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How much do I download ?


AlanHo
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Is it possible to determine how many Mb's you download from the web each day, week or month ?

I am on Blueyonder broadband and never download music or play games etc so I guess that my download volume is modest.

I am aware that other ISP's offer broadband products at lower costs which have a limit as to how much you are allowed to download and wonder whether I am getting value for money at present.

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That is a really good question Alan and I have no idea!!! I am with an ISP that does have a cap... or we had the cap imposed on us. It is a shared connection and whilst I don't download much at all.... the other pc is forever downloading all sorts of stuff... and we haven't been contacted yet to say we have gone over our limit so, and I'm guessing, normal surfing and downloading of web pages and emails isn't going to get you anywhere near a limit.

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Is it possible to determine how many Mb's you download from the web each day, week or month ?

I am on Blueyonder broadband and never download music or play games etc so I guess that my download volume is modest.

I am aware that other ISP's offer broadband products at lower costs which have a limit as to how much you are allowed to download and wonder whether I am getting value for money at present.

Don't know too much of this side of computing, but wouldn't think you have anything at all to worry about. I don't think that e-mails etc count as a download, and the odd program or two should not take you over any limits. I think that limits are only applied to stop the people who want to download loads of so called music, and then sell illegal C.D's at car boot sales. I don't think that surfing is downloading either, but will stand correcting on all the above, by one of the resident egg heads.

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Anything that you receive through your Internet connection, whether it be emails, viewing any website, applications, streaming media, etc - Anything that your computer receives is classed as a download. You would associate the downloading of an application as a DOWNLOAD but it is actually everything that gets sent to you.

There are applications that you can download that will tally up the amount of MB you've downloaded. There was a great little app that could do this, but cannot remember it.

EDIT: A quick google: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/emsabandwidth.html [not the app above] give it a try?

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Further to my earlier posting - this is the results I am getting with the broadband monitor suggested by powerless.

The programme places a small window on your desktop (which can be switched on and off) that displays the number of KB's downloaded and uploaded since you booted the computer. It re-sets to zero each time you turn the computer off so if you want to cumulate your usage over a period of days, you need a notebook and calculator.

I have been surprised at the volumes displayed on my computer. I am on blueyonder broadband and the download meter is changing all the time - even when I am not active on the web. It appears to download a minimum of about 1,800 KB per hour - which significantly increases when you use Email or browse the web.

As an experiment I left the computer on overnight and in a period of 9 hours the computer downloaded 15,960 KB and uploaded 115 KB.

I then used Mailwasher and Outlook for my morning Email scrutiny - in 2 minutes I downloaded 660 KB and uploaded 198 KB

My usual 10 minute browse on this Forum - including 1 posting cost me a download of 1,160 KB and an upload of 179 KB.

Yesterday I downloaded a patch for my Pinnacle video editor - the patch size was 16.1 mB. During the time this download took place the broadband monitor registered a total download of 16,460 KB and an upload of 204 KB.

My guess is that over a month - with average usage - my download volume is likely to total 600MB. (20 MB per day)

Hence I could - if I so wished - move to one of the capped ISP's.

Hmmm.

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If I hover the cursor over the connection indicator in the tray (the two monitors icon) I get a box telling me who I'm connected to (BT Openworld Broadband), the speed of my connection (1.1Mbps), the number of bytes sent (3,591,832) and the number of bytes received (151,890,615) since the connection has been made.

If I double click on the icon, I get a larger box with the same info and a tabbed page with loads of technical stuff as well.

Try it yourself.

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With NTL cable I can simply just pull the plug out of the back of the modem, so there is NO access to online at all. Can you disconnect your modem when it is not in use? I am not technically minded regarding the hardware on computers, and hope that what I have said makes sense.

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pops

Good thought but will not work for me - I am on broadband and there is no icon in the tray.

andsome

I can pull the plug from the broadband modem - same as you. In fact I did it last evening when we had a severe lightning storm - just in case. 18 months ago a friend had his computer totally frazzled (or is it frizzled - I know it began with the letter f) with a lightning strike - so I now take precautions and practice safe surfing.

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pops

Good thought but will not work for me - I am on broadband and there is no icon in the tray.

I am on 1Mbps broadband and the icon is there for me.

You can activate it by going to Control Panel -> Network Connections -> click on the active connection and tick the box "Show icon in notification area when connected"

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Thanks pops - gave it a try. Yet another day when I have learned something.

When I hover on the icon I get a small box with just the connection speed showing 100 Mbps. I have to click on the icon to see the bytes sent and received.

It is interesting that the total bytes sent and received when compared with the Emsa Broadband Monitor programme are lower values (about 10% lower). I suspect that your method is probably the correct one.

Thanks again.

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When I hover on the icon I get a small box with just the connection speed showing 100 Mbps.  I have to click on the icon to see the bytes sent and received.

Interesting!

On my USB modem setup I get all the details as I said above. On my router I get as you do.

Anyway, glad it worked.

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