Today, we will be discussing Oversubscription Rates.

 Oversubscription Rates

Like all ISPs, satellite internet delivery is accomplished by “overselling” the available bandwidth. This is done based upon the fact that internet browsing is very choppy, and requires only occasional bursts.

Like all ISPs, satellite internet delivery is accomplished by “overselling” the available bandwidth. This is done based upon the fact that internet browsing is very choppy, and requires only occasional bursts.

Some satellite ISPs will oversubscribe by as much as 100:1. That means for every 1Mbps they broadcast on satellite, they sell 100Mbps of service.

IsoTropic Networks oversubscribes our network at a maximum rate of 20:1, with 16:1 being typical. As new customers are added, so is satellite bandwidth – to maintain this ratio.

Our competition may claim oversubscription rates as low as 15:1, but let’s do the math. They offer a plan with speeds of 1024 x 192kbps, but limit you to 1GByte of usage per month.

1024k of bandwidth is capable of delivering 331GBytes of data in a 30 day period (based upon 24/7 usage). This means that our competitors might oversubscribe the network by selling up to 331 customers – each of which would have the availability of up to 1 GBytes of download per month. Quite a difference from a 15:1 claim. Even more telling, if the oversubscription rate were really 15:1, each customer would have the availability of up to 22GBytes of data per month at no additional cost to the competition. Why, then, do they charge $0.10/MegaByte additional for excess usage?

IsoTropic Networks does not charge additional usage fees for excess downloads. We do reserve the right to require our customers to move up to a larger rate plan based upon excessive bandwidth usage at the purchased rate plan level.