Bandwidth!!!

[El Brenty]

Does anyone know what their average bandwidth useage is???

At the moment, I have UNLIMITED bandwidth, with a 512K down, 256K up ADSL connection! Seems like a good deal.

Only for the same money, I could have a 1GB down, 2GB up connection, but capped at 1GB bandwidth limit, and a £1.75 per GBadditional charge.

So I'm trying to figure out what bandwidth my surfing usually takes up, and whether the speed increase is worth it.

Typically, I'm downloading driver and system updates, sample software, and general web-browsing. I also use Voice over IP (For several hours at a time on a regular basis), and alsohave MSN Messenger on the go, with a webcam running for about 5 hours a day!

So what do you lot think? Take the upgrade or stay as I am?

[Raptor]

1 GB in what period? VOIP will shew up a considerable chunk of throughput.
Bandwidth is the measure of data speed, throughput is the measure of data volume.
Bandwidth is measured as per second transfer, Throughput is total data moved ina given period of time. Are you sure you can get 1- 2 GB in ADSL Circuits? Even lan sped is 1 Gigbit ( Gb ) not Gigabyte (GB)

[El Brenty]

1GB over a month.

1 adn 2 GB lines - Yep! In fact, my local area supports now supports dedicated 4GB lines!

Yep, bits, not bytes.

I've decided to stick with what I've got. If I upgraded, sure I'd get a faster line, but the existing one seems to do everythign I need OK, and I don't fancy a £1.75/month per GB pro rata charge if I go over from heavy useage one month.

I ran a bandwidth monitor for a few days, and I was pretty shocked as to how much data I was going through!

[jcdenton]

your current deal is looking ok. As long as you don't download lots of Fullversions or Full Movies, you'll rarely need more than 512K. I have 2kbit, but usually the servers don't serve with more than 512 KBit.
Unlimited Traffic (not to be confused with bandwidth) is good since they probably gonna rip you off with gigabytes of ads or so when you have to pay per Gigabit.

[El Brenty]

What's the difference between traffic and bandwidth then?

[jcdenton]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but as I understand it, Bandwidth is the Transmission Speed of the Connection, where Traffic is the amount of Data over a specific time, eg. a month. So unlimited traffic means you can use your bandwith at the max at any time. "Unlimited bandwidth" (usually seen in webspace hosting ads) means that the webspace provider gives you as much speed as possible for your webpage. Of course there's a limit that's the max speed of the (physical) server.

Uh, right now I see you are using the words in the exact opposite way. Probably I misunderstood the whole issue - once again

[Epsilon]

If you would like to compare my website, I am pulling between 4 and 11 gig of bandwith per month for the past year or so.

[jcdenton]

BTW I get a SHTML Login Box on this thread, probably from your Pic, Matt, the url is "matt.echowave.net"

[Raptor]

What's the difference between traffic and bandwidth then?

Bandwidth is the available speed of the media In this case expressed in Mbit or Gbits per second, which is why I was wondering about 1 or 2 Gbit per second ADSL circuits. Traffic or throughput is the volume of data you move over a period of time, and has nothing to do really with the speed or bandwidth of the media, you may have a limit of say 4GB per month, it doesn't matter how fast you download the 4 Gig, but rather how much total you move.

[El Brenty]

Oh right, well, in that case, I've got unlimited traffic on my current scheme.