Public Network Bandwidth
What "public network billing" means on ZEC
Every ZEC resource that talks to the public internet — an Elastic IP, a NAT gateway egress, an instance's bound EIP — pushes bytes through an uplink that Zenlayer prices. The public network billing method is the contract you pick for how those bytes turn into cost. It does not change the path the packets take; it changes the meter that runs against them.
There are two independent choices here. You pick both when the EIP (or the instance's public interface) is created:
Network type — which carrier carries your packets (Zenlayer Premium BGP or Standard BGP). This sets the per-Mbps unit price and the path the packets take. See Network Types.
Billing method — how those Mbps (or GB) turn into a bill. This is what the rest of the page covers.
The three valid billing methods on ZEC are:
Data Transfer
Gigabytes
One instance
Flat Rate
Fixed Mbps
One instance
Aggregated Burstable 95th
95th-percentile Mbps
All opted-in ZEC EIPs (50+ ideal)
The console surfaces these same choices as Data Transfer and Flat Rate when you create an EIP. Aggregated Burstable 95th is exposed on the instance creation flow rather than on the EIP form.
What's the same across every method
Regardless of which meter you pick, three things are always true:
You can set a bandwidth cap. Every billing method accepts an optional upper bound in Mbps — the point beyond which traffic is shaped. For EIPs the default is 10 Gbps on the console (raisable via ticket for larger workloads). See Bandwidth Cap.
The cap has a limit mode. The shaping can be loose (allow short bursts near the cap) or tight (clamp evenly across flows). Also covered in Bandwidth Cap.
Packets follow the same data plane. The billing method is a meter in front of the uplink; it is not a routing decision. Switching from Data Transfer to Flat Rate does not move your traffic to a different network.
What's different
The three methods differ along two axes:
Meter shape. Data Transfer counts bytes; the others count throughput in Mbps. Among the Mbps-based ones, Flat Rate is a fixed commitment with no burst metering, while Aggregated Burstable 95th commits a base size and then bills the monthly 95th-percentile of what rode above it.
Scope. Data Transfer and Flat Rate are per-instance — each EIP carries its own meter, with no sharing. Aggregated Burstable 95th pools all opted-in ZEC EIPs into one meter.
The practical consequence: narrow-scope meters are simpler but waste capacity when workloads don't peak at the same time. The aggregated meter amortizes that capacity across the opted-in EIPs.
When to pick which
The short version:
One instance, small and predictable traffic? Data Transfer. Cheap per GB, you pay only for what you use, and a monthly package keeps the price flat up to a point.
One instance, steady and heavy traffic? Flat Rate. You pay for the pipe you need and don't worry about the meter.
50+ EIPs with peaks that don't line up? Aggregated Burstable 95th. The aggregated 95th is almost always much lower than the sum of individual 95ths once the fleet is large enough.
The detailed trade-offs — overage pricing and 95th exemption rules — are in the per-method pages and in Comparison.
In this guide
Premium BGP vs. Standard BGP — pick the line before the meter
Package sizes, overage behavior, and when per-GB billing beats per-Mbps billing
Pick a bandwidth cap in Mbps — that's what you pay for
Pooling all opted-in EIPs into one 95th meter, ideal at 50+ EIPs
The optional upper bound, the 10 Gbps default, and limit modes
All three methods side-by-side
Splitting one EIP's bandwidth between domestic and international lines
Terminology
EIP — Elastic IP. A public IPv4 (or IPv6) address you allocate and bind to a resource. Every EIP carries one billing method.
Commitment — the Mbps you promise to pay for every month, regardless of whether you use it. Applies only to 95th-percentile methods.
Burstable 95th — at the end of the month, bandwidth samples are sorted and the top 5% are discarded. You pay for the highest sample that remains (above the commitment). Short spikes don't inflate the bill.
Bandwidth cap — the upper bound on throughput. Shaping kicks in once you reach it.
Last updated