Help please,Broadband usage limits.

.G.

As a smart customer,an unwanted change of broadband provider seems to be galloping over the horizon toward me so I need a bit of help.

I know what contention ratio is but what I need is someone to explain exactly what is included in the usage limt.Does every webpage I look at use up some of my limit or is it only when i download a file or watch a streaming broadcast or video etc.I'm torn between magnet starter or digiweb metro because theres no way I'm going back to Rip off Eircom.

Thanks in advance.

Foxwood

superg wrote:

I know what contention ratio is but what I need is someone to explain exactly what is included in the usage limt.Does every webpage I look at use up some of my limit or is it only when i download a file or watch a streaming broadcast or video etc

Every byte of information that comes down your broadband connection is counted - it doesn't matter what that byte is part of. There's no difference between an e-mail byte, an mp3 byte, a html byte or a streamed media byte - they're all bytes made up of streams of 1s and 0s.


There are 10 types of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

.G.

So 10GB a month with magnet dosen't sound a lot then.I get about 8 emails a day and spend max 2 hours a day reading my fave websites.I occasionally download files or watch something on youtube.Would 30GB with Digiweb be enough or should i be looking for a higher or non existant limit?

And are there any programs available that I can use to count my usage.

Foxwood

superg wrote:

So 10GB a month with magnet dosen't sound a lot then.I get about 8 emails a day and spend max 2 hours a day reading my fave websites.I occasionally download files or watch something on youtube.Would 30GB with Digiweb be enough or should i be looking for a higher or non existant limit?

And are there any programs available that I can use to count my usage.

You'd have no problems with 30G based on that usage.

There are programs that measure usage, but I don't use one. DuMeter is the only one I can remember being mentioned but there are others.

.G.

Ok thanks for your help.

blorg

Contention is how many people they have hanging off for each unit of their capacity, so 48:1 on a 2mb/s connection for example means they have 48 people for each 2mb of actual capacity. Key thing is, of course, that all 48 people are not _using_ all that 2mb all the time. I have not personally found contention figures to matter much and it does not concern you regarding the usage caps/limits.

To be honest you sound like quite a light user and 10gb would probably be enough, never mind 30. Best install something like DuMeter or NetLimiter to check but I would also suggest going with a provider that has a "soft" cap - e.g. they will just get in touch with you to discuss moving you to a higher product if you often go over, or, less good, will just slow down your connection. What you want to avoid at all costs is one with a "hard" cap that will just bill you X cents per mb over the cap.