What's this bandwidth thing again?

First of all, we have to establish one thing here. I'm not talking about bandwidth in the sense of speed of transmission (bits/second). I'm talking about the so called bandwidth which measures the total amount of transmitted data (bits). Although, considering the fact that most packages come with a specified amount of Gigabytes/month, you could consider it to be that other bandwidth. But who cares? You know what I'm talking about, right?

This unlimited bandwidth issue is one of the most controversial issues in the web hosting industry. Certain web hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth in their hosting packages. That would not be an issue in itself. The thing is that they offer it at a fixed price! Can you put a fixed price on something unlimited? In fact, the very idea of unlimited in a limited world is... well... impossible. (Most likely we do live in a world with limited resources, you know?)

Unlimited overselling?

The reality is that the (hidden) policy of most of the companies that offer unlimited something is to either close accounts using more than a set amount of GB/month, or to lower the speed of transmission (that other bandwidth).

So, although the offer states "unlimited bandwidth", the web hosting company knows from the start that it will not be delivered. In fact, physically, the network has a limited speed of transmission, which in turn means that the hosting company cannot send more that x GB/month. But lets not get into details.

True stories

Often, what reads "unlimited" on the initial offer transforms into "limited" when you read the terms of service. You'll usually find a point where the web hosting company reserves the right to stop the transfer for your account if the bandwidth consumption exceeds the "unlimited value" of... lets say 20GB. Anyway, this whole thing is barely legal in my opinion. It is however so hard to prove that they were trying to deceive you...

I remember reading about someone who signed-up for an account with unlimited bandwidth. Imagine his surprise when he received an e-mail one day, asking him to "upgrade" the account because he was (basically) reaching the limit of the "unlimited". It makes me laugh, but it's sad really!

Is there anything more to say?

To make a long story short, the conclusion is that physically it's impossible to achieve unlimited bandwidth. "Extreme amounts of bandwidth" yes, but not "unlimited bandwidth". So anyone claiming to provide unlimited something is not telling the truth (yes, that means lying ).

For me, unlimited bandwidth is a bad sign. Sure, from a marketing point of view it's a good sign -- the guys know how to attract innocent clients. But from the potential client's point of view, it's definitely a no-no.

I stay away from unlimited. I can understand overselling and I approve overselling to some extent, but from overselling bandwidth (or any other resource) to such extreme as unlimited bandwidth, there's a long way! An infinitely long way in fact!

I like to know what I'm getting exactly! When it comes to web space, bandwidth, price, and many other hosting features I expect numbers. The only thing that cannot be expressed exactly is the level of support. For that, as you might know by now, I search for customer reviews.

As a closure to this article, I wish you an unlimited number of unique visitors!

That was just a silly joke. I wish you unlimited happiness! That at least, we may all hope to achieve - we are granted the right by law.