General Usage Question

[tardomatic]

General Usage Question, or how much BW do you really need?

Hi,

This question isn't targeted at the leeches out there (i.e. the people that somehow download 800GB+ on their uncapped accounts), but more for the average user.

I consider myself a fairly heavy internet user. I follow about 70 Blogs (made nice and easy by Google reader), watch a few youtube videos a day, connect to the work VPN to do a little work after hours, so, generally average stuff. My average usage a day is probably in the 400MB to 500MB a day. My wife also uses the internet, although much less than I do and averages about 150MB a day. This, mind you, without doing anything illegal. Just your average surfing. This adds up to about 19.5GB a month.

So, the questions are:

1. Where the hell did Telkom get their 3GB a month figure from initially, and why hasn't Icasa done a study to see what an average houshold / small business / large business actually needs?
2. How much do you use? How much would you need to fulfill your needs?
3. If you had unlimited access, would your usage change, and why? And, do you think you'd remain using more than you have allocated after you've run out of stuff to download?

Laters

 

[concentricpuddle]

My usage habits are much the same (without the VPN though) and I use up the 3GB in about a week and a bit if I go slowly (I never download with international).

How much would I need? I'm not sure. Uncapped would be nice. The first month I get it I'd probably also do 800+Gb and after that it'd maybe trickle down to about 100GB/month depending on whether it's distro release month

RE: #1
Telkom did it, because they could make more money that way and ICASA didn't do anything, because they're kinda incompetent.

 

[Smiley_lauf]

well, the people that hang around these forums are by definition users>3G-so it will be hard to find the "below average" user's opinions.
Anyway, just for the record, I do exactly what you so my usage is around 5G on some lazy days, and about 7G on some good days.

S

 

[tardomatic]

yeah...

the reason im asking, is if i remember correctly, there was a time when 3gb 'is enough for anyone' was thrown around by telkom as the norm. I'm interested in how the norm has changed over the last few years.

It would be great if ICANTSA did a usage survey for residential, small and medium sized businesses, found out what they really needed, and forced telkom to supply that as a minimum, and review once a year.