First of all, it is important to note that this does not affect any custmers using the Premium Network – we only have a Fair Usage Policy on the Value Network. Premium Network customers benefit from pure dedicated bandwidth (this basically means you can use 100% of your allocated slots 100% of the time), this has always been the case and always will 
I have been working on the system that determines which servers are put in to the heavy users bandwidth pool and how long for. The new system will be introduced over the next week. This will not affect the vast majority of customers at all, if you haven’t noticed it before then the chances are you never will.
The way that the system works is that we have a scanner (called the Quality of Service, or “QoS scanner”) that runs every hour during peak time. This checks to see how much bandwidth each stream is using at the time the scanner runs.
The main changes are as follows:
“Peak Time” which is the hours that our QoS scanner operates has been reduced from 8AM-10PM to 2PM-11PM, this means that all servers have unmetered bandwidth for an extra 5 hours a day.
“Maximum pooled time” has been reduced from 48 hours to 5 hours. This means that when servers are added to the heavy users pool (Low Priority bandwith) they will remain there for no longer than 5 hours. This is a big reduction, previously servers were in the pool for up to 48 hours.
“High priority bandwidth” is now available to radio stations that need to sustain very high listener numbers without the expence of changing to the premium network. If purchased, none of the Fair Usage Policy will apply to your server. This is available at £3 per Mbps (for comparison, premium network accounts are the equivalent of just over £5 per Mbps). Your stream port will be set to the speed that you purchase. As you will be paying for a given amount of bandwidth and not slots, you may request as many listener slots as you like for no extra charge at any time and can stream at any bitrate that you choose.
(Please note that this makes no difference to uptime and general bandwidth quality. It simply stops you from being added to the bandwidth pool.)
This system works. The old scanner was slightly buggy and didn’t work all of the time, we also turned it off a lot. This is no longer the case.
You can check to see if you have been added to the heavy users list by logging in and going to ‘Shoutcast Servers’. Alongside each server, it will show the “Bandwidth Priority”:
High: You are subscribed to the high priority bandwidth and have no chance of being entered into the heavy users list.
Medium: Your bandwidth priority is the same as normal, you may also see “1, 2, or 3 Warnings” – this means that your server has been logged as a heavy user but has no restrictions (bandwidth will become low priority after 3 warnings)
Low: Your server has been put into the heavy user bandwidth pool. This means that you share the same bandwidth as other heavy users on the server.
I understand that some people might not like the FUP, however it is clearly stated in the terms and conditions when you sign up (and always has been), we simply haven’t enforced it properly. Our bandwidth policy is flexible and we are happy to work with customers and take on board any comments that can help us to hit the right balance between providing large amounts of cheap bandwidth for heavy users while maintaining a good level of quality for light users and maximising the efficiency of each server.
Our bandwidth policy is located in our terms and conditions here https://secure.bellonline.co.uk/terms/V … st.htm#FUP
Why do we have a Fair Usage Policy?
BELLonline has a very clear FUP to ansure that customers using the value network can continue to receive a good service. The value network is for radio stations that may need to peak to high listener numbers and is not intended for large professional radio stations that have 100s of listeners logged on constantly. Sharing bandwidth between customers means that individual stations can peak to very high numbers while keeping costs very low for everyone. If you require dedicated/unmetered bandwidth on the value network then please get in touch for a customised price.
You may find that there are other shoutcast hosting companies that don’t have a FUP but are still very cheap. You will normally find that if you use too much bandwidth they will either suspend or terminate your server without notice or refund – this is something we hear about on an almost daily basis from customers moving from other hosts.
You are welcome to reply to this topic with any comments or suggestions.