1. What is Bandwidth?
2. What are kbs, mbs, gbs?
3. How does bandwidth monitoring work?
4. How does an ISP measure my bandwidth?
5. What about 95th percentile rule? How does an ISP count it?
6. Can I see some examples?
7. What is the cost of your services? What payment options do you offer?
8. What are the software needs? Is my networking equipment supported?
9. What software do you use?
10. Ok, I like what I see. What do I have to do to get the software on my server?
11. Good, but what if my network link goes down?
12. I didn't find an answer to my question.

1. What is Bandwidth?
Bandwidth is a synonym for data transfer rate - the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another in a given time period.

2. What are kbs, mbs, gbs?
These are the units used to measure bandwidth and that show how much data are carried over the link in a second.
1000kbs = 1mbs - one Mbit of data in a second
1000mbs = 1gbs - one Gbit of data in a second

3. How does bandwidth monitoring work?
Many routers (and other equipment) are equipped with counters. With a special network protocol you can read such a counter, wait for five minutes, and then read the counter again. In normal circumstances the counter will increase by a certain amount. Network bandwidth is usually measured per second. By dividing the five-minute increase by 300 (the number of seconds in five minutes) you'll know the bandwidth. The monitoring software calculates the rate and displays it as an image. Real time measurement provides a historic view of the rate changing over time.

4. How does an ISP measure my bandwidth?
All ISPs do it in the same way - they pull data from network devices counters every 5 minutes. Farpost uses the same method and the graphs we provide are very similar to what an ISP would use to monitor your traffic.

5. What about 95th percentile rule? How does an ISP count it?
The '95th percentile' rule considers your mean bandwidth utilization ignoring high peaks. See an explanation. We include '95 percentile' in all our Monitoring Packages, so your bandwidth will be measured the same way as any typical ISP does.

6. Can I see some examples?
Sure. Please, check our examples page.

7. What is the cost of your services? What payment options do you offer?
Please check our Monitoring Packages page for pricing. Pay Pal and other payment options are available. We will bill you only after you have received a service and satisfy with it.

8. What are the software needs? Is my networking equipment supported?
Bandwidth monitoring software can be installed on any Windows or UNIX server. It includes support for most networking equipment from such vendors as 3Com, Cisco, D-Link, Extreme, Foundry, Hewlett Packard, Linksys, Netscreen, Netgear, Riverstone, and Sonic Wall as well as many others.

9. What software do you use?
We prefer MRTG with some additional utilities and patches/features, Cacti, Cricket, and some others.

10. Ok, I like what I see. What do I have to do to get the software on my server?
It takes Farpost technical specialists a couple of hours to setup and configure bandwidth monitoring software on your Windows or UNIX server and you could start using it right away.

11. Good, but what if my network link goes down?
Bandwidth monitoring software just traces bandwidth utilization over time but it doesn't alert you if your link is down. If you want to keep an eye on your network links or servers, please check our 24/7 Monitoring and Tech Support services.

12. I didn't find an answer to my question.
Feel free to contact us at any time. We work 24x7x365.