The Truth about Unlimited Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the measure of data that can be transmitted over an Internet connection. Most people have no idea how much bandwidth their website needs.

Be careful when a hosting company claims you'll get unlimited bandwidth or unlimited data transfer with a hosting plan. There's no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. How can you have something unlimited when it's delivered via a limited connection?

They can advertise that because very few websites use enough bandwidth to become a problem. The reality is they may offer unmetered bandwidth, meaning they won't cut your site off at some artificial point.

For 99.9% of webmasters, unlimited will seem like it is unlimited because they get all the bandwidth they need. However...

High bandwidth sites can be disconnected if they use too much bandwidth, or more likely, too many server resources. In that case no refund will be given. Normally, the web hosting company will say the the site violated its Acceptable Use Policy or Terms of Service. The host might also throttle your site down so it simply can't use as much.

Whenever you visit a host promoting "Unlimited Bandwidth" as one of the account features, be sure to read the Acceptable Use Policy and the Terms of Service. Read the fine print about the so-called "Unlimited" disclaimer.

When you look for web hosting, those who state clearly the bandwidth allowance, such as i-webhost.com, are clearly telling you what you'll get. With others who offer "unlimited" bandwidth you'll have to dig deeper to find the truth.

Either way, you have to make your best estimation of how much bandwidth your website will need. Take these factors into consideration while estimating.

How many users will access your web site?
How many pages to be access?
What types of files will be downloaded?

Audio and video files, software programs, and file downloads like these require more bandwidth. Flash web sites use a lot of bandwidth. Game sites use a lot of bandwidth. Virtual Reality (VR) and full-length three-dimensional audio/visual presentations require a lot of bandwidth.

Most sites, however, don't use near as much bandwidth as the site owner thinks. Most websites just don't get more than a few thousand visitors a month. The most bandwidth any of my sites has ever used was about 25 gigabytes, and that site served almost a million page views to get there.

So, while hosts offering unlimited bandwidth make it seem like you're getting more for your money, you're really not. The hosts that tell you what you're getting are being honest with you.

If my site that served almost a million pages only used 25 gigabytes of bandwidth, a host like i-webhost.com that offer 150 gigabytes of data transer each month (for just $4.44 at the time of this writing) are being real with you. You know where you stand with them, and while "unlimited" sounds good, 150 gigabytes is a freaking ton of bandwidth! You'll never use it unless you're planning on being the next YouTube.