Do u know how much the bandwidth costs for a host company?

[Eric_eLyrics]

Could be as low as 60 bucks a month/server!
Then how much they charge us?
I kinda ******!

here is my story...

My server is hosted by a company in China. And they use the IDC of China Netcom ( formerly northern half of China Telecom, the national monopoly which owns all the mainframe internet network in China) .
And my server is
1U
P4 2.4G
1G DDR
80G IDE
100M shared
Unlimited transfer
...
They charged me about US$110/month for first 2 years. After 2 years, they only charge me 75 a month basically just for the cost of IDC.

And the performance of the server is really great, too. I could download files at the speed of 500kb/s from here in Canada. The monthly transfer usage for the entire server is about 130G-160G/month since my sites do not have too many pictures or softwares~ kinda waste the unlimited transfer though~lol

I thought i got a real bargain at first because i've checked ev1server and many other popular companies before i chose them and i was kinda scared by those prices for high volume monthly transfer servers. But when later i become a friend of one of the company's network administrators, he told me some "insider's secret" and i was absolutely amazed how much profit ev1server and other companies could earn from high volume transfer servers!

He told me that usually the cost at IDC for a 1U server is ONLY about 60 bucks a month( based on 1 year term) . Although it is a shared 100M, the speed would still be great. That's because it is usually just shared by around 10 clients. And the cost of bandwidth for the IDC is NOTHING since they OWNS the national mainframe network and got TBs of it! He also told me they had another client who run a pretty popluar celebrity photo site and his server got 6MB/s transfer with no problem!

Well now, all i wanna say is that i really think the prices of high volume transfer servers quoted from some popular web host companies are ridiculous. Although they might have higher labor cost than those in China, i think the prices are still way too high!

[cheznoir]

You pay for consistent quality bandwidth. And not being in a Chinese ip block.

Chet

[Eric_eLyrics]

Originally posted by cheznoir
You pay for consistent quality bandwidth. And not being in a Chinese ip block.

Chet

I do no think it is much problem for being in a Chinese ip block. The speed are still great for me. I can download at the speed of 500kb/s from here in Canada though shaw cable. And i never found my server being blocked or sth. I tried to use trace rounte service to test it before i chose it. nothing's wrong~

[Sashman]

We share office space with Ted Hickman (founder of prohosters) and he just happened to be walking by when I read this thread, so I grabbed him.

According to him this rate is too good to be true and is more than likely a 'gimmick'. China apparantly has higher bandwidth costs then other countries and they'd be losing money on this deal just on the bandwidth if the 100/mb was only being shared by 10 clients. More than likely the 100/mb connection isn't a 100/mb connection or completely loaded, or the other numbers they gave you were false.

That said, if the deal works for you than kudos . If you want a comparison, we have a half rack (24u) w/10mb connection at equinix via prohosters/carpathia for $400/month which is very close to their cost. There's nothing like being able to drive 5 minutes to visit your servers.

The only problem with prohosters is that their IP blocks are on SPEWS, so we were forced to set up our SMTP servers elsewhere.

[Eric_eLyrics]

Originally posted by Sashman
According to him this rate is too good to be true and is more than likely a 'gimmick'. China apparantly has higher bandwidth costs then other countries and they'd be losing money on this deal just on the bandwidth...

Well. I do not think the bandwidth cost more for them. As far as i know, norton america has much higher cost for bandwidth, since their initial investment for the internet was so large that it will take those companies many years to pay it off and they have to charge a lot on customers. the average cost for high-speed internet (ADSL, LAN, DSL) is only about US$12/month in China, no transfer cap( it never exists in China, actually), etc. it is way also cheaper than most other countries.~and quite stable.
As for the IDCs, the biggest difference is that they are mostly owned directly by the national telecom monopoly who owns the network and they do not have to pay to others to rent the bandwidth. They got TBs of free bandwidth and they do not have to worried about the cost of it at all. And the Chinese government paid for the construction of it since they used to be owned sololy by the government. On the other hand, many IDCs in other countries perhaps are owned by small companies who have to pay a lot to rent the bandwidth from others. ???

More than likely the 100/mb connection isn't a 100/mb connection or completely loaded, or the other numbers they gave you were false.

Well, I confess it is possible because i cannot check it anyway. ~I do not think it is nessary for him to cheat on me for that though. Anyway, because most of their servers are for domestic use only( Chinese sites mostly), even if their entire network have limited bandwidth for int'l connection (still should be a lot, since it is on the mainframe, especially the upstream~and i'm pretty sure they do not worry about their domestic bandwidth at all), not so many servers compete with mine for the int'l traffic~lol I've had my server hosted there for more than a year by now, and i never experience any problems.

Here is a test file from my server, i got stable 800kb/s with DAP.
150kb/s with IE here in the university. I think it is great for me. Anybody can test it for me is greatly appreciated~ i did not try to get any feedback from my visitors though~
http://61.241.93.38/test/test.zip

After all, i still think i will not pay 300-600 bucks for a server, ever! That's just ridiculous~

[mainarea]

You have to understand that the 100Mbps unmetered Chinese line is 100Mbps guaranteed in China. I've seen many IDCs in China do the same sort of deal, and they never give any international guaranteed traffic rate. You have no idea what you're talking about in terms of US traffic. If you get a server with Ev1, you have a 100Mbps unmetered port, with a limit of 1000GB of bandwidth. 1000GB of banwidth is 3.3Mbps average, which probably costs them around $25-30/Mbps, and that starts at $99/month. However, not everyone uses the 1000GB, and your port is burstable. US servers are a much better deal than anywhere else in the world, especially if most of your traffic doesn't go to China. If you want to find out more, feel free to ask questions at WebHostingTalk.com's Dedicated Server Forum. I'm getting a transfer rate of 40KB/s from your link, while I get between 150 and 380KB/s from most US based hosts.

-Josh

[Eric_eLyrics]

Originally posted by mainarea
You have to understand that the 100Mbps unmetered Chinese line is 100Mbps guaranteed in China. I've seen many IDCs in China do the same sort of deal, and they never give any international guaranteed traffic rate. You have no idea what you're talking about in terms of US traffic. If you get a server with Ev1, you have a 100Mbps unmetered port, with a limit of 1000GB of bandwidth. 1000GB of banwidth is 3.3Mbps average, which probably costs them around $25-30/Mbps, and that starts at $99/month. However, not everyone uses the 1000GB, and your port is burstable. US servers are a much better deal than anywhere else in the world, especially if most of your traffic doesn't go to China. If you want to find out more, feel free to ask questions at WebHostingTalk.com's Dedicated Server Forum. I'm getting a transfer rate of 40KB/s from your link, while I get between 150 and 380KB/s from most US based hosts.

-Josh

You are probably right~ Since last week, the speed of my server dropped dramatically. The ping time is even more than 1000ms sometimes. They said they were investigating it. I am considering to ask them to switch my server to another IDC they are associated with if problem still exsits after this week. But it never happend during the past 1.5+ years though. And i will only have to pay a special price for about $900/year since next Janurary, i do not want to miss that part~.