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Mac Forum / Country Specific / UK Mac Group / August 2007Is 5GB/month broadband limit reasonably generous?
Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of 3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly an)y audio or video ____, just usual surfing/email. My ISP is Waitrose.com who have 5GB/month downloading limit. This sounds like a reasonable amount to me but the strange thing is that I come close to the 5GB limit every month. My kids would like to download reasonable amounts of audio, maybe some video (but not whole movies!) and are definitely not doing so at the moment. Waitrose usefully have a page where you can monitor your broadband usage by the day or month and it comes to between 4.5 and 4.9 GB every month or about 0.1-0.3GB/day. I have a BT Voyager 210 router and Mac OS10.3.9. I could pay more for over 5GB but surely this shouldn't be necessary as I hardly download anything, so what is going on? So far as I can gather other people download reasonable amounts of stuff without going over their limit. Or maybe I have got things wrong and 5GB is adequate only for basic needs... Have asked Waitrose tech support but they are stumped. Thanks, Michael > Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of > 3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly > an)y audio or video ____, just usual surfing/email. > > Thanks, Michael I logged into zen support to see what my usage has been this year so far. Two of us here, both geekish with occasional visits from family for long weekends with their wifi laptops (my nephew loves limewire-type things and all of them use instant messengers and Skype®), so: Jan 3.8 GB Feb 5.5 GB - new Linux distro this month Mar 3.2 GB Apr 4.8 GB May 2.9 GB Jun 7.4 GB - new Linux distro this month Jul 3.8 GB Aug so far 6.0 GB - new Mac mini so lots of downloads :-) Hope this is the sort of info you will find useful.  SignatureMike Remove the obvious five characters to mail me > Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of > 3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly > an)y audio or video ____, just usual surfing/email. We've been on Pipex's 2GB cap for a year, and this month is the first time we've come close to the limit, because I've been working on a friend's website with loads of MP3 and video downloads. > My ISP is Waitrose.com who have 5GB/month downloading limit. This > sounds like a reasonable amount to me That should be more than enough for your average surfing/emailing. > Waitrose usefully have a page where you can monitor your broadband > usage by the day or month and it comes to between 4.5 and 4.9 GB every > month or about 0.1-0.3GB/day. That's 100-300MB every day - that's a lot of bytes. Unless you're watching hundreds of YouTube videos, or have streaming radio on 24 hours a day, there's no way you should be hitting a 5GB limit. SignaturePd > Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of > 3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > sounds like a reasonable amount to me but the strange thing is that I > come close to the 5GB limit every month. One minor point. Network speeds and capacities are often measured in Gigabits, not Gigabytes. You write "GB" which is the abbreviation for Gigabytes. Unless I'm getting my sums wrong and making a fool of myself, 5 Gigabits would equate to 640 Megabytes. Size of files that you download is typically measured in megabytes as you know. So for a family of 4 each using the computer that's 21 megabytes a day to share between you. If you got Tiger and then downloaded the "combo" updater for 10.4.10 to bring it up to date that's nearly 300 megabytes gone for the Intel version right there, half your monthly allocation. > My kids would like to > download reasonable amounts of audio, maybe some video (but not whole > movies!) and are definitely not doing so at the moment. Are they watching them on Youtube, MySpace or whatever though? They might not see this as "downloading" because of course they're not instigating a download but the file still has to be sent to the browser for viewing. > Waitrose usefully have a page where you can monitor your broadband > usage by the day or month and it comes to between 4.5 and 4.9 GB every > month or about 0.1-0.3GB/day. I have a BT Voyager 210 router and Mac > OS10.3.9. I could pay more for over 5GB but surely this shouldn't be > necessary as I hardly download anything, so what is going on? Is this just for "download" or total traffic - what's being uploaded? Viewed as a stream rather than a download (still counts)? Chat programs in use (they use more bandwidth than you might think, each transaction is minor but there are a lot of them as chat programs typically have some kind of server heartbeat or push/pull arrangement going on to see if people on your buddy list are signing on or off. > So far > as I can gather other people download reasonable amounts of stuff > without going over their limit. Or maybe I have got things wrong and > 5GB is adequate only for basic needs... I'd have to say yes to the basic needs thing. It should be enough for someone with basic needs but it isn't generous. However you slice it and even if my earlier sums are horribly wrong, the more fancy web tricks we use, the more traffic gets rammed over the pipeline to make it happen... even on sites that might not look that special. > Have asked Waitrose tech support but they are stumped. > > Thanks, Michael > Network speeds and capacities are often measured in Gigabits, not > Gigabytes. You write "GB" which is the abbreviation for Gigabytes. Unless > I'm getting my sums wrong and making a fool of myself, 5 Gigabits would > equate to 640 Megabytes. Download caps are almost invariably given in gigabytes, not gigabits. Certainly download speeds are usually given in megabits per second though. SignaturePd >> Network speeds and capacities are often measured in Gigabits, not >> Gigabytes. You write "GB" which is the abbreviation for Gigabytes. Unless [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Certainly download speeds are usually given in megabits per second > though. Ah. I live and learn! > Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of > 3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > without going over their limit. Or maybe I have got things wrong and > 5GB is adequate only for basic needs... to me , 5gb is a pittance , but just to be on the safe side , check how much bandwidth is being used when you aren't actually doing anything on your pc as a check for nasty software that's sneaked past you SignatureAlex "I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away" www.drzoidberg.co.uk www.ebayfaq.co.uk On Aug 29, 7:30 pm, "Dr Zoidberg" <alexNOOOOOO!!!!...@drzoidberg.co.uk> wrote: > > Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of > > 3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > -- > Alex How do I check bandwidth when my Mac isn't being used (Macs are pretty much immune to viruses so think it's unlikely that anything nasty has wormed its way in...). Thanks, Michael > Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of > 3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > Have asked Waitrose tech support but they are stumped. Well I'm with Fish which is Waitrose in another guise. I get very close to 5GB each month, and have exceeded it a couple of times. I am the only user and mostly browse, a bit of emailing, a few music downloads and that's about it. I find the usage mounts up very quickly and 5GB is right on the edge for me.Contemplating leaving them for an ISP with a bigger allowance. HTH Ivor > Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of > 3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly > an)y audio or video ____, just usual surfing/email. If that was truly the case, 1 GB would be more than adequate. > My ISP is Waitrose.com who have 5GB/month downloading limit. This > sounds like a reasonable amount to me but the strange thing is that I > come close to the 5GB limit every month. My kids would like to > download reasonable amounts of audio, maybe some video (but not whole > movies!) and are definitely not doing so at the moment. Something doesn't add up. Are you sure those rug rats aren't pulling the wool over your eyes? Either you're telling pork pies and downloading lots of P-O-R-N or your kids are. IMHO 5 GB is quite a decent amount of data for a month. > Waitrose usefully have a page where you can monitor your broadband > usage by the day or month and it comes to between 4.5 and 4.9 GB every [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Have asked Waitrose tech support but they are stumped. Well, that's why they went into technical support. > Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of > 3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > Have asked Waitrose tech support but they are stumped. Text email, text newsgroup reading and light web-browsing e.g. a few pages of BBC news per day is under 1Gbyte per month for me. If you have 5 in the family then 5GB is easily reached. I suspect your children probably download a lot more than you without necessarily realising e.g. YouTube vids, photos in emails etc. Regards, SignatureBruce Horrocks Surrey England (bruce at scorecrow dot com) >Could someone give me an idea of how much broadband usage a family of >3-4 is likely to use per month ___ without downloading any (or hardly >an)y audio or video ____, just usual surfing/email. It can all add up though. There are 3 of us here and we all watch the odd thing on Youtube. I download quite a bit (utils / game maps) and have quite a few mates sending mails with attached funnies etc. Our daughter is often on webcam on her PC and Mac (sometimes simultaneously)!. The Missus has just had a new knee so watched a 1 hour video of a complete knee replacement op on Youtube! ;-( Yesterday 341MB This week 4996MB This month 31665MB Last month 24687MB We are with Virgin and are now subject to their bandwidth management policy. All the best .. T i m > This month 31665MB > Last month 24687MB > > We are with Virgin and are now subject to their bandwidth management I'm not surprised - 31 Gigabytes! I'm glad I'm not on your DSLAM. SignaturePd > > This month 31665MB > > Last month 24687MB > > > > We are with Virgin and are now subject to their bandwidth management > > I'm not surprised - 31 Gigabytes! That's only 1GB a day. If it was concentrated in a 4 hour period, it's still only just over a quarter of the capacity of Virgin's slowest (2Mbps) broadband package, if I've done my sums right, so not excessive you may think. Yet, Virgin claim that only the top 5% of their users [I assume they mean on 2Mbps] use over a meagre 350MB in the peak 8 hour period (4pm-midnight). Anyone going over this limit will have their speed reduced to 1Mbps in the peak. <http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html> 2Mbps gives 1MB in 4 seconds (that's what I get from, say, iTunes Store) so 350MB will be used in just 23 minutes! Which leaves over 7.5 hours in which to download at half the speed, but still gives you the chance to get well over 3GB in the evening peak, each and every day, never mind the other 16 hours a day. So, on the one hand it appears that the peak usage limit is set rather low, but there is still ample capacity to download after having your speed halved. But if I'm paying for 2Mbps, that's the speed I expect but of course I don't want to be affected by other users on the higher speed services downloading even more than me 24-7. Oh, the contradictions... > That's only 1GB a day. And exactly what billion bytes do you need every day? I can understand it if you watch loads of Youtube, or spend your time downloading films or tv programmes, but presumably it's not stuff you save. Four months and you've filled a 120GB HD. SignaturePd > 2Mbps gives 1MB in 4 seconds (that's what I get from, say, iTunes Store) > so 350MB will be used in just 23 minutes! Which leaves over 7.5 hours in > which to download at half the speed, but still gives you the chance to > get well over 3GB in the evening peak, each and every day, never mind > the other 16 hours a day. Correction to the above: the lower speed is imposed only for 4 hours, unless you trigger it again of course. More details on the effects, including the other speed levels, at: <http://abcde.co.uk/virginmedia/stm.html> |
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