Committed bandwidth, explained
Between a flat unmetered port and pay-as-you-go there is a middle model: you commit to a level, you can burst above it, and you are billed on what you actually use.
How the 95th percentile works
We sample the port throughput every few minutes across the month, drop the busiest five percent of those samples, and bill on the highest that remains. That throws away short spikes, so a brief nightly backup burst does not set your bill — sustained traffic does.
You pick a commit level at a lower unit price; traffic above it bursts at a higher rate. If your real usage sits mostly flat, a commit is cheaper than paying per gigabyte.
When flat unmetered is the better deal
If your port runs hot and predictable — a busy streaming or download box — a flat unmetered port removes the variable entirely. You pay once and stop thinking about the meter. The crossover depends on how spiky your traffic is.
Seeing your own numbers
You do not have to guess. We can show you the 95th-percentile graph for your port, and traffic monitoring on your side lets you watch it yourself. Ask us to model both options against a month of your real traffic before you commit.
Still stuck? Mail support@novogara.com — an engineer answers, at any hour. Back to the knowledge base