In one way, you are right, in others, not as much. Yes, the bandwidth has to be "oversold", because I'm paying for a flat b/w commitment. I won't be using 100% at all times, you are right. But I certainly can use 100% at all times. The fiber into the building leading to the provider's backbone is fully capable of allowing all customers 100% speed at all times. Maybe their backbone is oversold, however, this is hard to say. But I could have bought bandwidth elsewhere on a 95th percentile model. If you're paying based on 95th percentile usage, then all overselling does is make it so the provider can't sell as much to you. If the bandwidth isn't there when you need it, you can't buy it, simple as that. I understand you've been doing this for a long time. After you do something for a long time, it's often hard to look at other possibilities. The costs for running a small datacenter are much different than the costs of running a large datacenter. I don't run my own large datacenter, but I do save money because my equipment is located in a large datacenter. It's all about economies of scale. The cost of digging up the street to lay fiber to your location dwarfs all other costs in providing you with bandwidth. If I have to dig up the street to provide 100mbps, I'm going to charge a lot more per megabit than if I have to dig up the street to provider 100,000 mbps. If you haven't shopped around the market recently, now is a good time to do it.
Why are you arguing with me here and via PM's? Do you own a DC? I do. Do you buy transit directly from carriers? Do you have cross connect agreements with various carriers? You are talking about buying bw from carriers at a carrier neutral facility vs. being a carrier neutral facility and or provider. Two entirely different things. I'm buying and selling raw wholesale bw and space. You are buying bw that's been sold many times over. Again, two totally and entirely different things. You just said you "don't run you own datacenter". I do. I do so because that's the business I am in. The benefits of colo'ing my gear and my customers gear elsewhere for exceeds the costs of doing it myself given the volume we have. If all I had to do was sell VPS's on one or two small servers, then I could see your point. I sell space, bw, dedicated servers, colo, and hosting. It takes up a considerable amount of space and bw and power. It also requires that we be on site to maintain it all. It's fairly easy to maintain one or two small servers with a few VPS clients remotely like you are doing. Maintaining thousands of servers? That's an entirely different animal.
No need to get nasty. I was just trying to be helpful. I was talking to you in private, because I wanted to be helpful as well without bringing everything out in public. I didn't know you felt this strongly about this. All I know, is if I could sell bandwidth for the prices you're paying, I would be rich. Would you rather be rich, or your bandwidth providers?
I'm the one being nasty? I'm not the one sending insulting PM's about my company, web site and plans. If you wanted to talk in private, you could have left it in private. Instead we're bickering here back and forth in public and private. Again, you have one server at one location (hurricane) and are selling VPS's. Obviously you're not going to buy your own transit or digging to host your machine in house. I, like Hurricane own a facility that hosts little VPS servers like yours. The point I am trying to make is that you are not comparing apples to apples. Hurricane, like us, as well as their providers are paying a lot more for the BW than they are charging you. To use your own "Economies of Scale" example. They are overselling it. That's how we all make a living in this industry. We buy expensive premiums raw transit and then over sell it. Its the same thing the cell carriers do. Do you really believe your time slot that you use when you are on your phone is dedicated to you for $50/mo? The carrier is paying $500/mo for that time slot. They just happen to sell it to 30 people in order to make money off it. Same thing in the ISP world. We all oversell transit that we pay considerably more for. Some places might pay a bit less than I do, but my space and real estate is cheaper. In the end, its pretty much apples to apples as far as overall costs. Do you really think your provider is paying a considerably smaller amount per MB than they are charging you? If you do, I got some swamp land you might be interested in.
Now you're making your own assumptions without information. Does it say I'm located with Hurricaine? I'm not. Let just let it be.
@funkywizard, not to hijack this thread, but can you please tell me where you getting $1/per meg? Buying straight from Cogent, I am getting a killer deal at $6/per meg. Thanks, Anthony
Cogent is offering $1250 / mo on a gig flat if you do a 1 year contract before the end of the month. HE.net, if you go through a reseller like giglinx, can get to around the same price. $1000 / mo with a $2k setup fee. As to Mia, yes I use HE bandwidth, but I am not colocated at HE's facility. I'm colocated at phoenixnap, which doesn't earn anything by virtue of me using HE.net. They sell their own blend at around $5 / megabit, but I'm not buying that, just buying colo from them. HE.net also doesn't earn anything other than what I pay them, in order to be a customer. I don't buy colo from them. In fact, they earn less than I pay, because I'm paying a reseller, who is taking a cut. And no, the reseller isn't overselling. It's a direct port with HE without the reseller's equipment in between. I was willing to just let it be, so if I've offended you, I'm more than happy not to reply to anything you say if you don't reply to anything I say. I will try to avoid offending you. Other people are paying a lot less for bandwidth than you are, it's not a trick. It's not a scam. Yes, HE and Cogent are the exceptions, everyone else charges more. But if you're in an "on-net" building, in a top tier market (la, san jose, seattle, miami, new york, chicago, dallas, ashburn, atlanta, and maybe phoenix, vegas, and a few others which are close to being top tier), bandwidth costs a lot less than you make it sound like you're paying. It's nothing personal. Go ask for a rate cut when your contract is up. Or get dark fiber to a carrier hotel, where, at the carrier hotel, you can get prices more in line with what I'm talking about. I don't mean to be offensive, just helpful. If you're offended, I will say no more on this, as long as you agree to the same.