Unlimited Bandwidth Hosting Plans: Are They For Real?

By Matt Jackson

What Are Disk Space and Bandwidth?

The two most fundamental and generally important factors with any hosting plan are the disk space and monthly bandwidth allowance. Disk space is the amount of server space you can use to host your website, images, and any other files associated with your site. Bandwidth is the total amount of web page and file size that can be transferred from the server to browsers on a monthly basis.

Offering an Unlimited Amount of a Limited Resource

Both of these factors are, by their very essence, finite or limited. A server only has a certain size hard drive and a server only has the capacity to allow a specific amount of bandwidth on a monthly basis. In reality, then, it is impossible for any host to state that you can have an unlimited amount of either but in practice the promise of unlimited bandwidth is certainly appealing.

Why Unlimited Bandwidth Is Appealing

When a site first goes live on the Internet it is virtually impossible to predict with any certainty just how much bandwidth will be required. Initially, very little bandwidth is likely to be required, because with no visitors no requests are sent from browser to server and no data packages are transmitted. Eventually, though, we all hope that our sites will become bigger than Google and demand a similar amount of bandwidth as the largest sites on the Internet. For this reason, the allure of unlimited bandwidth is that we don’t need to make an educated guess at how much bandwidth we will actually need.

Check the Terms of Service to Find the Unlimited Limit

The single most important place to look with any unlimited bandwidth hosting plan that you are considering is the terms and conditions page. As a general rule you will find that this page contains a very definite limit to what “unlimited” actually means. If you reach the limit then you will be considered to be using more than an unlimited amount of bandwidth. This certainly seems dishonest, at best, because very few people really look at terms and conditions in any great depth and the first time webmaster is unlikely to consider that there can be no such thing as an unlimited amount of bandwidth.

Other Limitations That Might Be Included

You should also look for other limitations to the unlimited plan. Some unlimited bandwidth hosting providers place stipulations on the type of content you can serve and the type of content that your visitors can download. Generally, this means that you may not be able to offer audio or video downloads because they consume a large amount of bandwidth. Despite all of this, though, unlimited bandwidth hosting packages do offer some value to certain people and certain types of website but it is important that you understand exactly what unlimited means in these cases.

Which Sites Should Consider Unlimited Bandwidth Packages

If you have a relatively small site with very little dynamic content, and no streaming or downloadable audio or video files then an unlimited package could very well be the perfect solution for you. Remember that in most cases unlimited simply means “a lot of” but a lot of bandwidth is still a good deal especially for a small site. Unlimited bandwidth in these instances gives you the chance to increase the size of your site and the number of visitors you receive without ever reaching the confines of your unlimited bandwidth.

When Not Consider Unlimited Offers

If your site is the complete opposite to this, in so far as it will have a large customer base, or it will contain a lot of audio and video files then you would probably be best steering clear of an unlimited offer. This may sound counter intuitive, after all if the unlimited bandwidth offer really did offer unlimited bandwidth then bigger sites with lots of multimedia content and tens of millions of daily page view would be ideally suited to this type of hosting account.

Conclusion

Unlimited bandwidth is offered as a marketing ploy because hosts know that the majority of sites will only ever use a fairly restricted amount of bandwidth. By introducing rigid terms and conditions they are able to ensure that it remains just a marketing ploy. Always pay attention to the terms and conditions to discover the actual limit that is set. In a lot of cases the limit is impressively high but don’t be misled into believing that there is truly an unlimited amount of bandwidth waiting for you around the corner.

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