Estimated Internet Bandwidth

alpacino2368 · Oct 1, 2014

Hey guys, currently a student living in university housing. I am looking to change internet providers as the one we have at the moment is expensive, slow (6mbps download) and unreliable. I found a package at the equivalent price range from a more reputable company that offers 25mbps download which is significantly better since six people live in the house and may need the internet at the same time. My only worry is that this package is not unlimited bandwidth but 300gb a month. We use the internet for our studys, streaming youtube and netflix, social media, skype, and some utorrent downloads occasionally. My question to you is do you think this is a sufficient amount of bandwidth for the six of us to share as we do not want to pay overage chargers. I tried finding averages online but came up with nothing, and would normally monitor my bandwidth usage but dont have enough time to do so before making the decision to switch. I know you cant say for sure but am just looking for an estimate, thanks.

digitaldoc · Oct 1, 2014

My guess would be that 300 GB should be enough for you guys. Be aware that streaming video generally uses the most bandwidth.

Best idea would be to metric this for a month, and decide how close you are to the 300 GB limit. There are a number of free tools in Windows to do this.

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/monitor-internet-usage/

kanewolf · Oct 1, 2014

From the Netflix site -- Watching Netflix uses about 1 GB of data per hour for each stream of standard definition video, and up to 3 GB per hour for each stream of HD video.

I would think Youtube would be similar, maybe a little lower.

Skype is about 1GB / hr -- although I saw complaints of double that usage....

Torrents are the wild card. Accidentally leave it running and use a bunch of bandwidth ...

alpacino2368 · Oct 1, 2014

kanewolf :

True. One thing I forgot to add is that we also have unlimited bandwidth from 2am to 8am. Although definitely not regular usage hours would probably help with the torrent situation. As far as I know im the only one that uses utorrent and i never leave it running but definitely something to consider.

alpacino2368 · Oct 1, 2014

digitaldoc :

I was going to use a bandwidth monitor and do the math over a week to get a rough idea but they would only track my pc and not the other five peoples plus our phones and tablets.

bill001g · Oct 2, 2014

alpacino2368 :

That is correct there is no pc software that by itself that can tell you how much bandwidth you are using. Only the router ...or the ISP...really knows that. No consumer router have other than very basic abilities to tell you usage, they can give you current usage but not historical data mostly because they have no place to store it.

The only firmware for a router that I know that has the ability to assign qutoa is called gargoyle it is similar to dd-wrt ad tomato but is much smaller support base. It works ok from the little I have played with it, I wish one of the bigger third party vendors had this.

If you only want to monitor then you can use something like a pfsense firewall or you can use the netflow feature to collect the data on dd-wrt or most other third party firmware.

alpacino2368 · Oct 2, 2014

bill001g :

alpacino2368 :

That is correct there is no pc software that by itself that can tell you how much bandwidth you are using. Only the router ...or the ISP...really knows that. No consumer router have other than very basic abilities to tell you usage, they can give you current usage but not historical data mostly because they have no place to store it.

The only firmware for a router that I know that has the ability to assign qutoa is called gargoyle it is similar to dd-wrt ad tomato but is much smaller support base. It works ok from the little I have played with it, I wish one of the bigger third party vendors had this.

If you only want to monitor then you can use something like a pfsense firewall or you can use the netflow feature to collect the data on dd-wrt or most other third party firmware.

Does my current isp have any obligations to tell me my bandwidth usage for last month? And do you think the faster connection speed will have a profound effect on the amount of bandwidth used?

kanewolf · Oct 2, 2014

alpacino2368 :

bill001g :

Does my current isp have any obligations to tell me my bandwidth usage for last month? And do you think the faster connection speed will have a profound effect on the amount of bandwidth used?

You would have to check the terms of service. Usually the govt regulators make them give you a warning when you are getting close to a limit. But that probably varies by locality.
I believe, that in general, higher instantaneous bandwidth leads to more data used. The total amount of time doing "X" is the same, but now you only watch HD Netflix or HD Youtube videos.

digitaldoc · Oct 2, 2014

It is going to be hard for you to guesstimate this. The lure of faster speeds should be a good incentive to not go over the limit.

alpacino2368 · Oct 3, 2014

kanewolf · Oct 3, 2014

alpacino2368 :

What additional info are you looking for with the BUMP? I gave you some usage estimates, and there were some recommendations on how to measure your usage?

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