95th Percentile

The 95th percentile is a widely used mathematical calculation to evaluate the regular and sustained utilization of a network pipe. It is commonly used for calculating metered use and roughly means for most of the time this was the throughput on the line.

The 95th percentile is a good number to use for billing as it can allow the customer throughput bursts without any financial penalty. Basically, the 95th percentile says that 95% of the time, the usage is below this amount. Conversely, 5% of the time, usage is above that amount.

Based on this model, the top 36 hours (top 5% of 720 hours) of peak traffic are not taken into account when billed for an entire month. What this means is that you could run at the full rate for up to 65 min a day with no financial penalty.

Currently, we offer two options for 95th Percentile bandwidth:

Performance Routed
A blend of multiple Tier-1 and Tier-2 bandwidth providers. This option provides best performance based routing (BGP), as well as automatic fail-over and redundancy in the event that any of the carriers go down for any duration of time. It is especially well suited for gaming and VoiP.

Cost Routed
A blend of multiple Tier-1 and Tier-2 bandwidth providers. This option provides a cost-effective solution which is ideal for high bandwidth needs such as streaming media, download and content sites, etc. It is routed based on cost vs. performance, but still includes automatic fail-over and redundancy in the event that any of the carriers go down for any duration of time.