Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Be Careful with Unlimited Bandwidth Web Hosting Providers

By Ricardo d Argence

If you have a website, one of the most important things you need to know about is bandwidth. Basically, bandwidth is the amount of data you can transfer at one time.

The less bandwidth there is, the slower the pages take to load, regardless of the amount of visitors to the site. With more visitors, each visitor is going to have to wait his or her turn if you don't have enough bandwidth to accommodate everyone. When selecting a hosting plan, you have to consider the bandwidth you will need.

Be cautious if the company offers you unlimited bandwidth or monthly transfer. It is not true if they tell you they have unlimited bandwidth. Unlimited Bandwidth doesn't exist.

I've never seen any broadband company offering an internet connection as unlimited megabytes per second. So, how could a web hosting company, which normally doesn't even own its own access lines, claims to customers that it will give them unlimited bandwidth?

With high bandwidth site that have unlimited plans, most of the time they will be disconnected. When they are disconnected, no refunds are given. Typically, the web hosting company states that the website has violated the acceptable use policy or else their terms of service.

When researching what source you will use to serve your website always read the terms of service for any hidden policies. More information about the so-called Unlimited disclaimer can be found in the fine text.

If you look first for web hosting services (those who state clearly bandwidth offered), you must attempt your best estimate and carefully monitor your usage for the first few months. When estimating, remember these factors. How many users will access your web site? How many pages to be access? How big are the graphic and HTML files?

Large multimedia files, computer programs, and file downloads require more bandwidth. Flash web sites use tons of bandwidth. Virtual Reality and full length three dimensional presentations require the most bandwidth of all.

Though it is not accurate, but still gives you something to work with until your site has been online for a while and actual traffic statistics have been generated. Don't fall for the unlimited bandwidth trap that some companies throw at you.

About the Author:

No comments: