (and we’re one of them) are able to offer either 10Mbps capped or 10Mbps on a 100Mbps port, full burstable, so you can use more than 10Mbps and just pay for overages by using the 95 percentile rule.

That’s why I advised the OP to ask the provider first, just to make sure.

If it is 10Mbit/s un-capped with overages on 95th percentile then by definition it is not un-metered, as you are watching it to see if they are going above 10Mbit/s and charging them for any overages - That’s not un-metered, that’s just 10Mbit/s bandwidth on 95th percentile.

Thats right unmetered is a good choice because upgrading bandwidth by 500-1000GB cost more.

In the end, you always pay for it, it’s either already built in to the cost, or you’re paying for it in terms of reduced support, contention etc. etc.

It highly depends what you will use the server for.

If it is for streaming obviously a 10MBIT unmetered line is the best route

Unmetered vs Metered

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