Bandwidth, Data Transfer & Committed Data Rate (CDR)

We are able to provide a wide range of connectivity options. Please contact us if you are unable to find the option you require.

Note that not all bandwidths are of equal quality. We price our services based on quality multi-homed bandwidth rather than budget/single-homed bandwidth.

Additionally, it is important to ensure that you commit enough bandwidth to cover your needs since excess bandwidth is charged at a rate of 50% above your committed rate.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of data you can transfer in a given amount of time. Typically, bandwidth is calculated and sold by Mbits (Megabits per Second) or Gbits (Gigabits per Second).

Data Transfer

Data transfer refers to the actual amount of data transferred.

Committed Data Rate (CDR)

The Committed Data Rate (CDR) describes the minimum amount of bandwidth you can expect from your Internet connection. You are basically reserving a certain amount of bandwidth for your connection. If your CDR is 10Mbit, you can expect to always receive a minimum throughput of 10Mbit.

It may be helpful to think of the network connectivity as a motorway where a CDR would be a dedicated lane on the motorway available exclusively to you, up to the committed speed.

95th percentile

There are several ways in which your CDR can be billed, one of which is at the 95th percentile. This is the amount of bandwidth within which you use 95% of the time; similarly, you use 5% of the time above this amount. Generally, this percentile is calculated over a period of time, such as over the course of a month.

In the graph below, we see a 95th percentile reading (red line) of 2.62Mbit, despite the transit usage peaking (green line) at 6.28Mbit. It should be noted that the peak of 6.28Mbit was not sustained long enough to contribute significantly to the bill since, at the 95th percentile, it would have been discarded. As a result, 95th percentile billing is more cost-effective than pricing per GB, in which you are billed for all bandwidth traffic (including peak periods). Additionally, if you expect regular sustained bandwidth levels, the 95th percentile model can prove to be more economical in the long run, as you will not be charged for all of the transit you use.