Bandwidth info

[JohnG]

I'm using plain ol' DSL through Sonic since I'm way too far out in NW Santa Rosa to get Fusion. Been with Sonic for many years and the service has been great, but circumstances have changed and I find myself needing more speed. Since I'm topped-out with the Elite package, I really have no choice but to look at Comcast or U-verse - neither of which I'm fond of, but there it is.

I'm a bit concerned due to U-verse and Comcast both having monthly bandwidth caps in the 250GB range. Those are supposedly not enforced at the moment but that could change at any time. Is there a way to find out my current usage levels through Sonic? I have no clue if I'm using 80GB or 800Gb or somewhere in between. My family "cut the cord" a while back and use NetFlix, Amazine, Hulu, etc instead. With 3 kids, school, laptops, smartphones, and lots of streaming of HD content, I worry about our usage and possibly hitting those caps once we switch. I checked the Member Tools area but that seems not to apply to my situation - I'm a basic user, and don't host any of my own data.

Again, I wish I could go Fusion and call it a day. I'd gladly pay more for the reliability of Sonic.net instead of some corporate behemoth. But it looks like I have little choice.

[dane]

Is there a way to find out my current usage levels through Sonic? I have no clue if I'm using 80GB or 800Gb or somewhere in between. My family "cut the cord" a while back and use NetFlix, Amazine, Hulu, etc instead. With 3 kids, school, laptops, smartphones, and lots of streaming of HD content, I worry about our usage and possibly hitting those caps once we switch.

I wish we had Fusion available where you are located!

If you are not a pay-TV household and instead consume all of your video online, and if you have HD and multiple family members viewing content, it seems likely that you could exceed the typical 150GB to 250GB caps. That's the main point of the caps, to prevent you from replacing your TV subscription which they sell as part of a bundle with an Internet-only service at a lower cost.

[Guest]

You will most certainly hit those caps easily. 250 GB is nothing these days. I'm a heavy internet user focus on watching anime. With me being the sole user of my Internet and YouTube + Hulu + Crunchyroll I can hit 500 GB minimum per month.

[cdkeen]

You may be able to track your download/upload totals through your router's administrative interface.

[msg]

Thank you for the replies.

Dane, if I had any hope of Fusion reaching me soon, I'd wait for it. But I'm something like 7,000 feet behind the remote terminal. So not a lot of hope.

My router doesn't seem to track bandwidth. I did find a statement by Netflix where they list HD streams as using 3GB per hour. I assume that's their "SuperHD" which is sort of a worst case scenario - surely some of their HD content uses less than that. Regardless, if I use 3GB per hour as an example, times an average of 3 or 4 hours per day (which is not hard when you add up usage from all family members), plus some more standard internet usage... it's not hard to imagine we'd exceed the cap fairly regularly.

Unfortunately I don't see much in the way of options. I can keep my Sonic DSL and have speed issues. I can go Comcast Business and pay $70/month for 18/3 speeds with no bandwidth caps. Or I can get "standard" Comcast with a lower price and take my chances. None of these seem ideal.

[bobrk]

Yup, it is the tragedy of our times. I could have written this same note.