According to Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), the average Australian internet user downloads 6BG of data per month. How does that compare to your downloading habits?
Lifehacker’s Angus Kidman thought the number would be higher, but I’m actually surprised it isn’t lower. I had always imagined that most internet users mainly used the internet for browsing – but I guess more and more services are requiring increased bandwidth these days.
I have a pretty huge cap, which I often exceed, but there are some months where I barely download anything at all.
What about you guys – how much do you reckon you download a month?
Trjn
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:32 AMI’m above average!
We have a 100gb peak, 100gb off peak plan. Pretty often we’re skirting the limits and have been capped in the dying days of the month pretty frequently.
Whatever limit my household has, we will use up. Especially if they count uploads.
My newfound love of SC2 streams definitely isn’t helping.
Pioneer
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 12:48 PMSame cap as my house, except with iiNet you can double it if you tie your phone line with them, which is what we’re about to do.
And we still get shaped. Thank you, Steam sales.
Beavwa
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 1:04 PMChange your region in steam to one of the 3fl servers and most of it will be freezone. I’ve smashed at least 50GB of unmetered traffic since the sales started.
AnonymousPessimist
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 2:22 PMTo my understanding the 3FL freezone is also not shaped, regardless of whether you’ve gone over your quota or not.
Steve
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 8:04 PMThat’s right, nothing in the freezone is shaped.
Trjn
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 1:14 PMWe are with iiNet on the phone bundle. Great value but it doesn’t matter what my download quota is, it will get used up.
Pirate jim
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 5:51 PMim with iinet on the nbn and while i have not been downloading much recently due to one of my pcs being broken and also lack of hardrive space i would easily exceed my 1tb quota each month
once i got an email from iinet saying they were impressed with my ability to use their internet (used up the 500gig offpeak in 2 days) and they refreshed my quota for me :P
Richard
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:32 AMI’m glad to see that my TPG unlimited plan is doing its part.
bazuden
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 1:31 PMI’m on unlimited too.
Before that I was doing about 80 gig a month. I know I was downloading way more than that when I switched, but I think my downloads have dropped a lot over the last 6 months. I think I’ve almost downloaded the whole Internet!
InfinityEX
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 1:41 PMUnlimited bandwagon ;]
Joshy206
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 4:15 PMWhats up tpg unlimited bros.
I reckon I do about 300GB a month, which is only 50 times more than average. Not too bad.
Arata
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 4:51 PMYEP! Since jumping on this I’m getting close to 1tb some months. Depends on how much Mechaike want to do specials and if I can get it in 1080p.
brendan
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:34 AM78gb last month
Splinton
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:37 AM200gb deal with Internode. Have never gone over that, but I’ve come close plenty of times!
Fuery
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:38 AMA bit more than 90gb last month
thistler
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:38 AMI think I get through at least 60-70 gig. We watch tv through iView(un-metered though) and stream movies and shows through Netflix. Radio is streamed all day. Plus all the software and work files uploaded/downloaded. Dropbox syncs a lot of shared work as well. I chewed up a gig or two yesterday downloading a tonne of photoshop and maya files.
watsonega
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:39 AM141Gb last month. This month only 61Gb (31%).
Fenixius
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:39 AMWow. That’s higher than I expected, too. I thought it’d average out to be a lot lower. 125PB is pretty massive for a population this small, and with such nasty infrastructure due to distance/isolation.
I download probably about 70GB myself, my brother probably pulls about 40GB, and my folks would be <10GB (ie: too small to count :P). So call my household 120GB on average? 30GB/Ea.
Bollo
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:40 AMMy mate smashes 250GB every single month on ADSL2.
Klutar
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:40 AMProbably about 6gb every 2 days here.
*hugs fibre optic*
Klutar
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:44 AMWonder if it counts upload data?
I run a Minecraft server at home.
abodi
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:41 AM6 gig a month as thats all i get on stupid wireless internet. i could certainly use alot more though.
i can’t even update my steam games as the amount i need to download now exceeds 20 gig.
:(
Can I be Anonymous?
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:41 AMWe use around 850 – 870 GB per month on a 1 TB plan, but keep in mind the internet connection is shared by four people :D
MattC
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:41 AMWe have unlimited off-peak downloads… So… Yeah…
I don’t want to work out how much has been downloaded, but it is waaay above average.
Gordon
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:42 AM40-100gb
Treyze
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:43 AMI’m averaging 3 to 6 gig a day, though that is factoring in all data usage in my house [laptops, phones, PS3, xbox, etc... admittedly those are all me though].
I must admit that I am surprised that the average is so high as well but I guess that just goes to show you how much data Youtube and junk like that burns through.
And porn. Waste a lotta data on porn.
Chazz
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:43 AM6gb?
I download 150gb on my own in a month :S
Jake
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:43 AMBout 150-200GB a month.
Justin
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:43 AM107Gb last month. That was kind of a slow month.
Richard Smack
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:44 AMWell i just got capped on bigponds 500 gig deal :P
oggob
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:44 AMWe have a 60GB On/60GB Off deal, and from what I can tell it’s only the greater of the two which counts towards 100% of the monthly quota, but if either hits 100%, then it’s capped regardless of what the other has available left.
Generally all good downloads are scheduled to run in the offpeak anyway, so we do our best to even it out.
We’ve got 2 weeks left in the month and we are at 52%, plus we are going away next week, so we’ll have no trouble this month.
minusInfinite
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:45 AMCurrently we have a 350GB limit shared between 3 house mates and we all give it a good effort of using 300GB or so per month. I have know idea what exactly we use it one but we use it :P
MadDogMike
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 2:35 PMStreaming porn. :P
Scared
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:46 AM100GB+ every month (up to 150GB).
The average for gamers would be around 50GB I think (taking into account low caps for Telstra) and the average for ‘the rest’ would be much much lower.
FatShady
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:46 AMYep normally id be above average but only in the 10gb+ range. But when i buy games online like the borderlands pack which was 12gb in one hit, Infamous was 7gb on PS3 welcome back…
I have a 100gb plan and i never look at my quota any more.
Fistbeard McTavish
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:47 AM400gb plan that I rarely break the halfway mark at, but that’s because that plan was $20 dearer than my 100gb monthly plan that I’d frequently skirt right near the edge of.
You would be surprised how much data you chew up when you and your ethnically diverse buddies go keyboard-surfing through cyberspace.
Joshy206
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 4:19 PMDoes being ethnically diverse increase one’s bandwidth usage?
Sam
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:47 AMWe had 50/50gb (on-peak-off-peak) went over it, every month, on 200/200 now and still use it all nearly, used 100gb in the first 5 days :P
Fistbeard McTavish
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 11:53 AM“That porn ain’t gonna download itself!”
James Mac
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 1:39 PMNever a truer word spoken.