Data Transfer Bandwidth Usage
Comparison of Bandwidth Billing Methods
At Fraction Servers we operate three ways of billing for the bandwidth you use: Monthly Data Transfer, Un-Metered Ports and 95th Percentile. We put together this article to clear up the terms so you can choose what works best for you.
Method 1 – Monthly Data Transfer
This is just like your phone bill. You pay for a set amount of data to be transferred and can use that amount however you like throughout the month – all in one go, or at a steady rate. For monthly data transfer billing the usage of your server is calculated from a total of inbound and outbound traffic.
All customers are emailed once the reach 80% of their monthly data transfer allowance and will once the limit has been exceeded be charged at an overage rate or can request to increase the monthly data transfer allowance at a favourable rate.
Method 2 – Un-Metered Network port
With this bandwidth option your server is provided on a fixed port speed of 1Gb/s, 10Gb/s or 20Gb/s. Your usage is not monitored and you cannot burst to a higher port speed than your server is connected.
Method 3 – 95%ile Bandwidth
95th %ile or 95.pl is a common method within the IP Transit market for billing for bandwidth usage this industry standard practice allows you to utilise the full speed of your connection on occasion whilst reflecting what the typical usage is.
How 95%ile works in practice
All of our servers have bandwidth monitoring at the switch they are connected to in order to calculate usage. A typical bandwidth graph of monthly server bandwidth usage may look as follows:
Note the daily rises and falls, as the server traffic changes. In addition to these fluctuations, there are short spikes where the full bandwidth is used – these could be updates or backups. 95%ile billing ignores these spikes only billing for the bulk of the usage.
If the same bandwidth graph is broken down into 5 minute samples and then those samples are ranked from low to high we get a curve of data rates:
At the 95th percentile we get a value of 17.76Mbps which is 51% of the maximum point. Beyond this point, the rates rise quickly to the maximum – it is very rare that this server is hitting the full rate of their connection, so they are not charged for that usage.
Which should I choose?
Whilst there is not an exact calculation, we have found that a 100Mbps 95%ile is roughly equivalent to 25TB transferred over a month. At Fraction Servers you are always able to view the current month’s usage at any time so no matter what scheme you go for, it’s easy to keep on top of things.
Pricing our Options
With our monthly plans, it is always possible to change your bandwidth so you only pay for what you need. Our current plans and prices are listed below:
Port Pricing
Pricing for the required port speed for your server is shown below:
| Network Port | |
| 1Gb/s | £Included |
| 10Gb/s | £25/Month |
| 20Gb/s | £50/Month |
Bandwidth Pricing
Pricing for the required port speed for your server is shown below:
| Data Transfer | |
| 10TB | £10/Month |
| 20TB | £20/Month |
| 50TB | £40/Month |
| 100TB | £60/Month |
| 300TB | £135/Month |
| Un-Metered 1Gb/s | £135/Month |
| Un-Metered 10Gb/s | £510/Month |
| 10Gb/s 95%ile | £535/Month |
| Un-Metered 20Gb/s | £960/Month |
