I've seen a lot of free hosts like 1asphost.com that promise unlimited bandwidth but then hide in the terms of service clauses like:

"Sites that utilize an abnormal amount of our resources will be removed. This includes, CPU, memory, bandwidth, and excessive use of auto refresh."

Have you heard of anyone who's had their site cancelled under such a clause, or do these hosts generally uphold their unlimited claim? There has to be an upper limit, right?

Should I just stick with a more reputable free host like aloofhosting.com which spells out exactly how much bandwidth they're allowing?

unlimited wont mean unlimited - if your bandwidth is high theyll cut you off

the hosting company has to pay bills as well - the fact is bandwidth costs money and no hosting company would keep a client that was costing more than they were receiving in hosting subscriptions

I've written an article about that. You can read it here.

Some previous threads to check out:

• http://www.webmaster-talk.com/showth...&threadid=1358
• http://www.webmaster-talk.com/showth...free+unlimited

I hope that helps with your question.

Dave

There is no such thing as unlimited when it comes to bandwidth and space. You need to check out the TOS/AUP on hosting companies offering this type of service.

It's a marketing ploy plain and simply based on the assumption that many newbies won't know any better.

Unlimited? So, you can upload gigs upon gigs of gfx to store??

I don't think so

Research, buy what you need and you'll be fine.

Just think about this.

Unlimited implies that there is no limit to a connection or available space at all. Now there are three reasons that this is not possible. Have you ever heard of an unlimited drive? Have you ever heard of an unlimited connection? Didn't think so - they don't exist, period. They day they invent one, I'll be the first in line. Even a 10 mbps connection has its limit and believe me, that connection costs a great deal more than a few bucks a month...even a few hundred.

Now for point number two - and it's a darn good one - costs. It costs the host for the transfer and space, no matter if they use their own providers or rent the bandwidth from a datacenter. The costs of even a Gig-E connection (1000 mbps) run very very high.

Simply put, even if unlimited were possible it'd literally cost more than an arm and a leg. Unlimited is a lie and don't let anyone tell you different. If they do, frankly, they're lieing through their teeth.

Of cause it is not unlimited. While choosing web hosting provider you are firstly to look through real services: the bandwidth may be huge, but not unlimited

Odds are the transfer won't even be anything in the range of 'huge'. It simply costs to much, even with bottom of the line server deals at many of the companies around. You start pushing a decent amount of transfer on servers already overloaded with multiple 'unlimited' accounts and I guarentee you won't be there long.

For sure there is no such a things as a "unlimited bandwidth" or "unlimited space".
All these things could be transfered in money..

Basicly, lets look at it this way. Until bandwith is free, it can't be unlimited.

Hey if anyone see's my unlimited hard drive I droped it beside the holly grail, please let me know as their is a reward for it.

It's right next to the Intel Pentium 5.

Hi,

"Unlimited" is not necessarily the equivalent of "infinite". It can also be used to specify that a defined limit does not exist. In the case of these "unlimited" hosts, this is true, as they do not set a definitive cap on transfer. They merely say that if the volume of data transfer becomes so great that it poses a risk to the other users on the server, they will shut your website down. Now what might be constituted as a "risk" is subject to the whims of the server administrator. They could shut down your website after using up 100 MB, 1 GB, or 1.000001 GB of transfer. They have the right to legitimately call themselves "unlimited", as long as they do not have a system in place to automatically prevent a user from exceeding a given limit.

With that said, virtually unlimited hosts do have a system that keeps data transfer in check, and worse, few would let you exceed 5 GB of transfer a month. You're better off going with a host that states its offer unambiguously.

Conker

Hello there,

It really depends what kind of unlimited you are looking at. If it is unlimited bandwidth/space then it is impossible without overselling. It just isn't possible. Imagine it, a very popular site using around 30-50GB of bandwidth and growing very fast. The server wouldn't be able to handle it, neither will the host because they will be loosing so much money.

Unlimited emails, subdomains etc is another thing because they don't take up alot of space neither bandwidth.

I tried the whole unlimited route once with hostonce. Didn't go so well, lasted 2 days, was only getting about 500 unique a day, but they said it was using up too much CPU and gave me the boot

yeah, most hosts who promise "unlimited" really mean "unlimited till we think your using to much, then we drop you"

even without termination clauses, they still get terminated... i knew someone who got kicked off every decent-priced "unlimited host"... since he used about 4tb a month and his site attracted many hackers.