Rule change about unlimited bandwidth?

[Peo]

Over the years the use of unlimited in webhosting ads has increased. We currently have rules stating webhosts are not allowed to post ads offering "unlimited space" or "unlimited/unmetered bandwidth". Should we change the rules?

I suggest

"Unlimited/unmetered bandwidth" should be allowed in shared hosting ads.

This has unfortunately become the business standard from what I can tell. WHT already allow this and very few shared hosts bother to mention a bandwidth limit on their site.

I do think shared webhosting plans should specify in their TOS or similar what they mean by unlimited or what kind of limits they have. For instance one of the larger hosts in the business offer both unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth on shared accounts, but if you read the fine print it says "customers who are affecting other clients or are using 25% or more of system resources for longer then 90 seconds would be in violation".

Your thoughts on changing our rules?

 

[deeplist]

Ultimately, it's your site, but I don't see any benefit coming from this. Those of us who have been around for ages know that "unlimited" is nonsense and nothing more than a marketing ploy. Consumers are stupid. (Unlimited = better

) The amount of discussions have dropped on this site to nearly nothing. Removing this restriction is only going to turn this place into more of a dumping ground for stupid hosts that log in to post ads and then log right back off... Ads that quite frankly, nobody cares about.

 

[Peo]

Agreed, the shared hosting part of the webhosting business have been taking advantage of the fact that clients don't know how much bandwidth they will need. FWS can't change the industry.

I think even if a shared host specify a bandwidth limit (very few do), I haven't seen anyone at all specify a memory limit and that's very deceptive too in my opinion. Maybe even worse from a customer point of view. At the vps, cloud hosting, dedicated server level of the business I think the ram limit is more or less always mentioned. And bandwidth limitations aswell.

 

[wswd]

I think even if a shared host specify a bandwidth limit (very few do), I haven't seen anyone at all specify a memory limit and that's very deceptive too in my opinion.

Peo, you clearly haven't been to our website!! https://clients.wswd.net/cart.php?gid=1
No, that's not a cheap attempt at an advertisement. Scroll down to "Account Limitations" and you'll see everything very nicely spelled out.

I am not for a rules change. Other websites do allow unlimited. WHT switched a while ago, but that's because they sold their soul to the advertising devil. They realize that the big time players with money to spend on advertising (the GoDaddys and EIG brands) all offer unlimited hosting. That's the only reason they switched. There's not a person over there at iNet who likes unlimited hosting, but you go to where the advertising dollars are. Can you blame them?

The fact of the matter is that bandwidth is very cheap...probably the cheapest resource in a server. It might only cost $5/TB, for example. The problem is, you have an "unlimited" host where clients pay $3.95/mo. Do you think the host is going to pay $5/TB, because I decide I want to use a crapload of bandwidth? What if I use 5TB of bandwidth. Are they going to absorb the $25 hit on my $3.95 account, or do you think they're going to terminate me? What if I use the entire bandwidth pipe? If the server has 500 accounts and a 100mbps connection for example, do you think I would be allowed to use anywhere close to all 100mbps for myself, using my "unmetered" account? What would be left for the other clients? They aren't going to let 1 client ruin the experience for 499 other clients, so I would simply be terminated. Very shady! And the same goes for disk space. Hard drives are pretty cheap. $/GB isn't too bad these days. But is a host going to add a couple $200 enterprise HDDs to the array because I am using ridiculous amounts of space for my $3.95 a month account? Of course they're not.

And that's the problem. It's all about consumer protection. In any other industry, this would be fraud. Ever wonder why Verizon and AT&T don't offer "unlimited" data plans anymore? They were limiting and throttling "unlimited" connections, and were sued up one side and down the other in multi-million dollar class action lawsuits. They lost the cases due to the hidden limits. But nobody cares about the hosting industry. It just simply isn't big enough. But that doesn't mean what goes on here isn't fraud. It absoutely is. So why promote it here on FHT? You have the wireless phone industry only on a much smaller scale. I've been saying for years that lawyers could make millions suing the big name hosts. But alas, just hasn't happened yet.

Dedicated servers and VPS are different. Unmetered (unmetered is still limited, by the way...there are always limits) is fine for VPS and dedicated servers. You have a VPS that's 100mbps unmetered, shared between no greater than 30 total containers. You have a 1gbps unmetered dedicated server that's shared between 4 others, etc. It's still a clear limit, even though it's unmetered. You don't get into the "unlimited" fairy tale. With shared hosting though, it just doesn't scale like that. There are way too many accounts and way too many other factors involved.

 

[Peo]

Thumbs up for mentioning memory limits on your site [MENTION=16872688]wswd[/MENTION]

I haven't made up my mind yet. There are certainly convincing arguments to keep the rule about unlimited bandwidth. I just feel like we are fighting a loosing battle on this front.

You made some good points about the phone industry even if webhosting is different. Sadly I don't see any signs of the hosting industry changing when it comes to advertising unlimited bandwidth. The obvious difference is when smartphones came a lot of costumers hit the hidden limits on "unlimited" data plans. That is not happening with shared hosting. The vast majority of shared hosting clients never hit any hidden bandwidth limit.

 

[fsd]

I'm for changing it to allow unlimited shared hosts. See how it goes, you can always change it back.

And since web resources cost less than ever I can see why a website would be willing to take on a few clients they lose money on if the policy of unlimited will bring them tons of users that use almost no resources. I personally would never go with an unlimited plan but with resources costing less than ever I really don't see it being a huge huge deal if they make their fair use / cancelation policies clear and fair.

Perhaps change the once per week to once per 10 days though? (or something along those lines) To help cut on the possible increase of people just posting their websites and leaving.

Idk

 

[Matt8]

Popped in here for the first time in years (?) to comment on this!

The web-hosting landscape has changed and now it is a lot more feasible and economical to provide more resources than the olden days where Portland.co.uk provided 100MB of monthly transfer.

I have a suggestion: Allow unlimited/unmetered posts but have a sticky in each forum detailing exactly why this is NOT possible. For bonus points, install a vb bot (if one exists) that auto-replies to any post in a forum with the word unlimited that points out how it isn't possible as unlimited is no such thing.

Ok, back to the bunker to disappear for a few more years.

 

[sarmth]

I'm sure everyone knows my view on this, considering I am strongly against the misuse of marketing gimmicks to fool the general population into paying for something they think they are getting, only to have their website deleted for a breach of ToS (Fair Play and General Usage Policies).

This image just about sums it up I believe;

Peo, Stay strong and don't give in to the pressure, we need to educate people, not cave in to their stupidity!

 

[Jan]

I have a suggestion: Allow unlimited/unmetered posts but have a sticky in each forum detailing exactly why this is NOT possible. For bonus points, install a vb bot (if one exists) that auto-replies to any post in a forum with the word unlimited that points out how it isn't possible as unlimited is no such thing.

Good idea, we can allow it but also educate. There will always be them who don't want to be educated though.

I personally don't like it, but it seems most consumers have always wanted it, and more and more hosts think they can offer it.

Oh and if we do allow it, remember the ad trashing rule still applies. :angel:

 

[Peo]

I guess that could be an acceptable compromise. No decision has been made. Keep posting your thoughts on this. I'm listening.

 

[sander k]

Popped in here for the first time in years (?) to comment on this!

The web-hosting landscape has changed and now it is a lot more feasible and economical to provide more resources than the olden days where Portland.co.uk provided 100MB of monthly transfer.

I have a suggestion: Allow unlimited/unmetered posts but have a sticky in each forum detailing exactly why this is NOT possible. For bonus points, install a vb bot (if one exists) that auto-replies to any post in a forum with the word unlimited that points out how it isn't possible as unlimited is no such thing.

Ok, back to the bunker to disappear for a few more years.

I agree with you. Just bandwidth tho, not the space.

 

[torpix]

[MENTION=16872688]wswd[/MENTION] - Good point made.

If web hosts was regulated like other industry's, it would probably be better.