Unmetered Bandwidth on Dedicated Servers

While it is common for web hosting providers to meter network bandwidth, unmetered network bandwidth is an increasingly common feature of modern Dedicated Server hosting plans. Unmetered bandwidth allows users to scale up their online operations without worrying about exceeding bandwidth capacity. In this article, we will discuss the benefits and specifications of unmetered bandwidth on dedicated servers. 

Topics Include

• What is Unmetered Bandwidth?
• Benefit of Unmetered Bandwidth on Dedicated Servers

What is Unmetered Bandwidth? 

Unmetered bandwidth is a term used to describe web server bandwidth capacities that are not throttled by standard bandwidth usage limitations. Usually, bandwidth capacity is set within certain limits, also referred to as specifications. These limits are described in terms of transfer rates and expressed as bits per second. A bit represents a single unit of digital information or data. Modern bandwidth capacities are typically expressed as megabits per second (mbps) and gigabits per second (gbps):

• mbps – 100 million bits of data per second
• gbps – 1 billion bits of data per second

To put this in context, let’s say your hosting plan has a bandwidth of 100 mbps. An unmetered plan means you can download information to and from your server at 100 mbps with no restrictions. A metered bandwidth hosting plan, by contrast, may throttle your bandwidth capacity if they detect an overwhelming spike in usage.

You may also see unmetered bandwidth referred to as “unlimited bandwidth.” Basically, this means that there is no limitation on bandwidth usage. However, bear in mind that there really is no such thing as “unlimited bandwidth” – at some point bandwidth will run out.

Where is Unmetered Bandwidth Used?

There are a number of applications that benefit from not having limited bandwidth. In particular, game servers, video streaming, and some web applications. Depending on the number of users, you may often see bottlenecks appear when bandwidth is limited.

Dedicated servers that are focused on the intense processing of data, such as databases are good examples of where unmetered bandwidth would be beneficial. When you are looking for a host for a dedicated server, you should be aware of your bandwidth needs and be aware of the host prohibiting high bandwidth operations.

Benefit of Unmetered Bandwidth on Dedicated Servers

Now that we’ve explored the concept of bandwidth metering we can discuss how this can potentially benefit your InMotion Hosting dedicated server.

The main benefit of unmetered network bandwidth on dedicated servers is that you don’t need to worry about the bandwidth limitations throttling the power of your dedicated server. Unexpected spikes in traffic won’t set off any alarm bells, allowing your server to handle shifting business demands without any slowdowns or performance degradation. If you anticipate that your online operations will need to scale to meet changing bandwidth requirements, unmetered bandwidth is likely ideal for you. 

InMotion Hosting dedicated servers have 1 Gbps unmetered bandwidth plans, giving you access to transfer rates of nearly 1 gigabit per second.

This means faster connections between your server and visitors, as well as faster downloads to and from the server. And since its unmetered, you can use all of that bandwidth as you see fit without worrying about throttling or usage alerts.