# How many GB do you use a month? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 29, 2004, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-gb-do-you-use-a-month/231718 "2004-02-29T05:56:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![suezeekay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@suezeekay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suezeekay)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-gb-do-you-use-a-month/231718/1 "2004-02-29T05:56:25Z")
I was considering trying Vonnage, a broadband telephone company, but I don’t have broadband. I checked out a local provider and for $21.00/mo I can get 2GB (up/down) but I have no idea how much my usage is. Will the telephone count? Someone is usually online surfing 3-6 hours a day, but nothing heavy duty going up and down. ---
**Author:** ![maleinblack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@maleinblack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maleinblack)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-gb-do-you-use-a-month/231718/2 "2004-02-29T11:15:31Z")
Normal surfing and website browsing for like 6 hours every day should easily be within 2GB that you plan to get. If you dont download anything at all or download stuff very rarely I am sure even 1GB will suffice. I dont think telephone usage (normal calls) will be counted towards your 2GB usage because 2GB will be the data transfer limit. To answer the OP, I use like 20GB a month, but my broadband ISP has no data transfer limit, and the PC is on 24/7 for like 10 days at a stretch downloading something or the other.(Well downloading stuff is the best part of having broadband!) ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-gb-do-you-use-a-month/231718/3 "2004-02-29T11:39:07Z")
I just checked my account and my downloads are about 800 meg a month. My current session (I’m only on here and at my account page at the ISP) has downloaded 435K in 18 minutes. Refreshing the account page added 38K. I don’t make much use of P2P so most of my data is page views. It seems to be about 3M per hour so 2G will give you about 20 hours a day of my kind of usage. Who needs sleep? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-gb-do-you-use-a-month/231718/4 "2004-02-29T11:48:49Z")
Uploads are about 1/4 of downloads each month. I also realised the 800MB month included Christmas holidays when I spent more time on the net. This month is only 500MB and 100MB. ---
**Author:** ![suezeekay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@suezeekay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suezeekay)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-gb-do-you-use-a-month/231718/5 "2004-03-01T04:26:41Z")
Thanks everyone. So it seems like this would be more than sufficient. I usually have about 700-800 minutes a month on the phone to my family, who are all out of state so it would be great to pay a flat fee instead of being ripped off by Verizon and AT&T. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-gb-do-you-use-a-month/231718/6 "2004-03-01T05:05:17Z")
> [@maleinblack](#): > > I dont think telephone usage (normal calls) will be counted towards your 2GB usage because 2GB will be the data transfer limit. With Vonage, it most certainly would. Your sentence doesn’t make any sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![maleinblack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@maleinblack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maleinblack)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-gb-do-you-use-a-month/231718/7 "2004-03-01T05:37:42Z")
> [@Eleusis](#): > > With Vonage, it most certainly would. Your sentence doesn’t make any sense to me. Being a non-American I didnt know exactly what Vonage was. A little bit of googling has cleared the picture. Sorry.