20M Broadband Usage

Superblade7 · 03-02-2012, 07:39

Hi Guys,

In light of the impending price rises I am considering a switch to Sky as for my own personal use, their prices and products could potentially save me up to £15 per month. However this would be on the basis of taking their Broadband Lite product with a 2GB monthly usage limit.

Can anyone advise me if there is a way I can find out my current monthly usage on VM myself or would I have to ring in and ask?

Alternatively, can anyone advise what 2GB worth of usage is roughly equivalent to (I mainly use BB for surfing, shopping, email, etc and rarely download music/video/films)?

Cheers

Superblade7

General Maximus · 03-02-2012, 17:53

the only way you can really find out is to download a 3rd party prog which will monitor your traffic for you. 2gb a month is peanuts dude but if all you did was surf and email it would suffice. I'll warn you though, just watch 2 or 3 videos on youtube can be a few hundred meg, I have looked at it myself because I have got a wireless dongle for my laptop which is capped at 1gb/month.

Tbh dude although I love Sky for the tv you really cant beat VM for internet. It would be worth you ringing up and seeing if they will do a deal for you (like maybe knock £5 a month off or something) because (forgetting stm which wont even affect you) they don't cap your traffic and it is nice to have the peace of mind knowing you can do whatever you want whenever you want. You don't want to checking your usage everyday thinking "damn, I really wanted to watch those 2 videos on youtube and download that album from amazon but it will take me over my allowance".

Incidentally, although it will reset itself everytime you restart your pc, if you click the icon on your taskbar for your network connection and click on view status it will tell you, amongst other things, how much traffic you have received and sent for the duration of your current session. Next time you plan using your pc for a couple of hours (this weekend) it would be worth having a look as it will give you a good idea of how much traffic you are generating in your normal day to day habbits.

Superblade7 · 03-02-2012, 18:05

Cheers General, that's good to know.

Just out of interest, have you ever tried Sky Broadband? If so, is it any good? I know it will be a bit slower as I generally get a perfect 20Mb on VM and estimate on Sky is 9-16Mb.

qasdfdsaq · 03-02-2012, 18:08

If you have a Superhub that has asome very basic monitoring in it.

SnoopZ · 03-02-2012, 18:09

I use Networx for my monitor, which is 100% free and can monitor more than 1 pc at once on your network.

http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

General Maximus · 03-02-2012, 18:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superblade7

Cheers General, that's good to know.

Just out of interest, have you ever tried Sky Broadband? If so, is it any good? I know it will be a bit slower as I generally get a perfect 20Mb on VM and estimate on Sky is 9-16Mb.

I haven't tried Sky. Although I love Sky they are only half the story, the other half is the phone line which BT are responsible for and for you to get 19mbit a lot of things have got to be working at optimum performance/efficiency. There is a reason why Virgin love to flap about their speed and it stands out like a sore thumb compared to everyone else. Have a look at this table http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2011/03/02...ertised-speed/

Andrewcrawford23 · 03-02-2012, 18:58

even surfing and doign emaisl daily you could break 2gb as websites are genreally larger and emaisl are genereally 1-4mb so wouldnt take much tobreak it, sky asa provider as pretty good but yoru biggest problem is how far your form the excahnge sky do give you esitmate of the seed to expect

General Maximus · 03-02-2012, 19:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrewcrawford23

emaisl are genereally 1-4mb

I would love to know what sort of emails you are sending and receiving

qasdfdsaq · 03-02-2012, 20:24

I get a hundred emails a day (literally) and don't even break 500MB/month.

Superblade7 · 04-02-2012, 15:20

Thanks for all the replies guys.

I've had a look in the Super Hub pages and according to that we have used just over 1GB in 10 days so I'm guessing the 2GB limit clearly wouldn't be sufficient as I don't want to have to worry about hitting it all the time.

With regards to the speed and BT line, my neighbour is with Sky so I'll see whether he'll do me a speed test on his at some point. Would I be correct in thinking I'd get roughly the same speed as him or can lines to different houses be better/worse than others?

Andrewcrawford23 · 04-02-2012, 15:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by General Maximus

I would love to know what sort of emails you are sending and receiving

generally junk with attachments :s but if you are calculting you have to think worse case scenario, if the user goes oh i will only use 1gb and then break 2gb a month every month he wouldnt be happy, that why i am saying gnereally because unless your usinga webmaiul you will still downlaod the junk

qasdfdsaq · 04-02-2012, 15:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superblade7

Thanks for all the replies guys.

I've had a look in the Super Hub pages and according to that we have used just over 1GB in 10 days so I'm guessing the 2GB limit clearly wouldn't be sufficient as I don't want to have to worry about hitting it all the time.

With regards to the speed and BT line, my neighbour is with Sky so I'll see whether he'll do me a speed test on his at some point. Would I be correct in thinking I'd get roughly the same speed as him or can lines to different houses be better/worse than others?

You'll get roughly the speed Sky say you will get, which probably will be roughyl the same as your neighbours.

Superblade7 · 04-02-2012, 16:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

You'll get roughly the speed Sky say you will get, which probably will be roughyl the same as your neighbours.

Thanks, the speed they are claiming should be fine then.

General Maximus · 04-02-2012, 17:44

as long as you dont have a problem with the filters and stuff on your line

Superblade7 · 04-02-2012, 18:27

Guess that would be a chance I'd have to take General as I'd have to get them to install me a BT line as part of the process as only got the VM line. Gonna give VM till April though as Media Boy is reporting a good quarter ahead on his Coming Soon thread and I'm happy to stick with VM and pay a little extra if they deliver more of the content I want.