What Is Your Monthly Internet Data Usage?

Ljwilthethrill on 06/07/2020 - 19:29

Hi everyone,

I recently switched ISP's and did it through my phone so I ended up with the app on my phone. I don't recall ever logging in with my previous provider so I never checked the data usage. I was frequently checking it this time around (since it was just a click away) and I was shocked at how much we ended up using.

Last month we had used over 9TB (upload and download). I was downloading more frequently this time around but I have a big online backup running nightly so it can't have impacted my usage too much. If I was being modest even without the frequent download I would guess that I used 5-7TB monthly before this.

This seems like a lot to me so I'm just wondering how much others are using.

Internet

Comments

  • Godric on 06/07/2020 - 19:37

    Jw, what online service do you use for backup?

    • jwilthethrill on 06/07/2020 - 19:43

      I use Backblaze Personal and Google Drive. Used to use CrashPlan but they don't like it if your backups exceed 10TB (but they are not bad if you think 10TB is plenty for you).

  • kahn on 06/07/2020 - 19:42

    What's the point of referring to how much "we" used without establishing who "we" are?

    • jwilthethrill on 06/07/2020 - 19:46

      Well I originally wrote "I" because it's mostly me using the data. It's a total of 3 people and the most demanding thing they might do is watch Netflix twice a week which probably has little impact on the usage compared to mine.

  • Okayy on 06/07/2020 - 19:43

    What do you download?

    • jwilthethrill on 06/07/2020 - 22:36

      A lot of games usually, I only have SSD's on my desktop PC so I'll usually end up deleting and re-installing games frequently. And also Linux ISO's of course.

      • Okayy on 06/07/2020 - 23:00

        Fair terabytes there then.

  • Hybroid on 06/07/2020 - 19:45
    +2

    ~5TB/month on ABB with no issues whatsoever.

  • cloudy on 06/07/2020 - 20:14
    +1

    Beats my 120gb average

  • niknah on 06/07/2020 - 21:32

    300-500gb. But I don't watch netflix. Just youtube. I use Duplicacy for backup & run a web server.

  • conan2000 on 06/07/2020 - 21:45

    9Tb?! We've got 4 in the house, both WFH full time and kids are constantly streaming stuff. We are at 550Gb for the month with 3 days left on our billing cycle.

  • shrek4 on 06/07/2020 - 22:12

    Family of 4. Kids on YouTube, online gaming and heavy Netflix and streaming users, some online backup (OneDrive, GoogleDrive, Dropbox). We’d average around 600gb month.

  • iDroid on 06/07/2020 - 22:20
    +1

    9TB?

    NINE TERABYTES?

    How?

    You can stream 4K video 24/7 for the entire month and still only be half way there.

    • jwilthethrill on 06/07/2020 - 22:33

      ~4300GB was upload so I guess streaming 4K video 24/7 is around what was used for download

  • oscargamer on 06/07/2020 - 22:27

    500Gb for us. 2 kids and streaming and wfh.

  • azndraon on 07/07/2020 - 00:13

    800gb - torrenting (downloading, seeding), youtube, plex, discord, steam

  • AustriaBargain on 07/07/2020 - 01:23

    I’ve filled a 10TB hard drive in days, probably the only limit on the gigabit line was the rotation speed of the hard drive. I’d be the guy downloading 100+TB a month if I could. Believe me I’d be downloading the silly files like 500GB work print film scans, even just to watch once. As I buy faster hard drives over time I’ll also download a lot more over time, once I break free from that hardware limit.

    • SnowDragon on 07/07/2020 - 07:59

      You must need to have 1000 down for that surely?

      I hope you have a lot of NAS bays free.

  • AssBargain on 07/07/2020 - 01:50

    And I thought my 1.5TB-2TB per month was alot. But they're all used up by me.

  • SnowDragon on 07/07/2020 - 07:57
    Month Upload Download
    February 22GB 190GB
    March 24GB 296GB
    April 33GB 443GB
    May 77GB 666GB
    June 25GB 443GB
    July 2GB 21GB

    AussieBB won't show before Feb for some reason although I've been with them for 2 years.

    I'd say this is 90% games updating and general downloading/browsing. 10% streaming 1080p.

  • John Kimble on 07/07/2020 - 09:42
    +3

    Poll required

  • inherentchoice on 07/07/2020 - 21:19

    20 GB

    Should have made a poll?

  • peteru on 07/07/2020 - 23:19

    Sounds like it's badly configured backup config. You really want to be doing delta backups, not nightly fulls.

  • AncientWisdom on 09/07/2020 - 13:55

    500GB/month. Currently 4 adults (mostly social media with some Netflix, YouTube) and 2 young kids.

  • fozzie on 15/07/2020 - 18:21

    Wow we use about 840gb at home and I thought I was a heavy used lol (2 adults and 2 teens)

  • Moomt on 10/08/2020 - 07:13
    Merged from What's Your Household Monthly Internet Usage?

    We are a family of 6 about to knock down our home and rebuild. We will be remaining on the property whilst the build takes place but will not have access to NBN in this time. I checked with our provider as to what our current usuage is and for the last 6 months we are sitting at between 1.2 & 1.8TB per month. Is this excessive? I feel I am sharing our internet with the neighbourhood (it is password protected) as it is so high. I wanted to get mobile broadband whilst we remain on site but obviously there are no plans this big.

    • captaincabinets on 10/08/2020 - 07:38
      +1

      That's a lot. I suspect someone is downloading / streaming a lot of 4K. Do you guys have 4K Netflix etc? Even intentionally downloading a lot of 4K I think I've only hit around 1TB a month, and usually it's half that or less.

      • Moomt on 10/08/2020 - 12:07

        Thank you - will look in to the 4K - I only pay for it - I wouldn't have a clue what is 4K or not :(

    • whooah1979 on 10/08/2020 - 07:40
      -6

      1TB per day is reasonable for 1080p streaming.

      • LZCS on 10/08/2020 - 07:44

        lol, 1GB you mean

        • thatonethere on 10/08/2020 - 07:45

          Hollywood hates him for this one trick!

        • whooah1979 on 10/08/2020 - 07:54
          -2

          No. 1TB.

          1 hour of HD is about 3GB. Op is 6 users. Some users can multitask e.g streaming YT, reply to sosial media and work with live data at the same time.

          Having access to extra data is always preferred over running out of data half way through the month.

          • Tech5 on 10/08/2020 - 08:21

            @whooah1979: So your maths is

            3 gb per hour x 6 = 18gb per hour. All 6 stream for 24 hours a day makes 432gb?

            Disregarding how stupid that sounds, that still only makes 0.5tb

            • whooah1979 on 10/08/2020 - 08:30
              -1

              @Tech5: I said that 1TB per day is reasonable. Users doesn't have to use 1TB everyday.

              Users should get a plan with a cap (or unlimited) that they can use comfortably every month rather than always look at their download limit all the time.

    • thatonethere on 10/08/2020 - 07:46
      +2

      we do about 1T a month biggest killer was YouTube forcing HD video as default.

    • LZCS on 10/08/2020 - 07:46

      Haha, if you have games consoles, all your family watches Netflix on the PC, game updates, cheeky kids downloading torrents, etc etc etc I think that will come close. Especially in lockdown times.

    • [Deactivated] on 10/08/2020 - 08:15

      Not really, 3 here and we use 700gb plus. Don't most family's have unlimited now anyway?

    • Bargain80 on 10/08/2020 - 13:55

      that seems a lot more it should have.
      do you have 4 teenagers living in the house?

      • Moomt on 10/08/2020 - 13:59

        No - 3 adults - one teen - plus an 11 & 8 year old. I can't for the life of me work out what it could be………….

        • Hybroid on 10/08/2020 - 14:07
          +1

          That doesn't seem excessive to me as I do more than that alone but if you're concerned, there are apps like glasswire.com that can help you monitor usage if you want to get a bit techie.

          Otherwise, you can login to your modem/router and there'll be a tab somewhere that shows connected devices. You can then trace each one e.g. Moomt-iPhone, Moomt-son-Dell, Sony-PS4 etc and kick off the unknowns to troubleshoot what's left.

          • Moomt on 10/08/2020 - 14:11

            @Hybroid: Thank you Hybroid.

            Really - do you think so? Other people I have checked with come nowhere close but they have different aged kids etc. which I guess needs to be taken in to account.

            I think I might give the modem login in a try - not sure how to do this - would I contact my internet provider? I am definitely technically challenged.

            Wondering how we will survive on mobile broadband for 8 months when I think the highest you can get per month is 500gb………

            • Hybroid on 10/08/2020 - 14:23
              +1

              @Moomt: I don't think it's too outrageous if you have 6 people spending most of their time sitting at home, streaming content, downloading games/movies etc. If anyone of them has downloaded latest Call of Duty for example, that's 200 GB already. Other games are getting to the 50-100GB a pop. Even mobile games are growing to couple GB in size so it adds up very quick.

              500GB will be tough. You will need to instill some focus on reducing usage and making clear not downloading anything large on the connection.

              If you have NBN and the standard Netcomm NF18ACV modem:

              • Go to: http://192.168.20.1/login.html (your address may be different so check manual if doesn't work)
              • Log-in with admin/admin or admin/password as default (or any other you may have changed/says different in manual)
              • Click the different connections (Wireless 2.4GHz, Wireless 5 GHz and Wired Devices) to show you the list of connected devices.
              • Most will clearly say what they are (e.g. Moomt-iPhone) but some may not have identifiers.
              • You can click boot them off or click Edit and change settings to disconnect those unknown devices then slowly cross-check what's no longer online (e.g. TV Netflix suddenly doesnt work so you know it was one of them) etc.

              Bit of a faff but your only real free option to go through and answer your query. You may be surprised how many devices are actually connected with that many people. You all have phones, tablets, laptops, computers, TVs, consoles etc…

              • Moomt on 10/08/2020 - 14:26

                @Hybroid: Thank you for your detailed explanation - much appreciated :)

                Will give this a go and see what I can find - Thanks!

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