The Unlimited domains/diskspace/bandwidth myth.

The myth
There are some hosting providers that advertise unlimited resources, we have had clients ask us why we do not try and match them.

The reason is very simple. There is no such thing as unlimited resources.

We would rather be up front and 100% honest with our customs so they know exactly what they are getting for their money. Unfortunately some companies are so desperate for the business that they will promise the earth just to get your business and as is often the case 'The devil is in the small print'!

The small print
Normally you will see reference to something that like a 'HIGH RESOURCE USER POLICY' or 'ABUSE USER POLICY'. This is the get out of jail card for the unscrupulous hosting provider as it means that if you use your unlimited resources past the limits they set (???) they will often pull your account without warning or hit you with additional charges that are way above the market rates. The other thing to watch out for is the exclusion of media or large files which is going to be the only thing likely to use large bandwidth amounts only.

Think about it logically, what if your site needed 5000TB of web space and 500TB of bandwidth, do you really think they would host it as a standard package?

The clues
Sometimes you will see that the same companies dedicated servers despite costing much more per month do have set bandwidth limits (often quite low). The reason for this is that generally users that are likely to take dedicated servers are more experienced and would not be gullible enough to fall for the unlimited bandwidth line.

The really big problem is that normally no matter how much you push them they will not tell you what the limits are even if you give them examples (go on give it a try!). How can you possibly budget or rely on a service for which you have no idea what the limits are?

And if you don’t think this happens just do a search on the net for people that have had their accounts pulled for exceeding their unlimited resources (??). So basically you get unlimited resources as long as you don’t need to use them!

If anyone out there manages to get some figures on what sort of limits are set, please feel free to email us via the following with the details and the company name.

Our position on this
If however you are willing to deal with a company that is less than honest with you from the start we wish you luck but this is not the sort of marketing practice we intend to follow.

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