How much Broadband do I need?

[slowmotion]

I was phoned by a helpful man from BT via the Bangalore Drainpipe yesterday. He told me that my Business Broadband contract was now obsolete and expensive, and that there were cheaper options. He asked how much access I required and said that a self-imposed limit of 50 gigabytes would save me £12 per quarter. If I exceeded the limit, I would be charged £6 for each extra gigabyte.
Well, I have absolutely no idea how much capacity I need. Is there some bit of freeware that would enable me to measure how much I use over a typical period?
Thank-you.

 

[Birchy]

Can BT not tell you how much you have been using?

What sort of stuff is your broadband used for? Get yourself on download.com or cnet.com and look for pc data monitor software there will stuff out there but it will only tell you what you use once you start using it. Use it for a few days of normal use and work it out that way.

 

[Crackle]

Try

http://www.netlimiter.com/

 

[BimblingBee]

I suppose the other question would be how much do you pay at the moment... BT can be expensive.

 

[byegad]

I renewed my home broadband in November and the BT man could and did tell me my usage over the previous 12 months. I opted for 40Gb/m which I exceeded only once last year, when we were using BBC iplayer to avoid the tedious sports days we had. Cost of £5/ 5Gb bundle we overran by and I saved £5/month on my unlimited bundle I'd had for the last few years. I watch a few hours/month TV, don't download much and browse a lot.

 

[accountantpete]

I surf 10hrs a day with few downloads and am well within 10GB monthly - It depends what you use you business computer for.

For non-business there is a broadband usage tool.

Log into My BT

At the bottom of the page you will see a rectangular blue Broadband box and under that a "View My Broadband usage" link.

There should be something similar for business one would have thought.

 

[ColinJ]

I average 10-20 GB a month using the Internet about 10 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week. That's just general surfing, CycleChat use, product reviews etc.

YouTube or iPlayer could use (say) 0.5-1.0 GB/hour.

So, 50 GB/month is plenty unless you watch a lot of video, but not enough if you do!

 

[phil_hg_uk]

so far this month I have used 153 GB good job I have unlimited fibre optic BB

 

[Bromptonaut]

We have a 'fair usage' limit of 60GB in any rolling 30 day period. Wife and I mainly just surf, shop email, Skype daughter at Uni etc. The Lad (18) spends far too much time on music sites and you tube etc. Never got to much over 40 though even in uni vac when daughter is also at home.

 

[lulubel]

You lot have it good in the UK.

Until we moved to this apartment (where we finally have a phone line) we were on wireless broadband in Spain, which works in a very similar way to the mobile phone network. We had to pay €80 a month to get the 30Gb a month that I use, and it was still capped at 50Gb. You didn't get charged extra for going over either - you just lost your connection until the start of the next month.

Don't even ask me about the speed and reliability (or lack thereof).

 

[MrJamie]

BT should be able to tell you, they've told me when I've asked but I'm not sure their Bangalore 'office' can do much other than read the help guide to you. The issue with the limits is that if you do use enough data to hit them there's a good chance you'll go over them significantly and rack up an immense bill. The other thing is that its quite possible to spike a month with a big download amount, such as if you get a new computer which wants to download and install lots of updates, download new programs etc. If you have kids who are into gaming or yourself are a big kid, some current games are in the region of 10-20gb downloads and digital downloads are very common. Watching SkyPlayer/iPlayer/Netflix/Youtube etc can raise the figures too.

Some people could happily get by on a 5gb monthly limit, just checking email and reading news sites, but at the other end of the spectrum Id probably have broke the 50gb limit in a day recently.

so far this month I have used 153 GB good job I have unlimited fibre optic BB

Same here, my usage is ridiculous, probably 300gb+ some months, since getting fibre.

 

[Deleted member 23692]

If you have a router it shoe be able to tell you your usage.

Stick "http://192.168.0.1" in your browser and it should take you to the router settings and somewhere in there should be a traffic meter, and a whole host of other settings

 

[MrJamie]

If you have a router it shoe be able to tell you your usage.

Stick "http://192.168.0.1" in your browser and it should take you to the router settings and somewhere in there should be a traffic meter, and a whole host of other settings

If he's using a BT Homehub it will probably use http://192.168.1.254 and look under something like Advanced Settings>Broadband>Connection, but the information is pretty poor from memory and only shows from last connected rather than a usable average unfortunately, it's even more useless on fibre.

 

[CopperCyclist]

I've used about 50Gb in the last week!

I blame finding out about Playstation Plus...

 

[MontyVeda]

I'm on the basic user package with the post office... it's either 5 or 15 gb monthly limit. I did ask them once what my usage was, but the reply was "we don't know", it seems they don't/didn't have that facility. Which probably explains why they've never once, over the last 2 years contacted me and told me I'm constantly over my limit and maybe i should go on another, more expensive package.