Broadband usage...

[alavahalf]

Further to the previous question about capacity/usage...I am ..or was..with Tiscali.
I am now researching which ISP to go with...BT want an 18 month contract, and BE will do a 12 month one. BE are looking favourites at the moment, their customer service appears to be better than BT's.
Anyhow...I was wondering what download allowance I needed.....I downloaded a calculator at http://www.broadband.org/usage_calculator.html and began to fill in the blank spaces.
When it asks how much email you send and receive, I thought.... I get about 200 spam mails a day...mailwasher filters most of these out, and I end up with about 20 that I want to read.

Do those 200 emails I dont even look at... use up my download allowance.?

[Buenchico]

Everything that comes down your phone line (or, where appopriate, your cable connection) contributes to your total usage. However using Mailwasher will mean that you're initially downloading only the headers from your mail; you then decide which mail you want to receive the content from. (The main content of spam items can then be deleted from your mail server, without contributing to to your total download figure).


Unless you regular receive emails with attachments (such as pictures and, particularly, video files), using email contributes almost nothing to your download figures. It's streaming services (such as YouTube and the BBC iPlayer) and P2P applications (such as Limewire) which have a major impact upon broadband usage figures.

Chris

[alavahalf]

Thanks for that...I expect that a 40GB allowance should be fine then...
I dont really download music or films...just a bit of surfing, shopping etc.

[Buenchico]

PS: While you're doing your research into suitable ISPs, I strongly recommend that you investigate the 'traffic management' (also known as 'traffic shaping') policy of any likely looking company.

Many (probably most) ISPs deliberate slow connections to certain types of traffic at peak times. It's done in order to ensure that all users get a fair share of the company's available capacity but it can be extremely annoying if it happens to affect a service you want to use. For example, many firms limit the speed of video streams at peak times, so users find that YouTube videos (or feeds from the BBC iPlayer) keep stopping and starting at those times.

You previously mentioned Sky Broadband. Sky is one of the better services (in terms of 'traffic management') because it only 'throttles' P2P services (such as Limewire) and newsgroup access between 1700 and 2400. Streaming services remain unaffected at all times.

BE Broadband claims to be "the only UK provider to offer a sub-£8 broadband service with no traffic shaping":
http://blog.bethere.c...-service-with-no.html

Chris

[Buenchico]

I was typing while you were posting.

Thanks for the reply. Based upon your previous post, I'd think that 40Gb would be more than adequate. (10Gb might well be sufficient but, if 40Gb doesn't cost much more, you might as well go for it 'just to be on the safe side').

Chris