Saving Bandwidth

[Solidify]

Most of you may already know that I'm really paranoid when it comes to saving bandwidth since I'm one of the few people that was burdened with a limited bandwidth allocation by my ISP. Quite frankly, it stinks. But, I know that I'm not the only one and there's other people that may have to monitor their bandwidth to make sure they don't go over as well. Which is why I'm going to show you a feature I recently came across that allows monitoring your monthly usage to be very easy, even if your ISP doesn't have internet usage tracking on their site (mine does).

This feature is called transfer capping it only monitors both upload and download transfers from uTorrent. If you're alwasy worried about going over your limit, I highly recommend you use this option because it will save you a lot of money.

Here's how to use it.

Assuming you already have the latest version of uTorrent installed, go to the Options tab in the application and navigate to Preferences. Once there, go to Transfer Cap on the left side. Enable the transfer cap by ticking the box and put in however much bandwidth you're allowed to use monthly. You can select whether you'd like it to monitor upload, downloads and both at the same time. You can also reset your history if you happen to need to restart the tracking.

This isn't really a trick as much as it's a neat feature that I'm sure not many users are aware of. If you want to trim down on your additional usage costs, give it a try.

And lastly, this is a small tip, if your monthly bandwidth allocation is, for instance, 150GB, both up and down, set your cap to something less than that. The reason for such is because as much as downloading data uses up your bandwidth, browsing does too. So depending on how much you browse, other than torrenting, arrange your quota so that you're not stuck at the end of the month when you get that notice.

 

[ireppgold_mybb_import12659]

is this a bad time to say that ive got unlimited bandwidth? best thing ive ever bought lol. download like over 9000 movies and im still not capped or anything. cost more than a hooker, but its worth it

 

[Solidify]

is this a bad time to say that ive got unlimited bandwidth? best thing ive ever bought lol. download like over 9000 movies and im still not capped or anything. cost more than a hooker, but its worth it

Not at all but there is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. One way or another, you're going to be capped, as far as I'm concerned.

This is how.

"Unmetered" vs. "Unlimited" Bandwidth

"Unmetered bandwidth" refers to the speed of data-transfer. Ideally what "unmetered" means is that a server can have part or all of a dedicated connection and you can never "over-use" the connection. But unmetered doesn't mean infinite bandwidth, rather it implies that a server is allowed to use the maximum network speed.

On the other hand, "Unlimited bandwidth" ideally means that as far as the amount of data-transfer goes, you can download or upload as much data as you want in a given period of time.

Are they real?

You probably noticed that we used the word "ideally" when explaining both unlimited bandwidth and unmetered bandwidth. The reason is that only in an ideal world you would be able to get real unlimited or unmetered bandwidth.

To elaborate on this, let's use our fast Ethernet connection example which has a speed of 100 megabits per second. What you need to know is that this figure is actually a nominal value, which basically means it is theoretical only. No networking technology can run at its full rated speed and many even run substantially below it due to real-world performance factors - such as normal network overhead, external performance limiters, and network configurations. Long story short, there is no way you could ever be able to transfer 262 Terra bits of data in a month! And even if you could, this still isn't "unlimited" bandwidth!

It is simply impossible for a web hosting provider to actually offer unlimited or unmetered bandwidth to their customers, especially because most providers themselves have limited resources (i.e. bandwidth, storage space, etc).

So now you know that there is no such a thing as "unlimited bandwidth", particularly in web hosting services. Both "unlimited" and "unmetered" are the products of a very clever and manipulative marketing strategy invented by some web hosting providers and quickly adopted by others.

What's the Catch?

As a way to obtain more customers, and to survive in this super-competitive industry, many providers now have begun offering unlimited bandwidth with their services. But, it is all about the fine prints, where quite often you find clauses embedded deep within the company's terms of service that reveal how they would restrict your bandwidth consumption to a limited amount, or even cancel your service altogether. These clauses are usually very subjective and arbitrary so that you wouldn't be able to argue with them. To give you an example of such clauses, here is what one web hosting provider stated in their contract: "excessive use of system resources (e.g. CPU) for longer than 90 seconds would result in termination of service!"

The main objective of this marketing trick is to get more and more customers to sign up to their services. It is no secret that in reality many web hosting customers only use very little bandwidth per month. Therefore, by decorating their web hosting services with stimulating but unrealistic offers like "unlimited bandwidth", these providers get a greater number of customers. Perhaps more than what they can handle. Then, within a short period of time, they essentially scoop out the ones who have relatively intense bandwidth usage and find an excuse to terminate their contracts, and keep the ones using little bandwidth per month.

There are other ways these web hosting providers play with those magical words. As we mentioned earlier in this article, there are two primary meanings associated with bandwidth: the amount of transferrable data, and the speed at which they are transferred. What some of the unlimited providers do is that they play with these two aspects of bandwidth to their advantage. For example, they offer unlimited bandwidth with your service but they reduce the speed so that you won't be able to transfer more than a specific amount even if your server works 24/7.

Another example is they promise you "Unmetered bandwidth", which means you can take up the whole dedicated connection but then they put a cap on the amount of data transfer. Although these providers claim they don't measure your bandwidth, their system does in fact monitor your data traffic consumption. And when you reach your cap, they will kick you out.

And these were just a few examples of how some web hosting providers try to lure customers to sign up for their services. Certainly there are other rather innovative ways too that they employ to increase revenue.

At the end, it is safe to say that "unlimited bandwidth" is actually more limited than "limited bandwidth!"

So, if you are planning on getting a Web hosting service with unlimited bandwidth, you should think twice before signing up. First, check the terms and conditions thoroughly, and find out about all their termination policies and other hidden clauses. It's almost guaranteed that if bandwidth is unmetered or unlimited, other features of that web hosting service have limitations.

 

[ireppgold_mybb_import12659]

"So, if you are planning on getting a Web hosting service with unlimited bandwidth, you should think twice before signing up. First, check the terms and conditions thoroughly, and find out about all their termination policies and other hidden clauses. It's almost guaranteed that if bandwidth is unmetered or unlimited, other features of that web hosting service have limitations. "

them bitches played me

 

[Solidify]

"So, if you are planning on getting a Web hosting service with unlimited bandwidth, you should think twice before signing up. First, check the terms and conditions thoroughly, and find out about all their termination policies and other hidden clauses. It's almost guaranteed that if bandwidth is unmetered or unlimited, other features of that web hosting service have limitations. "

them bitches played me

Like I said, it's impossible. You're either getting unlimited data transfer with a really low speed, which means they've set your speed precisely at a level where they can predict how much you'll be able to potentially download by the end of the month or you're just downloading blazingly fast but you're charged for going over.

It's all marketing schemes.