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Why choose 95th Percentile?
Bandwidth is traditionally provided in one of two ways: either via a fixed speed connection with a data limit, or a fixed speed connection with unlimited data.
As connection speeds have increased, these two models for selling data connections have become unviable. Fixed-speed connections above 50Mbit can pull down more than 15 terabytes in a month. Constraining that kind of connection with a data limit creates two problems. How do we bill for excess data? What kind of stress will the limitations put on a network?
Even with a relatively tame 2,000GB data limit, a 50Mbit connection can consume that amount in just over four days. Modern business models are evolving, and increased data limits are becoming a significant priority. Data-usage calculation methods needs to keep pace.
How does 95th Percentile work?
Information about bandwidth usage is collected throughout the month, creating data points at one-minute intervals. Each data point notes the average speed of the connection at that minute.
At the end of the month, the top 5% of data points (which works out to be around 2160 to 2330 minutes, or 36 to 37 hours depending on the month) are removed, and the next highest datapoint is considered to be the amount at which the bandwidth is charged. This datapoint is the 95th Percentile hence the name.
This means that for any given month, if your bandwidth remains steady under 2Mbit that connection could be saturated up to its port limit, and the charged rate would only be for the 2Mbit.