Hi all

I’m getting a new broadband package, and looking at one with the above limit. I hardly download anything, but sometimes listen to radio via web (when the cricket’s on), surf probably 2-3 hours/day between us, buy very few songs/apps etc.

Is it enough? I have no idea what 10Gb entails from a practical point of view.

Ta

not in this house, regularly over 50gb.

2 boys, 4 laptops smartphones ps3, xbox360 and other wifi sucking objects

It can be a bit limiting if you ever download anything of any size but should be enough. No iPlayer/Youtubing for you though.

I personally would try for something with a bit more allowance.

10Gb would be fine from what you’ve given as your www usage.

Maybe should add, no xbox/ps3 type devices, have ipod touch and laptop but only ever one in use at any time. Tend to just waste too much time bimbling on forums. However, it’s 18month contract so if things change with new media advancing it may be limiting? Is there any way of measuring how much I currently use?

Unless you go mental on torrenting, streaming videos or downlaoding games.. 10GB should be plenty

10gb is nowhere near enough, why bother as unlimited packages don’t cost much more

10gb is nowhere near enough

How come, given the OP’s minimal internet access ?

I have the BT package which gives 10GB per month. We use similar amounts to yourself and have only exceeded the limit once and that was by just 0.1GB.It was December and was probably due to more time at home spent watching more telly streaming than usual. If its BT you are with they do give you the option to upgrade the month after you exceed the limit and then they wave the excess charge. Also they do send an email when you get to 75% of your limit and there is a “meter” on your BT home page, of course if you arent using BT that will all be pointless 🙂

I’m on the plusnet 10gb package and use the net in a similar manner to you apart from the radio thing although I probably spend longer on line during the day.

I’ve only gone over ours twice in 3 years and even then it only cost an extra fiver for another 5gb worth.

Works for me

I get close to that. I called up bt about better deals and we now have unlimited for less than we paid previously

I switched to 10GB a month last summer and we’ve only gone over it once (I blame The Ashes). I work from home, use the web a lot, use YouTube and web radio a bit but rarely use iPlayer and don’t download films/music.

10GB should be plenty for what you describe, no way I’d tie myself into an 18-month contract though…
Only thing that uses up a lot for me is games downloads and general software updates, actually playing games doesn’t need much.

10 GB is fine for just general surfing with no downloads – STW, E-mail Ebay etc I use less than 2 GB a month. Downloading anything is a killer in terms of usage.
I dont know what the radio cost but surely you can just get a digital radio ?
I would advise switching off autoupdates and doing at the end of the month when you know how much you have “spare”.

I hit my limit every month for the last 3 months (10 gig) despite only surfing on all but one (downloading several ISO’s of linux). I’d say no, but the extra cost of unlimited, that generally isn’t unlimited, is prohibitive.

With some quantification –

Listening to internet radio (64kbps- most common BBC – 128 kbps) = 30-60mb per hour. ie if that’s all you did you could listen to the radio for 12 hours a day every day and you would go just over your 10gb

Watching iPlayer – (best non-HD quality = 1500kbps stream) you’re using about 0.7gb an hour – 14 hours a month.

Emails without attachments are almost insignificant, web browsing stacks up more than you’d expect (people put some big images in threads on here) and operating system updates come regularly and can be multi-GB.

Try it and see how you go (check what their policy is if you go over) – you can always switch to a different tariff. Unlimited is cheap enough in cities but if your exchange isn’t unbundled (as i found out for my parents) there’s a lot less competition and costs are higher.

I work from home one or two days a week which means being connected via ssh pretty much 12 hours + a day. Emails etc don’t add much but as mentioned ^^ it’s the streaming radio and tv which gets our bandwidth up above 50GB a month, especially BBC HD. No downloading of movies or music though.

Since getting an ipad we’ve ditched all but one tv in the house and my wife and two daughters watch the iplayer / tvcatchup programs a fair amount. I also listen to the radio on radiobox when cooking, fettling bike etc which can also add a good amount of bandwidth.

We get through between 50GB and 65GB a month.

I also would be wary of tying yourself into an 18 month contract – after a bad experience with BT broadband we’ve stuck with rolling 1 month contracts with Zen and now Namesco.