How much data does your household use?

[MTG#10]

For years I never had to pay any attention to my internet data use, I was grandfathered-in to Mediacoms unlimited bandwidth. But the last couple years they capped everyone. I only noticed because I got billed an additional $20 awhile back for going over my unknown 250gb/month limit.

After that I raised it to their biggest package which is 1 Tb/month thinking I'd never come close to that, and I havent until now. New Year's eve and I only have 8gb left before the new cycle starts tomorrow. I shut down the wifi and my kids are losing it, never realized how important internet access was until they lost it.

[Aspengc8]

Originally Posted by lawrenceRaider

Data limits are the most artificial bogus thing perpetrated on customers ever, for broadband anyway. Data is incredibly cheap and ISP's make a KILLING even with infrastructure spending, if they even bother. I had TWC in Texas and never had slow connection issues. Cox on the other hand here in Wichita is just awful. Even connected directly to the modem, speeds top out around 115, when I'm paying for "up to" 150. Ping is not good as well. Also have intermittent slow downs for no apparent reason. No other option for me though so I'm stuck with it. Also paying more for less.

We hit around 550 gb most months with a 1tb cap. Might be more this month with the kids home over winter break.

Unfortunately most triple play providers oversubscribe all their GPON gear, so you might have 20 subscribers on one multiplexer all fighting for 1Gb total throughput. That's why you might not be able to hit the "up to" limit, especially during peak traffic hours. Different ISP's charge various amounts for connectivity, it all depends on service level agreements, up-time availability and other contractual tid-bits. For example, the ISP I have been an engineer for most of my career, peers with 4 major Tier 1 ISP's. None are even priced in the same ballpark, and one is extremely shady (Cogent). I engineered for Mediacom for a few years, and had a few encounters with angry local customers while dining out. I learned real quick to stop wearing company swag out in public.

[lawrenceRaider]

Originally Posted by Aspengc8

Unfortunately most triple play providers oversubscribe all their GPON gear, so you might have 20 subscribers on one multiplexer all fighting for 1Gb total throughput. That's why you might not be able to hit the "up to" limit, especially during peak traffic hours. Different ISP's charge various amounts for connectivity, it all depends on service level agreements, up-time availability and other contractual tid-bits. For example, the ISP I have been an engineer for most of my career, peers with 4 major Tier 1 ISP's. None are even priced in the same ballpark, and one is extremely shady (Cogent). I engineered for Mediacom for a few years, and had a few encounters with angry local customers while dining out. I learned real quick to stop wearing company swag out in public.

I have a good friend who owns a small ISP and was on his board for a few years. I do understand what you are saying, and with the profit margins Cox and the rest make on selling broadband, they should be upgrading their network, not just pocketing the profits. TWC made major upgrades when I lived in TX and the speed increases were amazing. Of course they faced actual competition there from a couple other data providers who were also upgrading their networks.

[kcxiv]

Comcast recently capped us at 1TB as well. I went over one month, but not this month. I know watch Netflix in 720 instead of 1080. Its mostly streaming tv that causes most of the data, but if i constantly go over, im just going to end up canceling cable tv.

[dj56dt58]

I just told my internet company to **** off (literally, multiple times, they threated to call the cops lol)

Just upped my att data plan to 25 gb using hotspot. might switch to dtv just to get unlimited data

[Lex Luthor]

I'm a Google Fiber customer. As far as I can tell my overall data usage isn't even reported back to me. I just logged into the customer portal and I couldn't find anything telling me how many gigabytes I've transferred.

I have no idea what my usage is, but I know it's a lot. I VPN into work all the time, and every now and then I use a Bit Torrents client to download movies and TV shows. I stream movies and TV shows all the time to my iPad when I'm not at home.

If I had a data cap, I'd have to completely change my use of the Internet.

[BigRedChief]

>1TB a month

[King_Chief_Fan]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

Comcast recently capped us at 1TB as well. I went over one month, but not this month. I know watch Netflix in 720 instead of 1080. Its mostly streaming tv that causes most of the data, but if i constantly go over, im just going to end up canceling cable tv.

ATT&T capped me to 1TB...not sure why, I never come close to using that much.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by MTG#10

How much data does your household use?

About 13 gallons.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by dj56dt58

I just told my internet company to **** off (literally, multiple times, they threated to call the cops lol)

Just upped my att data plan to 25 gb using hotspot. might switch to dtv just to get unlimited data

There is a 2 GB limit on hotspot in the unlimited data plan. At least that's what the pole smokers told me. Let me know if that isn't the case.

[DJ's left nut]

I use about 4 Gigs on my phone.

Wife uses about 1G.

It would be much more than that if I tried to use my phone as my internet hub as well. I've never tracked it but I know we have people on our work plan that will use theirs as an online streaming device at home and they'll use 150 gigs/month.

Needless to say, they were not allowed to stay on the plan.

[Shaid]

Didn't even know data limits existed with home internet. I guarantee I exceed a TB because I work at home and have DirectTV Now so I'm basically sucking bandwidth for my work computer plus a stream in the background all day long. We also have Netflix and Kodi and 5 tvs in the house, the kids always have something on.

[WhitiE]

800-900G

[Mecca]

I'm sitting here on the 18th at 1115 and my cap limit would be 1024..hence why I switched my Comcast to unlimited.

Kinda ridiculous how they punish us for actually using their internet. So I guess the extra 50 a month is cheaper than the overage prices.

[Aspengc8]

Originally Posted by Mecca

I'm sitting here on the 18th at 1115 and my cap limit would be 1024..hence why I switched my Comcast to unlimited.

Kinda ridiculous how they punish us for actually using their internet. So I guess the extra 50 a month is cheaper than the overage prices.

They aren't punishing you, just trying to cover the hardware costs for additional 10/40Gb upstream connections to accommodate the rise in bandwidth needs. Most ISP's are cheapo's.

[mnchiefsguy]

Originally Posted by Aspengc8

They aren't punishing you, just trying to cover the hardware costs for additional 10/40Gb upstream connections to accommodate the rise in bandwidth needs. Most ISP's are cheapo's.

Bullshit.