Download limits

Nilrem

To be fair, to reach the download limit (prior to the shaping kicking in) with Virgin on 20mb does require you to be moving a fair bit of traffic for normal use (I've yet to hit it, despite both my brother and I being heavy users*).
My brother in law who is an extremely heavy user also doesn't hit it.

It averages about 100KB/s over the time it's applied for you to hit it, which is plenty for normal use, and even the capped limit isn't too harsh for normal use (it's ten times the download I used to have when I first got cable**, and twice the upload).

The trick with ISP's who have traffic shaping, but not limits as such, is to try and do your truly heavy downloads of Linux ISO's outside of the hours they shape it.

Back on topic.

Re the op, any data transfered when you're online is generally counted for bandwidth usage.
Some things like online gaming use very little (lots of very small bits of data), others like you tube can take quite a bit if you're using it extensively, and some like downloading game demos can use huge amounts.

You can get things that will let you monitor your usage on your home PC(s), one at a time like DU Meter (although that also counts traffic between your home PC's), or some routers will log the total going in/out of your internet connection via software running on one of your machines.

Most ISP's who actually have a cap at which they start charging you for using more data/bandwidth should have a page somewhere that you can monitor your usage on their site.



*We both play a lot of online games, are constantly online in the evening, and visiting various sites such as you tube etc.

**And that used to cost me more than I pay now for the current package - it's also considerably more than I would get on ADSL (my neighbour has ADSL and gets about 2mbit, despite being near the middle of town, and about 300 meters from the exchange)..

sco0ter

People should try and avoid capped services.. Look at Vista SP1. If you wanted to download the full package it can come in at over 450MB, Game demos can now easily be around 500MB to over 1Gb easily. And other trial versions of software like visual studio 2008 can come in at 3.2GB. I know that VS 2008 is a bit of an extreme example and not really a program for the masses but its just to show that programs, demos and trials are all increasing in size as well as most having some sort of update feature that can eat away easily at a capped limit. Office 2007 was another with a service pack running around 125MB as well.

superscaper

sco0ter wrote: »

People should try and avoid capped services.. Look at Vista SP1. If you wanted to download the full package it can come in at over 450MB, Game demos can now easily be around 500MB to over 1Gb easily. And other trial versions of software like visual studio 2008 can come in at 3.2GB. I know that VS 2008 is a bit of an extreme example and not really a program for the masses but its just to show that programs, demos and trials are all increasing in size as well as most having some sort of update feature that can eat away easily at a capped limit. Office 2007 was another with a service pack running around 125MB as well.

Of course it depends on the cap and your downloading habits. I download a few games and apps etc myself (including Visual Studio 2008 pro ) but don't go over my cap (40 GB).

Millionaire

BT are too expensive nowadays.

I moved from them to Sky just over a year ago and not only did I save £18 a month my speed tripled and my usage allowance was 5 times more (40GB)

I just last week got another family member transferred over to Sky and they are getiing the full 8mb download speed and they also save £18 a month. Sky even told them that the line can support 16mb aswell (jammy sods) but they wanted the £5 a month deal.

Yet with BT on the same line they only were getting 1.5mb on a upto 8mb package.

DatabaseError

scooter, please tell me of an uncapped service that you'd recommend to me, my exchange is sowerby bridge and I generally move around 80Gb of data/month, maybe 40 of which day/evening


millionaire, if they were getting 1.5mbs on ipstream with BT, now full 8meg on llu, that suggests either they had a line fault, now rectified, or somebody is making assumptions, i'd guess at the latter

sco0ter

I am on SKY broadband MAX LLU and it has been excellent with me able to max out my connection (8Mb) at peak times no problem. Never had a problem with them.

sco0ter

superscaper wrote: »

Of course it depends on the cap and your downloading habits. I download a few games and apps etc myself (including Visual Studio 2008 pro ) but don't go over my cap (40 GB).

I ws more talking about the unrealistic caps like 1GB to 5GB that can be used up quickly. 40GB isnt really an unrealistic cap and is really good. Unfortuantely I tend to be around the 65GB-70GB usage myself on the odd month but mostly I am under 40GB but ISP's dont take an average and will jump at the chance to charge you for that extra 20GB-30GB

mdbarber

other than bt looks like talktalk is the only option for your exchange, they still have limits on some of their packages but i think the "free" package is about 40Gb

sorry that was for tonyhague

eeeeen

Hi
I am locked into Bt option1 5gb a mth
Thanks

DatabaseError

mdbarber wrote: »

other than bt looks like talktalk is the only option for your exchange, they still have limits on some of their packages but i think the "free" package is about 40Gb

PMSL (at both suggestions)


scooter, check my exchange (link posted), if decent LLU was available I'd possibly go, though long contracts do worry me.

:rotfl: