US Cable Support → Time Warner Cable > [Internet] How much is too much (data)?

[Internet] How much is too much (data)?

I've read a lot about different providers experimenting with data caps, and am wondering to myself, "What's the average use of data, and how much is too much".

I'm currently a TWC Signature Home subscriber with 75/5, and don't have a CAP enforced.

I no longer use newsgroups or any Torrents and haven't in probably a decade(Is newsbin still around?)

We use the connection for activities not prohibited by the terms and conditions. I have 4 HD security cameras that send snapshots every 15 minutes to my phone and to my tablet, the family might watch 6-8 hours of HD netflix content a week, and the 2 kids use their tablets to watch Youtube for maybe 1 hour per day. We use email, and would say are heavy web browsers, but nothing extensive.

I use crashplan to keep about 1 TB of fairly static data backed up... I might have 10-20 GB of new/changed content to backup per month (family videos, pictures, and mp3 backup).

My Recent Usage is as follows, per the MY Services tab:
June: 121 GB
July: 218 GB
August: 279 GB
September: 192 GB

In my mind, this use isn't excessive, but when I read about providers instituting caps of 5GB, it makes me ask, what the heck are we doing as a family to use this much data, and should we even worry about it?

I use OpenDNS, and other measurements to ensure we're not doing anything unusual and monitor my Syslog from my router that saves on my NAS to ensure no virus or suspicious activity is occurring. I don't collect usage by mac/ip.

Our lan consists of 1 router, 2 PC's, 4 tablets, a printer, 3 TV's, an AV tuner, 4 HD security cameras, home automation hub, 3 blurays, an extender, a Harmony remote hub, 3 smartphones, an xbox, and our cars connect to the wifi every once and a while.

Does 150-250 GB per month seem high or not? Thanks for the feedback and opinions.

If you calculate it based on what you're paying for, 75/5, you're using 1% of what you potentially could in a given month.

I use between 200-400GB a month, and just like you it is all legitimate legal use.

You're paying for it, don't feel guilty about using it.

»Sandvine: Mean Monthly Usage 44.7 GB

Don't worry at all about GB/month. That's your ISP's problem. In a competitive market, they upgrade their network (10Mbps links --> 100Mbps links --> 1Gbps links --> 10Gbps links) every once in a while to keep up with demand. In uncompetitive markets, they neglect upgrades and play the caps & overages game. The whole point of a fast Internet connection is to move a lot of bits!

"The whole point of a fast Internet connection is to move a lot of bits!"

Really, I didn't buy a Camaro to drive millions of miles, I bought it to drive the same miles faster!

Hob
--
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

car example doesnt really fit internet speeds and use, car you gonna drive about same no matter what car you have unless u gonna use it for leisure only and you dont really have to work.

Internet use is basically if you have high speeds you will explore internet more and more likely to download higher quality video, files or stream in higher quality etc vs slow speeds and so normal use really is not same for all speeds.

For a family of internet users, I don't think 150-250GB is excessive or unusual.

As a family of 4, all of which use the internet for various things, our monthly data usage is very similar. It's recently been creeping into the 200GB monthly territory. A year ago, it was closer to 100GB. Our network has a few PC's, half a dozen laptops, printers, cell phones, iPads, iPods, Smart TV's, PS3's and many other game consoles, as well as a host of visitor devices when other family and friends visit. Year after year, the number of devices grows, and so does data usage.

The Sandvine story link posted by atcotr pretty much mirrors the stats quoted in a recent TWC story about offering unlimited internet. TWC observes an overall bandwidth usage increase of about 40% year over year. I suspect that this applies to most all their customers, however 40% equates to a lot more bandwidth when your talking about a family of 4 who have a large assortment of devices, than a single user household. It's only natural that a larger household with more users and more devices is likely to consume more bandwidth than a smaller household.

I'm on 15/1 standard and consume on average 120gb per Month (more during fall and spring, less during winter and summer) which i think is reasonable when you consider that's like streaming 2-4 hours of compressed 1080p content daily - which should be a reasonable expectation in today's wired ISP market. I'm on a well provisioned network where things don't' slow down during primetime, but I'm try to be a good neighbor and do the bulk of my downloading during off peak hours.

Appreciate the feedback. I don't worry about using it, but when you hear about caps as low as 5gb I can't imagine how people use that little data. We use 6-7gb just on our phones and tablets when away from the house.

I appreciate the feedback knowing it's not unusual usage.