Unlimited Space & Bandwidth - The Truth behind the Lie!

[OnCoreCreative]

Money on web hosting services is no different than the purchase price. The sad truth is, you usually get what you pay for, because most hosting companies are smart enough to fool their customers, using the term "unlimited bandwidth" or "unlimited disk space" to your advantage. Even the best web hosts do not hesitate to play around with the word "unlimited" even if he is aware that the term is usually defined with a meaning different from that to the discretion of the hosting company.

Today, Internet marketers experienced know that the concept of unlimited space exists only in the ad. Bandwidth and disk space costs money for the hosting company. Most of those who together give unlimited bandwidth for a fixed price is put on a half-truth promise to generate more business. How can someone put a fixed price for unlimited? The key concept of unlimited bandwidth is buried in the "Terms and Conditions" of the supplier. Do not be surprised if you end up discovering that the unlimited bandwidth is only 20 GB! Most hosting companies are aware that its offer unlimited profit for customers as it slows down the need for further reflection. Clients believe that an unlimited data plan will end any concerns about space and the server problem.

However, the real story unfolds only when a customer encounters a problem in the near future. Majority of the websites out there consume very little sum of disk space and bandwidth. Web hosts that offer unlimited plan are relying on the fact that you will be using small amount of disk space and bandwidth. If every consumer starts using unlimited space to the fullest, the hosting company might go bankrupt very soon. Most unlimited hosting packages come with certain restrictions on audio and video downloads because these files require significant amount of disk space and bandwidth. They will start placing restrictions as soon as you seem like a threat to their server. You will be asked to upgrade the existing plan or figure out a way to reduce your usage, despite having an unlimited plan. In some cases, they might also suspend your account.

As you can see the term unlimited is just a marketing strategy used by web hosting companies to increase their income. Although selling unlimited packages in a deceptive manner is a dishonest act, it does not imply that the hosting company will rob you off your money. They might have the best support system in place and they may also offer you some value added services. Your job is to check the web hosting companies terms of service to determine what they really mean by the word "unlimited" so that you don't end up feeling cheated by them.

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Due to a current post I have commented on I thought this would come in handy to everyone including when you are choosing to move hosts or get offered something that is not there. Hope this helps you and think about going with any company that offers Unlimited Space & Unlimited Bandwidth. This was a blog message I found on the internet and I have no ties to this what so ever. I thought I would just share.

 

[faradaykeynes]

i can relate to what you are saying, had personal experience when i was running on-line IT business, had to change hosting few time to get decent service

 

[OnCoreCreative]

i can relate to what you are saying, had personal experience when i was running on-line IT business, had to change hosting few time to get decent service

I can understand that. Its a shame people fall into this, I posted this to help future business and business choosing to go to another host.

I just hope this helps people think before purchasing into an Unlimited Package.

 

[ukwebhosting]

Hi

I stumbled across a host offring 2tb of disk space for £14 a year!

Flabbergasted at the sheer bul$$$t of this I clicked their live help and had a chat with a guy who confirmed you got 2tb!

Hmm yeah really...........

Paul

 

[OnCoreCreative]

Hi

I stumbled across a host offring 2tb of disk space for £14 a year!

Flabbergasted at the sheer bul$$$t of this I clicked their live help and had a chat with a guy who confirmed you got 2tb!

Hmm yeah really...........

Paul

Ha! some great offers out there these days lol!

 

[PragmatIT]

I think the key to this is to give your proposed hosting suppliers an estimate of the amount of bandwidth / disk space you are likely to consume and let them propose the best package.

This allows you to assess the provider from the quality of their response and allows the supplier to plan for the increase in bandwidth / disk usage.

 

[chip_y2kuk]

Hi

I stumbled across a host offring 2tb of disk space for £14 a year!

Flabbergasted at the sheer bul$$$t of this I clicked their live help and had a chat with a guy who confirmed you got 2tb!

Hmm yeah really...........

Paul

Ha ha.... you'd hit an inode limit before your managed to use all 2TB

the thing to look for with unlimited host's is their TOS (what's not on their site is in their TOS)

i.e

User may not:
1) Use 25% or more of system resources for longer then 90 seconds. There are numerous activities that could cause such problems; these include: CGI scripts, FTP, PHP, HTTP, etc.
2) Run stand-alone, unattended server-side processes at any point in time on the server. This includes any and all daemons, such as IRCD.
3) Run any type of web spider or indexer (including Google Cash / AdSpy) on shared servers.
4) Run any software that interfaces with an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network.
5) Run any bit torrent application, tracker, or client. You may link to legal torrents off-site, but may not host or store them on our shared servers.
6) Participate in any file-sharing/peer-to-peer activities
7) Run any gaming servers such as counter-strike, half-life, battlefield1942, etc
8) Run cron entries with intervals of less than 15 minutes.
9) Run any MySQL queries longer than 15 seconds. MySQL tables should be indexed appropriately.
10) When using PHP include functions for including a local file, include the local file rather than the URL. Instead of include("http://yourdomain.com/include.php") use include("include.php")
11) To help reduce usage, do not force html to handle server-side code (like php and shtml).
12) Only use https protocol when necessary; encrypting and decrypting communications is noticeably more CPU-intensive than unencrypted communications.



The use of more than 250,000 inodes on any shared account may potentially result in a warning first, and if no action is taken future suspension. Accounts found to be exceeding the 100,000 inode limit will automatically be removed from our backup system to avoid over-usage, however databases will still be backed up. Every file (a webpage, image file, email, etc) on your account uses up 1 inode.
Sites that slightly exceed our inode limits are unlikely to be suspended; however, accounts that constantly create and delete large numbers of files on a regular basis, have hundreds of thousands of files, or cause file system damage may be flagged for review and/or suspension. The primary cause of excessive inodes seems to be due to users leaving their catchall address enabled, but never checking their primary account mailbox. Over time, tens of thousands of messages (or more) build up, eventually pushing the account past our inode limit. To disable your default mailbox, login to cPanel and choose "Mail", then "Default Address", "Set Default Address", and then type in: :fail: No such user here.



Any shared account using more than 20 gigs of disk space will be removed from our off site weekly backup with the exception of Databases continuing to be backed up. All data will continue to be mirrored to a secondary drive which helps protect against data loss in the event of a drive failure.


(the above is taken from the tos of a large, popular unlimited provider)

you can use 250,000 inodes i'd be kicked off their (i've got more e-mails than that!)

8) Run cron entries with intervals of less than 15 minutes < i've got WHMCS piping e-mail every minute or five so i'd be out their too.

joe

 

[JakeBhatt]

So I understand that the unlimited bandwidth is bull... So which host would you guys suggest people using?

 

[Websitehandyman]

So I understand that the unlimited bandwidth is bull... So which host would you guys suggest people using?

I did a post on this some months ago, it's very important to read the terms and conditions on these sites.

http://www.websitehandyman.co.uk/limited-unlimited-disk-space-bandwidth/

 

[Team Leith Training]

The thing is then they should be banned from making the offer.

Selliing unlimited should mean unlimited. IF they cannot offer this they should surely not be selling it as such? Is this not against trade description?

 

[chip_y2kuk]

The thing is then they should be banned from making the offer.

Selliing unlimited should mean unlimited. IF they cannot offer this they should surely not be selling it as such? Is this not against trade description?

Their not though that's the problem, these "unlimited hosts" will lure you in with their offer and infact they will cancel your service if you start to use too many resources and the easiest one is to say about "CPU cycles" (the customer has no way of checking their cpu usage) so you get your service suspended one day for using too many cpu cycles.

the trade description's act can't cover it (or their wouldn't be so many host's doint it) also some countries don't have the or apply a similar law to the trade descriptions act.

joe

 

[Nuno]

For the sake of argument:

• If you are the sort of person taken in by a claim of 'unlimited' anything on your hosting you are very unlikely to use anything like the amount of resources that will cause you problems,
• If you know 'unlimited' is a stupid, dishonest offer but you go ahead anyway you deserve what you get.

Is it worth making a big fuss about and getting the government involved? That's the government whose IT skills are somewhat 'challenged' at times.
What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Jargen]

Thing is, i sell web hosting and i DONT say that the disk space or bandwith is unlimited and give actual numbers of the limitations. Doing this makes me more sales then someone saying unlimited would, because i get all the people who know the unlimited claims is bull and will avoid places which says that.

 

[chip_y2kuk]

Thing is, i sell web hosting and i DONT say that the disk space or bandwith is unlimited and give actual numbers of the limitations. Doing this makes me more sales then someone saying unlimited would, because i get all the people who know the unlimited claims is bull and will avoid places which says that.

That's the point where trying to make, unfortunately the people that fall for these unlimited claims are the ones that usually have loads of problems and would be better with a proper package with a host with reasonable limits.

joe

 

[Websitehandyman]

I woner when we'll see house for rent with unlimited space and all the energy you can use in the price ?

Under the current regs all they will need to add int he T&C is a clause saying you can have or use more then they the company say is normal per person.

How about restaurants "ALL YOU CAN EAT FOR A FIVER" *offer only only open to followers of Anorexia nervosa.

 

[Dark-Kni]

The thing is then they should be banned from making the offer.

Selliing unlimited should mean unlimited. IF they cannot offer this they should surely not be selling it as such? Is this not against trade description?

We have the same idea, why aren't they get to jail for libel?

 

[astutiumRob]

We have the same idea, why aren't they get to jail for libel?

ISTR it became an offence to take payment for a service you cannot, do not or will not supply - and as unlimited doesn't exist - it fails all 3

This was largely to try and curb all the "unlimited calls/texts" dodgy mobile phone deals which put limits on in the small print, but would apply equally to hosting

Why are they not in jail ? Because not enough people complain they didnt get what was advertised.

 

[Tommo]

I used to write a blog called the Unlimited Experiment some years ago, bought $3 unlimited plans on eBay and blasted them and wrote about what happened.

Some interesting stories I can assure you.

 

[marcusg2]

This is a double edged sword because if the host doesn't really give UNLIMITED bandwidth then you feel you are being ripped off. However if the BW is pretty large then everyone else will gobble it up so the servers become really slow and data corruption is common - frankly you cannot win.
I decided that it is fair to pay for what I use so long as the Host is good, their support is immediate and high quality and the servers don't crash.
I would never recommend coolhandle as a host - they are very expensive, service is bad and the servers crashed all the time I was with them - losing all my data.

 

[mzone]

Most company which offered unlimited disk space or bandwidth have very poor quality service. There is always huge overselling to cut a prices.
It is not worth to risk lost own data, better way is to pay more and get safe backup with limited resources.