Download limits

brooksie

We are with plusnet , and had 2gb download limit, which was more than enough, only surfing ,email, ebay etc, daughter just had new laptop and we have installed new D-Link router ,and upped usage to 3gb so she can use it for mSN etc, only had it 2 weeks and just had notification that we are near our 3gb limit. It is secure so can't be hacked into(hopefully), and she says she is only at MSN and few emails, and only for 1-2 hours in evening. Is it possible for this sort of use to put our usage up that much. She swears she isn't downloading songs etc. Don't really want to up it again if i can help it, but perhaps I might have to

DatabaseError

is she sharing songs over msn with her friends?

john_s_2

When I changed ISP a year ago, from Orange, with whom I allegedly had a two gig limit, I thought the five gig cap I was signing up to would be ample.

How wrong was I! I don't think Orange had been enforcing their limit. We were getting through more like 15 gigs a month.

Fortunately my new ISP (Waitrose) upgraded me to an unadvertised 20 gig package, which although not market leading, was still cheaper than had they taken advantage of the fact that I'd signed up to them for a year, and charged me £2 per gig I went over.

I think the main culprits were my daughters watching videos on YouTube and the odd bit of filesharing. I should imagine the same goes for your daughter's usage. I think one of them was also watching TV on the channel 4 website as well.

You can monitor how much your daughter is using by installing one of various packages onto her computer. A very easy one I've recently discovered is by installing the Google Desktop, and adding a gadget called NetMeter. Although it measures the usage in Megabits so you need to divide this by 8000 (roughly) to convert this to gigabytes.

Personally (and I'll probably be accused of spoiling my kids here) I think it'll be easier to upgrade your package, than try to limit your daughter's usage, although you should obviously ensure she is only using the connection for things you approve of (and especially that her computer isn't riddled with some sort of malware that's using it to send out spam or something).

Although if PlusNet refuse to upgrade your package then she'll obviously need to rein in her usage. Assuming she's the culprit of course (although my money's on it!)

Good luck!

banger9365

my daughter has a 3g mobile broadband thing 3GB download (no phoneline where she lives) and she uses the msn,face book all that ,every day and she never uses more than a 1GB if she is luck and trys to us it

Forgetful

i am not sure how much we use but we were with Tesco who were very good...never limited our downloads or usage but they are now expensive and slow compared to the new O2.........
So far O2 are very good .............

fwor

Also with Plusnet, don't forget that all usage from midnight to 8am doesn't count towards your usage total.

So if you occasionally do large software downloads or file sharing, it's worth getting a client with a scheduler that will only run during the free period.

esbo

With more and more video content available with things like youtube etc I think it would be easy to consume 3GB.
I am not sure if my maths is correct but 3GB on my connection which is 2 megabits would take about 3 hours to download, at full speed. That works out at about 12 minutes of video a day. 3GB is too low IMO especially if two of you are using it, mine is officially 'unlimited', I would not like to have to use a limited service, it is too restrictive. I expect for an extra £5 a month you could get a 15GB or 30GB limit which is much more realistic for a broadband connection. That's about an extra 17p a day and what can you buy for 17p these days?

asininity

I agree with esbo add to that catchup tv from things like the iplayer etc, your talking watch 2 maybe 3 programs and your over your limit.

fermi

I'm on the Sky Max package for £10 per month.

No official limit, but unofficially its said the start to get sniffy if you use over 250 GB per month. No chance of that, even if I tried quite hard.

M4RKM

i'd suggest changing to o2 broadband. £12.50 a month gives you up to 8mb speeds, and no download limits. Really, that can't be much more than you're paying with plusnet, as they charge £9.99 a month for 1GB... a measley GB, which i can probably get through in a single click download!!!!

My sister is on O2 and has had no problems.. also, remember, that if you have a PAYG mobile / o2 contract, you will get that price even cheaper!!!

surreysaver

Can you not check via your ISP how much and at what times the usage is? When I was with Tiscali, you could log on and view a log of when you were online and how much usage you used. I am now with Sky, and they do not have such a facility. If they do not have such a facility, I would find it hard to understand how they could charge you more or restrict your usage if you are unable to keep tabs on it.