Download budgets - streaming and downloading newspapers and other things

[Dave2002]

Sometimes it is useful to know how much downloading/streaming is going on, as this can affect broadband charges.
Generally music streaming uses around 2.4 Mbyte/minute [according to my calculation] at 320 kbps and this should also apply to music downloads at that bit rate. Curiously other estimates are lower at around or under 1 Mbyte/minute - see http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/08/...u-really-need/ - but I don't think my calculations are incorrect. I'm guessing that the figures given elsewhere relate to much lower (e.g 160 kbps) data rates.

At this rate listening to streaming online music for a bit over 7 hours/day would equate to 1 Gbyte/day.

Another activity which uses up data budgets is reading online newspapers. Currently I have no estimate of how much data is required to encode a newspaper such as the Times each day. Could 100 Mbytes/day be a reasonable estimate?

Fairly obviously downloading videos or streaming films or TV programmes would eat up a lot more of a monthly data budget.

Major software updates, and computer app or program downloading could also put significant loads on data allowances.

Some providers, such as BT, don't only consider downloads, but the total traffic, both up and down when calculating the charges.
Not unreasonable really, though in the past most of the traffic was down rather than up, but times are a changing.

[Don Petter]

I've just checked my usage over the last hour on my Networx log.

I've been browsing all the time, while listening to streaming from Rai5 (at a rate of 145 Kb/s), and the total usage is showing as 80MB, ie about 1.3 MB/minute. Scaling this up to your figure of 320Kb/s would give about 2.9MB/minute (including browsing), which does seem in line with your suggestion.

What does, of course eat up the bytes is watching a video stream. A half hour TV programme uses about a twentieth of my monthly allowance, as I recall.

[gurnemanz]

I've just checked my usage over the last hour on my Networx log.

I've been browsing all the time, while listening to streaming from Rai5 (at a rate of 145 Kb/s), and the total usage is showing as 80MB, ie about 1.3 MB/minute. Scaling this up to your figure of 320Kb/s would give about 2.9MB/minute (including browsing), which does seem in line with your suggestion.

What does, of course eat up the bytes is watching a video stream. A half hour TV programme uses about a twentieth of my monthly allowance, as I recall.

Interesting info. I'm on 40 GB a month and have never tried to monitor usage apart from checking the total. Until recently, when I started watching more programmes via iPlayer, I barely used a half of this. Last month, for the first time I came close to my limit and am making an effort to record on hard drive rather than stream. I also like Rai5 and luckily can listen free via satellite.

[Dave2002]

Interesting info. I'm on 40 GB a month and have never tried to monitor usage apart from checking the total. Until recently, when I started watching more programmes via iPlayer, I barely used a half of this. Last month, for the first time I came close to my limit and am making an effort to record on hard drive rather than stream. I also like Rai5 and luckily can listen free via satellite.

Are you with BT?

I'm currently trying to deal with them/get information - and maybe even negotiate a new deal. The latest claim is that they can upgrade me effectively at no extra charge, but I want to make really sure.

Their web site is not as helpful as it could be, and their "My BT" site could do with improvement too. It would be really helpful for it to contain a copy of our original contract and agreement for comparision with any new deals. All the prices quoted should be very explicit about whether VAT is included or not. In the past I was somewhat saddened to find we were stung for another 18-20% because organisations quoted without VAT, and slipped it in later. Transparency!

Otherwise, so far, I think we've been quite pleased with the BT service. The kit seems good, and we've managed to reconfigure it with help to avoid some problems - though some of the more useful help came from Humax - it IS possible to program the remotes of the YouView box and any other Humax kit to link with different kit, and not interfere with each other.

The BT site does have a usage monitor which you can use to check at any time, and it seems that the usage monitor works on calendar months - which may be out of sync with the billing cycle. Quite how that gets resolved I'm not sure.

[gurnemanz]

Are you with BT?

I'm currently trying to deal with them/get information - and maybe even negotiate a new deal. The latest claim is that they can upgrade me effectively at no extra charge, but I want to make really sure.

Their web site is not as helpful as it could be, and their "My BT" site could do with improvement too. It would be really helpful for it to contain a copy of our original contract and agreement for comparision with any new deals. All the prices quoted should be very explicit about whether VAT is included or not. In the past I was somewhat saddened to find we were stung for another 18-20% because organisations quoted without VAT, and slipped it in later. Transparency!

Otherwise, so far, I think we've been quite pleased with the BT service. The kit seems good, and we've managed to reconfigure it with help to avoid some problems - though some of the more useful help came from Humax - it IS possible to program the remotes of the YouView box and any other Humax kit to link with different kit, and not interfere with each other.

The BT site does have a usage monitor which you can use to check at any time, and it seems that the usage monitor works on calendar months - which may be out of sync with the billing cycle. Quite how that gets resolved I'm not sure.

I am with BT and I have been reasonably satisfied. A while ago they closed the old cheap tariff I had been on for years and when I suggested that I might be moving on, they said they would give me a new hub and six months free. I couldn't really be bothered to move and just took that offer. I have what they call Broadband Option 2 and its 40GB is enough for my purposes.

My billing period does seem to coincide with the usage monitor.

[Don Petter]

Are you with BT?

I'm currently trying to deal with them/get information - and maybe even negotiate a new deal. The latest claim is that they can upgrade me effectively at no extra charge, but I want to make really sure.

Their web site is not as helpful as it could be, and their "My BT" site could do with improvement too. It would be really helpful for it to contain a copy of our original contract and agreement for comparision with any new deals. All the prices quoted should be very explicit about whether VAT is included or not. In the past I was somewhat saddened to find we were stung for another 18-20% because organisations quoted without VAT, and slipped it in later. Transparency!

Otherwise, so far, I think we've been quite pleased with the BT service. The kit seems good, and we've managed to reconfigure it with help to avoid some problems - though some of the more useful help came from Humax - it IS possible to program the remotes of the YouView box and any other Humax kit to link with different kit, and not interfere with each other.

The BT site does have a usage monitor which you can use to check at any time, and it seems that the usage monitor works on calendar months - which may be out of sync with the billing cycle. Quite how that gets resolved I'm not sure.

Yes. We're with BT - Option 1, which is the cheapest, with a 10GB monthly limit. They do seem to work by calendar month, so their usage monitor and the billing should be in sync.

I use the free software Networx to monitor usage both on the main PC and our laptop. (So I have to add the two totals to see where we are in relation to our limit.) It allows a very useful little moving graph in the taskbar showing how intensive the current/latest usage is, with a comprehesive set of tables giving figures (up, down amd total) by month, week, day, and even hour by hour. You can set a limit alarm at some percentage of monthly total if you wish. Also other goodies like real time speed monitor, etc.

The BT system of sending you emails at 80% usage, etc is, in my experience, very much after the Lord Mayor's show. I've had one saying I've used 80% of my October allowance come to me on 2nd November, and they always seems to be at least a couple of days out of date.

I've only actually overrun the month once, when I was downloading a new set of Garmin Europe maps for the SatNav near the end of a month, didn't realise how big it would be until it started, but didn't want to bomb it out. Since it was a first time offence, I only got the gypsy's warning.

Their pricing does seem to be confusion by intent. We're getting some sort of discount for agreeing not to leave them within a year, but the cost is still more than the offers we get sent by them in the post, which are only for new customers!