Who knew the internet was fast?

[Knotty_Pine]

Well fellas, I'm as broke as can be, but I am going at what feels like ligthspeep. Downloading at speeds right at 10 times what I've been working at.

I found a USB modem and Verizon wireless service. It's a little cheaper to run than dialup, and reasonably fast. Not blindingly fast, but Amazon.com loads in a blur, as do most of the sites I frequent.

But, there's a question. I'm on a 5GB per month limit, after which I get charged a quarter a meg for everything after that. I'm kinda unsure how much I can do before I'll hit that 5GB limit.

Ordinarily, I visit forums (this one and another), check email, and otehr basic surfing. I download minimally as far as large files, although there are a few good sized ones I want (36mb on one of 'em.) Maybe a few photos or a song now and then.

How long should it take me to use up 5gb? There is another user, but that person uses very infrequently, the major user is myself.

Thanks guys!
TJ.

[brent]

Glad you found a better deal. I really don't know the answer to your question, but I would hope that if they have a d/l cap on your account that there would be a way on their site to monitor your usage.
I am glad that you are moving faster though!
Brent

[beamerweb]

you shouldn't be too bad as long as you keep away from the dreaded YouTube and such - videos are huge bandwidth hogs as are large photo galleries, though I'd bet you'd struggle to look at enough photos to worry much about the bandwidth of 5 gigs a month.

Email's another one - lots of folks mistakenly think email is a great system for file transfer and attach all sorts of stuff that it really wasn't designed for. Having web-based email really helps you to pick and choose what emails hit your bandwidth.

5gb is a little low, but not a nightmare. The problem is that now that your internet is quicker, you'll end up doing more - the faster the speed, the more ya wanna do. I think if you keep your youtube viewing to a scant few that are worth it to you, you'll be fine. But remember, pausing a youtube video doesn't stop it from downloading in the background - you gotta close the page completely. If there's a player showing on the screen, you can almost surely count on it buffering for you. Just something to keep in mind :)

[TDHofstetter]

Also beware NetFlix Instant Watch and any other video source out there... anything more'n an animated GIF (like those on the right side of your screen ---> ) sucks bandwidth.

Music - song downloads - typically run something like 5 meg per 3-minute tune. Barring any other surfing, you'd get about a thousand per month.

Be aware that slow-loading Websites are often slow-loading 'cause the picture files coming down the pipe are HUGE, but the browser is told to display 'em small. Sad but true.

If you figure your surfing threshold is getting tight, or if you just wanna' be miserly with your Internet time, you can change an option to tell your browser that you don't want pictures on the Web pages you surf. That'll cut your Web footprint down to maybe 5%-15% of what it would be with pictures.

-- Tim --

Member of the
Robert "Limey" Bolton Memorial
International
Volunteer Mentorship and Assistance
Programme

[CajunRider]

5 gig is really low. You gotta watch it carefully else you'll be charged beaucoup money.

Here's an example: You view a thread in the completed project section. The original post includes 10 pictures (roughly 1 meg). If you happen to view it say 10 times (some bantering included in there) you are already at 10 meg for just that one thread.

I think I'm averaging around 100 gig per month.

[doug_d]

TJ I have been using this service at home for a little over a year now, but professionally for 4+ years.

I have never gone over my 5 gig limit. I think the most I have ever used is 3.5 gigs. I have a wife that works at home during the week and loves to check facebook and email every hour. My 6 year old plays games online pretty often. After things slow down at night, I will climb on and check email tend to a little business, but nothing too crazy.

The good news is you can check your usage whenever you want just to make sure. I think you will be surprised how little you use.

I've got a friend that just switched from DSL to Verizon's wireless card. Having the freedom to take it with out weighs the speed benefit.

Doug

[FrankC]

This is from Frontier.com

We all love the Internet, and Frontier is committed to offering you all the bandwidth you need and want to take full advantage of the Web! Our basic residential Internet packages offers 5GB usage -- that's the equivalent of 500,000 basic text e-mails, 2,500 Photos, 40,000 Web Pages, over 300 Hours of Online Game Time, 1,250 downloaded songs, or a mixture of the above!

Sawdust Making 101
http://sawdustmaking.com

[Knotty_Pine]

I found a litle gadget to help me out BitMeter. It monitors the usage and will send me popup when I've gotten to 4.5G. I've been on quite a chunk of the day, but since 2 O'clock (it's 4:20 now) I've used a grand total of 1.24 Mb... I'm betting that I'll have more usage than that on some days, but I'm just tickled to finally be able to load even simple stuff quickly. And Downloads!

Downloads are amazing. I got a small attachement newsletter from a site I attent, and was rather amazed to see that in the length of time it took me to take a leak, it'd loaded. I was downloading at 24.4kbps.. My dialup worked at 2.2 and that was in the middle o' the night when the service was best.

I'll keep a close eye on my usage, but I hafta say, it's extremely good thus far. I'm going to twiddle my Firefox settings to maybe limit the number of pics, but beyond that it seems I'll be fine.

5g is small, but considering that it's the best offer I've seen that wasn't costing an arm and a leg, I'm not one to be grouchy!

[TDHofstetter]

NOW is the time for you to download SketchUp... I'm sure you're tired of waiting for me to remember to send you that CDROM. :)

-- Tim --

Member of the
Robert "Limey" Bolton Memorial
International
Volunteer Mentorship and Assistance
Programme

[doug_d]

Try google Chrome. It's light and fast. I use it as my main browser now.

http://www.google.com/chrome

I use to be a big Firefox guy, but chrome won me over...