What does 10gb download limit equate to?

Beximus

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I've just changed from Sky Unlimited to BT's option 1, with a bit of a price reduction offered by BT. I can cope with the 8gb line speed, as our line currently doesn't give more than 4 (tonight's speed test showed that I'm currently getting 0.36 dl speed from Sky, definitely time to change), but Option 1 has a 10gb download limit.

We download music, I game through my Xbox, but one of the biggest things would be the fact that we use iplayer a lot to stream. How big is an average half hour iplayer programme to stream? I can't see that I'm going to use more than 10gb, but it's difficult to know really what it means.

Ta, if that makes sense.
 
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10gb is pitiful, barely a decent 1080p film lol :thumbsdow

As you say mate with the advent of streaming media like iPlayer etc that will not last very long. You can get some good deals if you shop around, as Accylad says 02/Be are worth a peek especially if your exchange is LLU. :thumbsup:
 
If the exchange is LLU? Meaning? (I know, I know...but I don't know what it means)
 
if you dont get llu then you most likly get slow speeds in evening which you will get like 56k dial up speed
 
have you got llu for o2/be
Our Sky connection was LLu. Be would have been my first non-cable choice, but they don't cover my area at the moment. I've checked on Samknows, but all that's available to me is BT, or Sky and Talk Talk on LLu. My choice is extremely limited, as is my budget.

10gb is pitiful, barely a decent 1080p film lol :thumbsdow

As you say mate with the advent of streaming media like iPlayer etc that will not last very long. You can get some good deals if you shop around, as Accylad says 02/Be are worth a peek especially if your exchange is LLU. :thumbsup:
I'm going to have to play it by ear I think. Some of the downloaded programmes are coming down as about 250meg, which if we don't go overboard, then well, I dunno. I'm going to have to see.

if you dont get llu then you most likly get slow speeds in evening which you will get like 56k dial up speed
To be honest, that's quicker than I'm getting now with Sky at that time, so everything's an improvement. We were on LLu, but it wasn't really doing anything. Even at complete off-peak times, my speeds were ludicrously slow.

I guess if it's not good, I'm no worse off than I am now, except now I'm paying less.
 
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are you on sky max package if so then you shouldnt get slowed down in the evening as it says they unlimited
 
are you on sky max package if so then you shouldnt get slowed down in the evening as it says they unlimited
Yeah, that's the one. I realise it shouldn't be slowed in the evening, but that does seem to be the case. It's marginally faster during the day, but not much. I did a reading at just gone 9 last night, which gave me a download speed of 0.39. Actually, it all seemed to start when they got rid of the fair usage policy.
 
unless they not put you on there own equipment seems strange how you get slow speeds you should ring them sayin why you get dial up speeds in the evening when your on max package
 
In short m8 you will have to cut down BIG time. I have done some math in the past with streaming radio and playing online games and you would be suprised at how much you use.

Have a look here how much bandwidth does iplayer use - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums it just gives you some idea on a video stream from Iplayer. A normal tv show 1hr long 600+mb.

With music albums your looking anywhere from about 100mb to 400mb depending on quality. So you can watch one 1hr show from Iplayer and one good quality album and your nearly at 1gig. I used to work for Orange BB and we had a chart showing downloads and usage info. You would proberbly struggle on 40gig a month limit but you will 100% struggle on 10gig with how you use your broadband. With very little research (google lol) you will get your figures and you will be shocked how much everything uses.
 
They seem to think that my pc setup is wrong. But I've used it on other people's accounts and get a service that's fine. I just get a standard response that I can get up to 3.5gb on my line. Also, they seem to like reminding me that my broadband wireless connection can be affected by other signals around the house.
 
lol think they pulling your leg and having your pc setup wrong is just another thing to get you off the phone because you would have slow speed all time if the signal wireless was causing problem or even pc
 
according to be value i not sure if it means for non llu aswell if that there is no traffic shaping but you best ringin them
 
I wouldn't go for any ISP with a download limit. I've had them mess up their statistics in the past (Wannado, who aren't in business any more). I'd get Unlimited so there's no dispute that you're downloading too much (with exceptions of fair usage).
 
I wouldn't go for any ISP with a download limit. I've had them mess up their statistics in the past (Wannado, who aren't in business any more). I'd get Unlimited so there's no dispute that you're downloading too much (with exceptions of fair usage).
I've been kind of torn. I realised that in reality, I download very little. The vast majority of my online use is just looking at websites, and a little online gaming, but actually not that much. My other housemate will browse websites, and watch, maybe 3 things on iPlayer a month, so I figure I'll give it a go. If it all goes wrong, I'll change. Sky were giving us such a rubbish service, it took my housemate 3 hours to buy car insurance the other night, just because the pages were loading up so slowly. I've got to try something else, if only to save my sanity :p
 
I'm stuck with a non-LLU exchange, and have a 15 GB limit... I've had 2 near-misses with going over that limit in the last year; I game a fair bit (at least since MW2), have downloaded some large files (usually the PS3 game-updates and Live Arcade games) and the missus watches an hour or so of iplayer a week, plus a lot of emails/web browsing.

I'd reckon that 10GB would be too little for anyone who is pretty active online, and that 15-20 would be a better minimum to look towards if you have to have a cap. I'm just sticking with my 15GB 'cause I've not found a better deal for £15 given that I'm at a crap Exchange.
 
If the exchange is LLU? Meaning? (I know, I know...but I don't know what it means)

Wikipedia is your friend link -> LLU

Basically it's where companies other than BT have equipment at the exchange; for example O2 have done this at a number of exchanges (just not mine :() usually you get a better or cheaper deal with an LLU exchange as there is more competition.
 
if you dont get llu then you most likly get slow speeds in evening which you will get like 56k dial up speed

Well only in the sense that most ISPs (and 95% are non-LLU) throttle speeds at busy times to keep their bandwidth costs down, you won't get slow down in the evening with a decent ISP except for local factors (i.e. all your neighbours are heavy internet users).

I wouldn't go for any ISP with a download limit. I've had them mess up their statistics in the past (Wannado, who aren't in business any more). I'd get Unlimited so there's no dispute that you're downloading too much (with exceptions of fair usage).

For most ISPs 'fair use' just means 'hidden usage limit'.


As for BT Option 1, they used to throttle iPlayer on that I believe, so it's worth checking whether they still do it before signing up.
 

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