Bandwidth price cuts, bigger traffic allowances
Over the last few months there have been significant bandwidth price cuts in the local hosting market. In July last year Hetzner cut the price of bandwidth usage to its hosting clients by over 40%, and followed that up by another 20% price cut only two months later.
Afrihost followed suit shortly thereafter by reducing the price of its additional traffic usage from R80 per GB to R45 per GB, and increasing the monthly traffic quota on its hosting packages.
Web Africa then shook up the local hosting market by announcing in December that it is increasing its hosting disk space by up to 400%, and upping monthly traffic allowances by up to a massive 700%. Traffic now costs R20 per GB on the lower to mid range packages and drop to as low as R11 per GB on the higher end packages.
Hetzner has now hit back, announcing a significant increase to its traffic quotas and decreased traffic over-usage charges by up to 50%.
“Hetzner is one of MTN Business’ largest hosting customers, purchasing substantial traffic volumes. This gives us the opportunity to negotiate competitive traffic rates. As we receive these traffic discounts from MTN Business, we pass them directly onto our customers,” comments Deon de Villiers, Hetzner’s Managing Director. “It remains our ongoing commitment to reduce traffic charges for our customers as much as we are able to.”
Hetzner has increased its traffic quotas for all Web Hosting Business packages up to 200%, while at the same time decreasing the traffic over-usage costs for customers that exceed their traffic quota in a given month:
Web Hosting Business Packages | Traffic Quotas | Monthly Fee |
Basic | 4 GB (was 1.5 GB) | R99 |
Standard | 7 GB (was 2.5 GB) | R149 |
Advanced | 10 GB (was 3.5 GB) | R279 |
Master | 15 GB (was 5 GB) | R439 |
Over-usage charge | R0.05 per MB (was R0.08) |
Hetzner’s Web Hosting packages allow customers to create Multiple Domains which then share the resources (traffic and disk space quotas) of its parent package. With Hetzner’s increased traffic quotas, customers are now able to host more domains within their hosting business package without incurring an over-usage fee.
“Customers that are serious about providing hosting services as part of their own business offering should migrate to Hetzner’s recently launched Volume Plan which was introduced late 2009 to accommodate the Reseller market. With Hetzner’s Volume Plan, Resellers are able to host numerous websites, all within the same plan, for a set monthly fee of R595,” said De Villiers.
With its latest traffic changes, the Volume Plan now has a traffic quota of 20 GB. That’s a 100% increase since the Plan was launched last year. The traffic over-usage charge has been decreased by 50%, bringing it to R0.04 per MB
Reseller Offering | Traffic Quotas | Monthly Fee |
Volume Plan | 20 GB (was 10 GB) | R595 |
Over-usage charge | R0.04 per MB (previously R0.08 per MB) |
Hetzner has also made significant traffic adjustments to its dedicated server offering, increasing traffic quotas as well as decreasing traffic over-usage costs by over 60%:
Dedicated Servers | Traffic Quotas | Monthly Fee |
TruServ™ | 7.5 GB (was 5 GB) | R895 |
TruServ Plus™ | 15 GB (was 10 GB) | R1 395 |
TruServ Commerce™ | 30 GB (was 20 GB) | R3 495 |
Managed Dedicated Servers | 7.5 GB (was 5 GB) | From R1 195 |
Over-usage charge | R0.025 per MB (previously R0.04 per MB) |
“We recognise that our customers expect good value and reliability from us. It’s our ambition to provide a hosting service that offers even greater levels of infrastructure stability, performance value and good service delivery. We’re certain that with these traffic enhancements, Hetzner is meeting its customers’ needs while providing them with a hosting service they can trust,” concludes de Villiers.
Hosting bandwidth price cuts – comments and views