Configuring Bandwidth Usage Billing

Bandwidth Billing monitors and bills your clients for the bandwidth they use. You can also include a bandwidth usage graph and chart on your client's invoice.

Bandwidth billing is a child service attached to an existing, renewing service, for example, the base parent service is the standard monthly fee for a dedicated server. You would enable the bandwidth billing service module on that service's service plan and then configure the various custom fields for it. When the parent service renews the first time, it adds the bandwidth overage child service and sets it to be the dollar value of whatever the overage was for the month that just ended. 

Going forward, each time the parent service renews, the bandwidth billing service module update the child service accordingly. Your client will receive an invoice each month for the amount due for the parent service for the new month and the overage for the month that just ended.  

In order to begin billing for this service, you need to configure Ubersmith. Once all the necessary pieces have been configured, any current or new service based on the service plan will be ready. The configuration steps are as follows:

1. Associate the bandwidth usage billing service plan to another appropriate service 
2. Configure the Bandwidth Monitoring and Switch Information device modules 
3. Add the Bandwidth Billing service module to your service plan.
4. Configure the service module (below).
5. Create a bandwidth usage billing service 
6. Configure the service plan with the service module fields (below).
7. Associate your device to your service 

Configuring the Service Module

The Bandwidth Billing service module monitors and bills your clients for the bandwidth they use. You can also include a bandwidth usage graph and chart on your client's invoice. 

1. In the Overage Precision field, select 0, 1, or 2 to determine how many decimal places to round the amount of bandwidth used.
2. In the Show Usage Chart in PDF invoice field, select Yes or No.
3. In the Show Usage Graph in PDF invoice field, select Yes or No.
4. In the Error when no devices are associated field, select Yes to receive notification if there is no device to track your client's backups. Select No to continue renewing services even if there is no associated device.
5. In the Initial Overage Discount field, select No Discount, Client default, or Parent service discount.
    

Service Module Fields in Service Plan

1. Access the Service Details page for your bandwidth usage service plan.
2. In the Custom Field Defaults section, click edit.
    
   The Edit Service page appears with the Custom Fields section active. 

3. In the Billing Method field, select the calculation method for billing. 

   Click here to view Billing Method inputs

   • Not Billed does not charge for bandwidth overages. The monthly amount due for the parent service will still be billed.
   • 95^th Percentile involves the service’s associated switch or router measuring (or sampling) bandwidth, typically every five minutes, and saves the data to a log file. At the end of the month, the samples are sorted from highest to lowest with the top five percent, equaling approximately 36 hours of a 30-day billing cycle, thrown away. The next highest measurements become the billable use for the entire month.
   • Total Transfer includes a total number of included mb, gb or tb along with an overage rate for the specified unit of measure for the month.
   • Outbound Transfer includes a specified amount of included mb, gb or tb for outbound traffic, along with an overage rate for the specified unit of measure for the month.
   • Inbound Transfer includes a specified amount of included mb, gb or tb for inbound traffic, along with an overage rate for the specified unit of measure for the month.
   • Outbound 95^th Percentile uses the 95th percentile described above for outbound usage.
   • Inbound 95^th Percentile uses the 95th percentile described above for inbound usage.

4. In the Included Transfer field, enter how much default data is permitted, before overages, for a given billing period.

5. In the Included Transfer Unit field, select the unit of measurement for the Included Transfer field.

6. In the Overage Unit field, select the unit of measurement for the Overage Rate field.

7. In the Overage Rate field, enter the dollar amount to be charged for overages.

8. In the Associated Devices field, enter any associated device ID numbers separated by commas.

9. All other remaining fields should be left blank.

10. Click Save.
     

Configuring Tiered Bandwidth Billing

When using tiered bandwidth billing, you can charge different rates depending on the amount of bandwidth used. Each bandwidth usage tier is defined by a minimum amount and a rate, with the standard bandwidth billing fields comprising tier 1, with a minimum of zero. the tier minimum values are based on the overage, not the usage.

You can set default values for these amounts on the Data tab for either a service plan or a client-specific service, and the amount of tiers available is unlimited.

bw_tierX_minimum

bw_tierX_rate

where X is a number greater than 2.

In order to configure a server with 100GB included transfer, then $0.50/GB up to 1000GB total transfer, then $0.30/gb for any further usage, the configuration is:

bw_billing_method         transfer
bw_included_transfer      100
bw_included_transfer_unit GB
bw_overage_unit           GB
bw_overage_rate           0.50
bw_tier2_minimum          900
bw_tier2_rate             0.30