40GB download limit

clarebear

I am thinking of signing up to Sky broadband; previously been with providers who have unlimited, but because of moving, there is less available. Sky are offering a download limit of 40GB per month - is that a reasonable amount?

DatabaseError

it depends on whether you are likely to exceed 40Gb, for many people its more than enough, for me it isn't. If in doubt, much larger allowances are available for an extra £3/month elsewhere.
Roughly, if you just surf the net, download the odd music track etc. 40Gb is lots, if you use VPN or P2P then it may not be enough

tom9980

Depends on the people using the internet and how much and what they do really most people will use less than 10GB a month, you can use this to estimate usage.

http://www.nwtel.ca/usage/usageCalculator.jsp

superscaper

I download the odd computer game and software application as well as doing various other things and I've yet to go over our 40GB limit.

isofa

I'm a heavy web and e-mail user, and download the odd track on iTunes but I don't stream video/tv etc. I rarely exceed 2Gb a month on one machine.

40Gb is a monster allowance, so I think you'll be ok! Downloading lots of video, streaming TV shows etc, then you'll need that sort of allowance. If not, you'll never come close to using it all.

But bandwidth is only part of the equation, what if the speed isn't so good, or it's throttled back? Lots of questions worth asking. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for!

totalsolutions

i did 50gig awhile back normally over 25G got the email to prove it. I complained and was upgraded, back to uncapped and dropped the cost.

DatabaseError

Usage History:
...............................................................Download(GB) Upload(GB)
Billing period from 20 Apr 2008 - 19 May 2008: 20.61 GB 13.14 GB
Billing period from 20 Mar 2008 - 19 Apr 2008: 37.82 GB 46.54 GB
Billing period from 20 Feb 2008 - 19 Mar 2008: 48.98 GB 35.84 GB
Billing period from 20 Jan 2008 - 19 Feb 2008: 32.09 GB 32.68 GB
Billing period from 20 Dec 2007 - 19 Jan 2008: 38.82 GB 47.21 GB
Billing period from 20 Nov 2007 - 19 Dec 2007: 32.56 GB 12.11 GB

isofa

totalsolutions wrote: »

i did 50gig awhile back normally over 25G got the email to prove it. I complained and was upgraded, back to uncapped and dropped the cost.

It's all relative though.

Bit like comparing someone's weekly mileage: if they drive a 100 mile round trip to work each day, then their weekly mileage will higher than someone who works 10 miles from their house.

Larumbelle

I have been told by a sky techie that nothing happens if you go over your download limit... the sky user forums seem to think this too. Not saying that is definitely the case or will always be the case, but it could help.

They don't use traffic shaping and I am told that they don't use throttling. My speed, however, is only just over 1mb and nothing I do seems to change that.

I have on the base package and have a 2gb limit with them and I don't think I have ever even been close to staying within that. I have used more than that in the last 24 hours

arealhighlander

Month Download Usage
Apr 08 50.962 GB
Mar 08 66.472 GB
Feb 08 99.075 GB
Jan 08 52.495 GB
Dec 07 85.495 GB
Nov 07 93.448 GB
Oct 07 70.941 GB
Sep 07 43.542 GB
Aug 07 99.94 GB
Jul 07 71.713 GB
Jun 07 18.103 GB
May 07 81.772 GB
Apr 07 66.658 GB
Mar 07 75.054 GB
Feb 07 136.87 GB
Jan 07 81.047 GB

Guess Sky would be no good to me then??

BillScarab

Well the Sky package that has a 40Gb limit is £5 per month, for £10 month you can hva eht up to 16Mb package with unlimited downloads so if you're concerned about reaching the limits that may be worth looking at. But 40Gb should be enough for most people's everyday use.