# ISP Providers, cost and usage



## kyle2020 (Jul 6, 2009)

Alright guys, im 17 and my parents seem to assume that im earning £30,000 a week because not only are they now charging me for electricity usage, but are now wanting me to pay towards the internet. 

Questions:

1. On average, how much bandwith do you believe you use a month? My dad wants to cut our package down from unlimited to a 40GB plan, im not sure how much online games chew through etc.

2. Do you pay towards (if your around my age / still at home) any of the houses bills? Bear in mind im a student in full time education.

3. If you do run your own internet plan, and your in the UK (suggestions for the US will simply be ignored because your stupid), please highlight the details of the plan? Cost, bandwith allowance, etc?


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## InTeL-iNsIdE (Jul 6, 2009)

just tell him to switch to o2 you can get unlimited for £7.50 a month if anyone in your household has an o2 sim (contract or pay and go) even if you dont its only £12.50 a month and i can hit upwards of 80 gb a month sometimes, cant fault o2 at all typically broadband is around £15-£20 from most isp's these days


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## MoonPig (Jul 6, 2009)

Well, we're on Virgin Media at the moment. Pings are poor, capped easily and customer service is pathetic.... but... it's expensive... 

Gunna be moving to Sky when they setup in my area soon, getting the Broadband + Phone + SkyTV package - It's DAMN cheap.

Personally, i use more than 40GB a month, and i wouldn't like to have a restriction, but thats just me.

I don't pay towards any bills, but i buy things for the house. Like i built the family a MediaCenter with my own money when the 42" 1080p arrived abit ago. Stuff like that, so it works out good.

As for electric usage, my family works on a set amount. Currently, were not meeting anywhere near the limit - so my folding / excessive use of lights, isn't a problem.

Personally, i suggest you move to the sky package (if you already have sky) or lower your package (if you feel you can). 

As far as i know, online gaming uses very little bandwidth... i may be wrong. Best thing you can do is download NetMeter (or similar) and track yourself for a week.

Hope that helps.


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## kyle2020 (Jul 6, 2009)

Cant get netmeter to work unfortunately.


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## mrw1986 (Jul 6, 2009)

kyle2020 said:


> (suggestions for the US will simply be ignored because your stupid)



*you're**

On a side note, welcome to the real world 

I started paying ALL my own bills when I hit 15 and got my first job. I also helped my parents pay for the utilities I used. It taught me financial responsibility which I am really grateful for. I'm 22 now and own a house and 2 cars. I didn't want to rent because I don't like seeing my money go to waste so I decided to buy a house.

I wish I could be of further assistance, but I'm not familiar with the UK internet providers, etc. Best of luck to you!


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## MoonPig (Jul 6, 2009)

Come live with me Kyle, we have a spare room and can cater for your power / water etc. needs. 

Probably no need to pay board aswell, if you do your bit.

As for the Netmeter thing. Get a Win7 Sidebar gadget that monitors network usage, then write it down everyday. Easy.


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## Darren (Jul 6, 2009)

MoonPig,

I'm on Virgin Media as well.

The customer service isn't the best but its free call, they usually sort things out although it can take a bit of time and patience, but my service has been pretty solid so I've rarely had to call them much.

Speeds are consistant and my pings as amazing. It cost a little more than ADSL but I can not deny that out of the download limit hours the speeds are exactly what they should be. I've got a friend that is on Talk Talk, he was paying for 10MBs but his line couldn't handle more than 60 KB/Sec average. In games such as COD I usually have the lowest or one of the lowest pings - Apart from the download limit I can not fault Virgin Media what so ever.

As for the threadstarter, 40 GBs per month is fine for games, generally speaking a few hours of game play wouldn't consume more than a few megabytes of storage.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Aug 4, 2009)

I'm on karoo in hull,i just witched to a upto 24mb connection,heres my speed test,its 75gb/month and unlimited from 12-8 on a night.Its £29.99/month adsl2


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## Soylent Joe (Aug 4, 2009)

My parents are paying $60 a month for high speed (stated 8MB/s). I'd say I download about 20GB a month, but it's an unlimited plan. I guess I'm lucky, they've never asked me to pay for it but they both know that it's pretty much a necessity for school and stuff and that dial-up is just too slow.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Aug 4, 2009)

1.68mb/sec download speed too.


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## bpgt64 (Aug 4, 2009)

Soylent Joe said:


> My parents are paying $60 a month for high speed (stated 8MB/s). I'd say I download about 20GB a month, but it's an unlimited plan. I guess I'm lucky, they've never asked me to pay for it but they both know that it's pretty much a necessity for school and stuff and that dial-up is just too slow.



your paying way too much.  I have 18mb/s uncapped for 65 a month.  Sorry, I am also from GA


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## Soylent Joe (Aug 4, 2009)

bpgt64 said:


> your paying way too much.  I have 18mb/s uncapped for 65 a month.  Sorry, I am also from GA



Well, we live out of the city on a dead end road with like 2 other houses. The only internet service wired up for out here is Comcast, which is what I have.


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## bpgt64 (Aug 4, 2009)

Soylent Joe said:


> Well, we live out of the city on a dead end road with like 2 other houses. The only internet service wired up for out here is Comcast, which is what I have.



Comcast should be like t1 if your in the boondocks.


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## AsRock (Aug 4, 2009)

kyle2020 said:


> Alright guys, im 17 and my parents seem to assume that im earning £30,000 a week because not only are they now charging me for electricity usage, but are now wanting me to pay towards the internet.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> ...



Me and my perants kept it simple and just payed 1/2 each.  As for online gaming it don't take that much and would be no were near 1GB never mind 40GB.  

You could always download a app that records how much you download\upload over a month.  

How ever moving to a lower package could be a issue for you as a lower package normally mean slower up\down speeds which ends up higher pings too.


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## Soylent Joe (Aug 4, 2009)

bpgt64 said:


> Comcast should be like t1 if your in the boondocks.



I guess it should. I thought I remember getting the 8meg package but it's been a while. I don't even know how 8MB/s is relevant, I hardly ever get over 1MB/s on any download, but it probably does matter, I'm just a newb


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## 95Viper (Aug 4, 2009)

@kyle2020> Try this, great little freeware program:http://codebox.org.uk/controller?page=bitmeter2

I think you will find it does everything you need.

Edit: Except, pay for your bills...

Gotta love Fiber!


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## Deleted member 3 (Aug 4, 2009)

I've been downloading several GB a day on average with my ADSL lines for years. With the recent upgrade to 50/50 fiber it might get worse.


@95viper, what kind of nut ISP gives you such download speeds and caps your upload that bad? Or is it some error?


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## AltecV1 (Aug 4, 2009)

it nice to live in a country where there are no caps!!(no real speed too,but no caps either) BTW im 20 and bay 40$ per month for 12mbit/768kbit net+telefone+50 channel tv!, not a bad deal if you ask me


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## Deleted member 3 (Aug 4, 2009)

Good old Dutch speedtest, seems to have issues with my line. No other test got that high and as far as I know my line is capped at 50Mbit. 




I got up to 40MBit earlier. Either those sites have issues with high uploads or the ISP does.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Aug 4, 2009)

Thats a pretty nice balanced connection dan.Nice upload speed.


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## Deleted member 3 (Aug 4, 2009)

tigger said:


> Thats a pretty nice balanced connection dan.Nice upload speed.



It's synchronous officially. Though upload always seems a bit lower. My server is currently still running on my ADSL line, will move it there soon.


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## francis511 (Aug 4, 2009)

I use AOL and think it`s pretty good. If I was going to get a decent cheap plan tomorrow I`d go for this :

https://www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/bevalue


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## Darren (Aug 4, 2009)

Soylent Joe said:


> I guess it should. I thought I remember getting the 8meg package but it's been a while. I don't even know how 8MB/s is relevant, I hardly ever get over 1MB/s on any download, but it probably does matter, I'm just a newb



Seems like you are getting your money's worth,on a 8meg connection you should download at a maximum of around 940 KB/Sec, you are exactly on point!?

I've recently been upgraded to 20 megs for free by Virgin media. We pay about £40 per month for TV, telephone line and cable broadband. Pings are super low downloads are super fast. I download around 2.3 Mb/Sec.


Edit:




oli_ramsay said:


> I use Virgin 16Mb down 1Mb up, unlimited and it free evening and weekend calls for £18 a month, but I still have to pay BT £14 a month line rental.



Presuming that its ADSL, swith to virgins cable service, you do not need a BT line rental for it. Plus you'll benefit from faster speeds and lower pings.


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## oli_ramsay (Aug 4, 2009)

I use Virgin 16Mb down 1Mb up, unlimited and it free evening and weekend calls for £18 a month, but I still have to pay BT £14 a month line rental.


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## oli_ramsay (Aug 4, 2009)

I unfortunately can't get cable in my area 

I'm pretty happy with what I've got now though.


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## Darren (Aug 4, 2009)

oli_ramsay said:


> I unfortunately can't get cable in my area
> 
> I'm pretty happy with what I've got now though.



Ah,

That is unfortunate, keep your eyes open as Virgin Media are always expanding their cable network.

To be honest though, if you've got a BT line I would come off Virgin media's ADSL, BE Broadband give you 24 Megs unlimited download for £17.50

BE offer the fastest ADSL service in the UK, on Five news last week they did a test of broadband providers and only BE (O2) and Virgin Media's cable offered the rated speed.

BE also offer the fastest upstream speeds in the UK for commercial broadband too.


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## puma99dk| (Aug 4, 2009)

95Viper said:


> @kyle2020> Try this, great little freeware program:http://codebox.org.uk/controller?page=bitmeter2
> 
> I think you will find it does everything you need.
> 
> ...



you talking about fibernet, why you only got about 2mbit upload?

this is my Connect i just luv my fibernet connection en my unlimited between


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## Deleted member 3 (Aug 4, 2009)

puma99dk| said:


> you talking about fibernet, why you only got about 2mbit upload?
> 
> this is my Connect i just luv my fibernet connection en my unlimited between
> 
> http://forums.techpowerup.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=27570&d=1249381288



I figured he'd be in Scandinavia yes, IP says he's from the states. No clue what kind of ISP's offer fiber there.


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## TheCrow (Aug 4, 2009)

I'm in the uk. Used to have virgin cable on the 20mg package, but they started playing around with all the cables, etc so my speed varies.


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## AltecV1 (Aug 4, 2009)

exacly what to you guys use so much speed for


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