Support - 95th Percentile Billing
Adhost colocation and dedicated customers are billed for monthly bandwidth usage using the 95th percentile method. All Adhost customers are given real time access to their MRTG (Multi Router Traffic Grapher) graphs that allow them to view their throughput in real time.
In 95th percentile billing, also known as burstable billing, the customer's data throughput is measured and recorded at five-minute intervals throughout the billing period. At the end of the billing period, the measurements are sorted from highest to lowest, with the highest 5% of usage (roughly a 36-hour period for a monthly billing cycle) discarded and not included in the bill. The peak of the remaining 95% of bandwidth utilization is used as the rate at which the customer will be charged for the billing period.
In the example above, even though the customer's monthly traffic spiked at points up to 34.5 Mb/s of traffic, the customer would be billed at 18 Mb/s. This is due to the top 5% of the traffic - the brief spikes - being ignored, and the highest of the remaining 95% of throughput - at about 18 Mb/s - being used as the billing rate.
95th percentile billing is beneficial for the customer, in that it allows the customer bursts of peak throughput and traffic utilization without additional financial cost, as those short "bursts" of peak traffic are ignored, leaving the "normal" monthly usage to be billed.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What exactly is the 95th Percentile?
The 95th percentile is a mathematical calculation widely used to evaluate the regular, sustained utilization of your Internet connection. The reason this statistic is so useful in measuring data throughput is that it gives a very accurate picture of the cost of the bandwidth. The 95th percentile says that 95% of the time, your usage is below this amount. Just the same, the remaining 5% of the time, your usage is above that amount. The 95th percentile is a good number to judge how much bandwidth you are actually utilizing and helps filter out usage spikes.
How does Adhost calculate the 95th Percentile?
Adhost data samples are collected every 5 minutes. Since the samples are taken every 5 minutes, the data sample represents a 5 minute averaged bits per second value. It's averaged because we don't know the highs and lows within that 5 minute period. Usually for any solid determination, we need a reasonably large data set to cover the peaks and valleys of your utilization. A month of samples is the typical data set and is how we bill your account. In short, Adhost's percentile calculation uses a 95th percentile on 5 minute averages during your current 30 day billing cycle.
Who gets measured at the 95th Percentile?
Adhost measures certain services using the 95th percentile. Services such as our Co-Location/Dedicated Server packages and our direct internet connections (Frame-relay, Fractional T1, T1, DS3, OC3, OC12, 10Mbps, 100Mbps, 1Gbps) get measured at the 95th Percentile. If you are not being billed at the 95th percentile, and would like to be, just send an email to our Sales Department and we can explain how it may benefit you. Please Note that shared web hosting services do not apply for 95th Precentile billing.
Why don't you charge a flat rate or for actual bandwidth used?
All of our plans include the option of total monthly bandwidth billing (excepting direct internet connections). Please contact our Sales Department for more information.
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