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Typical Home Bandwidth Usage?
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Sep 01, 2008 02:12 AM
from the what's-in-your-tubes dept.
from the what's-in-your-tubes dept.
Broadband writes "With a growing number of internet service providers imposing hard bandwidth caps, I too will soon find myself with a limit. In typical Slashdot fashion I use the Internet for everything from movie streaming to online backup and just realized I have no idea how much data traverses my pipes on a monthly basis. While I have wised up and installed a bandwidth monitoring solution, it'll be some time until I have a normalized average. So my question is: What is the average monthly data usage in your household? How many people share the connection and is there anything you've found essential yet bandwidth intensive that you couldn't live without? (E.g. VOIP, movie downloads, streaming audio, etc.)"
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[+]
Comcast To Cap Data Transfers At 250 GB In October 939 comments
JagsLive writes with this story from PC Magazine: "Comcast has confirmed that all residential customers will be subject to a 250 gigabyte per month data limit starting October 1. 'This is the same system we have in place today,' Comcast wrote in an amendment to its acceptable use policy. 'The only difference is that we will now provide a limit by which a customer may be contacted.' The cable provider insisted that 250 GB is "an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. ... As part of our pre-existing policy, we will continue to contact the top users of our high-speed Internet service and ask them to curb their usage,' Comcast said Thursday. 'If a customer uses more than 250 GB and is one of the top users of our service, he or she may be contacted by Comcast to notify them of excessive use,' according to the AUP."
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first proust! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You just hit the bandwidth cap. Be glad that your sentence happened to end there or else
Re:first proust! (Score:4, Funny)
A typical slashdot user?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:first proust! (Score:5, Informative)
Have you been saving that up in some kind of .txt file, waiting for your chance at first post?
It's a quote from Proust.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/proust.htm [kirjasto.sci.fi]
Hence the subject "First Proust!"
If Monty Python had made this joke anyone repeating it here would have got modded up.
Parent
I have true unlimited (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't get my connectivity through a major provider. I get dsl through sonic.net. They are a AT&T reseller, but with huge advantages. They have not once ever mentioned bandwidth limits. I have static IPs, and I am allowed to run servers (mail, web, etc). Of course, I pay more than the average joe-user. About $70/month, but I feel it's worth it.
I've never measured my usage, but your question has me curious. I'll install a meter and get back to you in a month. LOL
Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Informative)
Ahem, Speakeasy...
Ok well full disclosure i work for Speakeasy but there are no bandwidth caps. Of course you pay more for service but you get lower latency, no bandwidth cap and i can personally attest that all the backbone lines that speakeasy runs on are undersold compared to other ISPs.
Like anyhting in life you pay for what you get. If you pay $20 a month for internet expect to get $20 worth.
Parent
Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Informative)
Then they were bought by Best Buy [speakeasy.net]. I learned about it right here on Slashdot [slashdot.org]. It took me a while but I dropped them by the end of that year. And yes, my decision to drop them was based 100% on who their new owner was.
In my area, Speakeasy had always just been a reseller of Covad's services. So, I went with Covad instead and cut out the middle-man. It's been about a year now and I have no complaints. The only thing I had trouble with was technician incompetence during the installation. I had a similar experience during the installation of my original Speakeasy service (which, as I said, was always just re-sold Covad service, so it came as no surprise to me).
Just like it was with Speakeasy though, once the installation stupidity had been bulldozed through, everything has been fine with Covad.
I will do everything I can to avoid supporting the Best Buy corporation. Hence no more money of mine will go to Speakeasy. They are absolutely not the company they used to be.
It doesn't surprise me at all that a Best Buy employee would post here with praise for their Speakeasy brand. That's what you are, anonymous coward
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Re:I have true unlimited (Score:4, Informative)
In my area, Speakeasy had always just been a reseller of Covad's services. So, I went with Covad instead and cut out the middle-man.
Strictly speaking, Speakeasy resells Covad's DSL provisioning (i.e. running the DSLAM's). Speakeasy provides the actual internet connectivity, DNS and NTP services. I'm not sure who is responsible for the connection between the DSLAM and Speakeasy's nodes.
I could also be said that Covad is in the business of reselling the ILEC's local loop from the CO to the customer.
Parent
Re:I have true unlimited (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're saying that not only were you paying speakeasy late, you were also considerably behind on your power bill as well (no utility is going to shut you off without warning and not just because you're 15 days late on a single payment). Can I assume you were also very late (read: months) on other bills as well?
I've had what you mention happen to me before: you go to the bank and fill out an affidavit of unauthorized withdrawal. As you say, it is a federal crime and the bank will investigate and you'll most likely get your money back. Since you didn't mention anything like this I'll assume you didn't. Is it possible that you had an agreement with speakeasy that gave them permission to debit the account if you were significantly late with payment? Read the fine print on your contract: most corporations aren't that stupid. You probably agreed to it somewhere whether you realize it or not.
As far as the calls from the credit department goes: you may not have asked for credit, but by allowing you to pay late, they were certainly extending it to you. When BB took them over, somebody in Finance probably noticed that a lot of customers were paying late and they were told to get their Receivables aging down to improve cashflow. You're a business, you should understand this.
Sorry, no cookie!
Parent
Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Informative)
Wow you have three posts since you registered that account and all three are ads for "onlinebackupvault.com"
How about not spamming?
Parent
Re:I have true unlimited (Score:4, Insightful)
Another issue is all the traffic generated by break-in attempts, spam and a lot of other junk traffic.
Or if I happen to have a small web server for personal amusement and it happens to get slashdotted...
Those are really going to blow the bandwidth cap.
It works fine with a bandwidth cap for plain surfing, but the net is more than that. And if I have my phone completely over VoIP, then they will cut the emergency call possibility by having a cap.
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Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh for fucks sake. Comcast is putting a 250GB cap on it. I, in Canada have a Shaw business account with the X-Treem or whatever it is option that gives me a grand total of 130GB a month transfer. I run a web server at home, I also run a backup server that backs up no less than 3 remote sites to my place twice a week just for geographical distribution (house is about 35 miles from downtown). I also download a bunch of things including audiovisual entertainments, and other things, surf the web, have people try and break in to my webserver, and a hundred other things. And I never exceed my cap. Ever. Once, with 5 days to go, and Shaw's customer service site reporting that my monthly usage was only 30GB that month, I thought to myself just for fun, I should see how much I can download in 5 days, after all that's 100GB going to waste, right :). Didn't put more than a moderate dent in it.
You, if you are doing what you describe above will NEVER "blow the bandwidth cap". Especially if it's twice what I can't use up.
The only way this will inconvenience anyone is if they are not a "moderate or heavy surfer" and are in fact running torrent downloads 24/7/365 pulling a constant load of 100kBps or more.
Think about this. Comcast's cap is 250GB, yes? There is 2,592,000 seconds in 30 days. 250,000 MB / 2,592,000 = .096451. That means to exceed your cap, you must have a constant network load of .096 megabytes PER SECOND all month. I SERIOUSLY doubt that's the case if you are using it as described.
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Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Informative)
Actually between DirecTV's VOD service (which uses the Internet to stream video to the DVR) and just a little bit of torrenting I could conceivably hit 250GB. The same for people who use NetFlix streaming.
Parent
Re:Does it really matter if you ISP is worse? (Score:5, Informative)
Let's instead work to force ISPs to be honest. If you say I have 6mbps (or whatever) of bandwidth and a 24/7 connection to the Internet, then I should be able to use that 6mbps * 24 * 7. The fact that this may cause Comcast's network some add'l work or problems is not the customer's concern.
And it won't be your ISP's problem when your $30 internet goes to $300 a month because your ISP had to buy a huge chunk of upstream capacity, will it?
I'll spell it out for you:
ISP's oversubscribe their upstream links.
That's how they can make a living.
You can buy a T1 for yourself if you like and cut out the eeeevil money-grabbing ISP. Oh look, they seem to start at about $600/mo. There's your bandwidth right there, all you can eat. Help yourself, but don't forget to pay the bill.
Parent
Re:Does it really matter if you ISP is worse? (Score:5, Informative)
ISPs get their bandwidth from PEERING AGREEMENTS, if you don't know what that is, I'll spell it out for you:
THEY THROW A FIBRE FROM EACH BIG ISP TO A BIG SWITCH AND EXCHANGE TRAFFIC FREELY
That is correct: they buy nothing and sell you internet. What you're paying is operational costs, NOT product. A T1 line has nothing to do with this because the bonus you pay is for GOOD support and guaranteed service.
Parent
Re:Does it really matter if you ISP is worse? (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, do you think "throwing a fibre" costs nothing? Usually, the big ISPs prefer private peering to the public peering model, so they have to "throw a fibre" between each of their routers in a city. That ain't cheap. They also have to pay for the cross-country and cross-continental lines connecting their own routers. Have you ever seen the costs associated with laying a fiber between New York and London? That ain't cheap, either.
Second, ISPs have TONS of equipment to support their operations. They don't buy NetGear switches, either -- it's all Cisco/Juniper/Alcatel kinda stuff.
Finally, not all peering arrangements are settlement free. It totally depends on the size of your ISP and the size of the other guy's ISP.
You seem to be under the impression that the big ISPs aren't spending any money on their networks. Perhaps you should take a look at their SEC filings and see how much capital they spend.
Parent
Re:Does it really matter if you ISP is worse? (Score:5, Interesting)
ISP's oversubscribe their upstream links.
That's how they can make a living.
Exactly. Like most networks, it's simply not cost effective to build it to handle the maximum peak traffic.
For an example, we have around 800 computers with gigabit ethernet connected to 40 gigabit edge switches connected to one central gigabit switch.
Most applications are run directly from an application server that has two 1 gigabit ethernet connections to this central switch.
This link is thus hugely oversubscribed.
But having gigabit all the way to the workstations cut the time to start applications down to between a fifth and a tenth compared to having 100mbit edge switches with gigabit uplink, since it is unusual for people to start the same applications at the exact same time and using the same functions at the exact same time.
It's the same with low cost, high speed internet services.
You get the benefit of fast response and short load times, but at a much, much lower cost-level than a service that could offer this speed 100% of the time to 100% of the customers.
As long as the ISP's upfront and honest with the fact that they can't offer all its customers 100% utilization 24/7, thus having a cap, it should be alright.
If they have a cap but don't tell you about it, that's when you should start looking for another ISP.
Parent
Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt I'd find a use for that speed, anyway.
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Weird ass restrictions (Score:5, Interesting)
There doesn't seem to be any restrictions around here. It's never been verboten to run servers, or download/upload as much as you can. ... positive [iliad.fr] (pdf).
That's because my ISP [www.free.fr] has heavily invested in its infrastructure, and the results are
If US ISPs spent half as much on lawyers and lobbyists, maybe they could afford bigger series of pipes.
Parent
Re:Weird ass restrictions (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, 'tubes' run from your house to the data center. "Pipes" run from data center to data center.
Parent
Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Funny)
I get dsl through sonic.net. They are a AT&T reseller, but with huge advantages.
Like tech support from a hedgehog with blue spiky hair?
Parent
Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish they would expand their fiber offering down my way (Dublin). I'd kill for that.
Sonic tech support is the best I've ever seen. When I first signed up and was on the phone for basic info (like ip address, dns, etc) they asked "what operating system are you running?" I gritted my teeth and answered honestly, "Linux." Instead of the usual "we don't support that," the response was, "Cool! What distro?" When they lost one of their major switches, I called to ask them if the problem was on my end or their end (at this point I didn't know it was a dead switch), the owner of the company took my call! They didn't act stupid or pretend nothing was wrong. They told me they had a hardware failure and expected everything back to normal in 30 minutes to an hour. The had things back up nearer to the low end of the estimate. I'm sure you know all this since you are a customer. I'm telling this for everyone else's benefit so they will consider signing up with sonic.
Finally, they never pretend everything is perfect and they never have a problem. Information about problems and outages are always published on their website. I don't expect perfection. I love a company that is honest. I will stick with sonic for a long time.
Parent
Re:I have true unlimited (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
I guess my ISP is responsiblee (Score:5, Informative)
When my ISP added caps, they started by giving statements of the last three months of each person's usage, and did that for a few months before adding the cap. It made life quite nice.
Turns out, I rarely go over 20GB in a month. I was basically two persons: one 14 year old girl watching youtube, facebook, and uploading hundreds of photographs; while I run a programming business downloading software and uploading text files.
Don't know if that helps.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty much every Aussie ISP will break it down into days used, and some will even be able to tell you what ports you thrashed.
I have this nice little program in my system tray that shows me how much I have used in my "month", how many days remaining, how much I have been using per day and how much I have remaining per day.
But back to the OP, about 65-75GB a month between 2 people.
Re:I guess my ISP is responsiblee (Score:5, Funny)
Well, at least now we have one data point for the typical bandwith usage of a small Russian mafia operation.
Parent
150GB (Score:5, Interesting)
I already have a cap (Yes I'm Australian, don't start the whole "OMG WE'RE SICK OF AUSTRALIANS IN SLASHDOT" BS. We're the best friends you'll have now since we've been on caps for years and can tell you how best to stay within them). It's a relatively large one compared to others, domestically at 150GB. I use it all up mainly on torrents for things like movies, games and the odd program and Linux iso.
It's not hard to monitor usage especially if most of it comes through downloads and not through browsing. Browsing can be a killer. Especially these days when a lot of sites have embedded video ads. Those, plus 5-10MB animated .gif's that you don't expect can really eat into your bandwidth. Best solution is Firefox with Adblocker and NoScript. Will save you a lot of headache when you check your usage and wonder "Where did all these GB's come from!".
Paying to view ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Those, plus 5-10MB animated .gif's that you don't expect can really eat into your bandwidth. Best solution is Firefox with Adblocker and NoScript.
When your usage is caped, you start to realize that you are _PAYING_ to view those annoying banners.
Parent
Re:Paying to view ads (Score:4, Funny)
Not when your neighbour has Wireless.
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No limit (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No limit (Score:5, Funny)
I guess there should be a "-5 Swedish" option when talking about home network connections.
In their eastern neighbour Finland I pay about ... 0-10€ per month 1Mbps (HomePNA) line. (I'm yet to receive a bill for that connection after 9 months, no idea if they have just forgot me or if it's included in the rent.)
Sweden is not the riches country in the world but somehow they have been able to pull great stunt making Internet truly "free" for everyone.. As in you don't have to have incomes that allow you to pay 1000€ per month for a such connection.
Where I live a 10/10 Mbps (fiber) connection with no restraints costs about 1000€/month plus 1500€ installation.
Parent
1.5GB up, 24GB down (Score:4, Informative)
bandwidth-intensive and essential stuff: none except occasional heavy youtube usage (example [youtube.com]), but I'm impatient, so I have a fast connection. Also planning on using Freenet at some point in the future (on principle, because I dislike the current trends in wiretapping legislation).
I don't like bandwidth caps... (Score:5, Funny)
Get your terminology straight (Score:4, Informative)
Bandwidth is not usage, it is a rate.
My usage (Score:4, Funny)
Does your ISP already know? (Score:5, Informative)
If your ISP has accounts with caps, then the chances are they'll have a page where people can go check the usage on their accounts. Log in to your ISP's 'Customer Portal' if they have one, and you can probably find out.
I've got an uncapped account and my provider has this - they've got historical data going back to May 2006.
10GB no-extra-money limit (Score:3, Informative)
The "cap" for my New Zealand flat is 10GB ($55), of which I use about 4GB/month, most of which is Debian updates. If we go over that, it's $3/GB (note: prices in NZD). However, I do spend most of my day at the local university, and don't need to pay [an additional amount on top of my standard fees] for Internet access there.
50GB Down & 5GB Up (Score:5, Informative)
100GB Down & 4GB Up (this month)
Skype has replaced my phone
Joost & legal sites have replaced my Cable TV
Streaming music all day long
Games - online shooters
Web Browsing/RSS feeds
Not an issue for a typical home. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in BC we've always had caps. I think they've doubled more recently from 30 to 60gb.
With lots of web usage and many large files I haven't had a problem. If you are on cable and are uploading at max speed 24/7 you'll pass your limit, but otherwise most homes should be fine with the smallest of caps.
People complaining about comcast's 250gb limit must be doing it out of principle because that is an extreme amount to use for non business.
I would actually say that mine(adsl with telus) doesn't offer enough bandwidth to realistically reach the cap. One big download seems to clog the pipes these days.
Surprisingly little (Score:5, Informative)
The average household really won't use much bandwidth. I was surprised by this, when my parents got broadband a couple of years ago - even with 4 persons at home (not including me), they used only some 250 MB (download) per month. In fact, they often used more upload than download, because of sending photo's to an online photo printing service.
They do use e-mail and the web really quite a lot (hours a day), also my younger brothers play (online) games all the time, both browser-based and otherwise.
This was a couple of years ago when youtube didn't exist yet; I'd assume the bandwidth usage would be a bit higher now. But unless you start downloading movies (they rent DVD's instead) and lots of music, you don't use a whole lot apparently.
I used to share an apartment with 2 other students; we averaged about 1 GB/day, including lots of messing about with Linux distro's and the like, but obviously not just that.
So I don't know, I'd rather have the 250 GB/month cap than some undefined FUP. It's hardly like 250 GB is a completely unreasonable limit. You will never unconsciously download that much, except perhaps if you're trying to keep up with alt.binaries.* on a daily basis or something.
(The problem is of course that once there is a strictly defined limit, given the usual lack of competition they will keep lowering it unless you are willing to pay more)
Download caps are not as bad as they are made out (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi all. My first post on Slashdot even though I've been reading it since the late 90s. Finally got around to signing up. I'm Australian and as most Slashdotters know, Australian ISPs all impose caps.
Personally, I'm on a 25 GB per month cap (after which my speed is slowed, but I am not charged more). My monthly usage generally ends up at around 18-22 GB, without me needing to monitor my usage or worry about it. My connection supports 2 people who are both heavy browsers. Plenty of youtube, streaming radio etc. Perhaps a TV show from a torrent every second day. Skype on the weekends to call my family overseas.
Basically, unless you are a MAJOR torrent leecher, you will find that you won't have any problems whatsoever staying under 250 GB (Comcast). I have one tenth of that cap, download movies/TV shows every other day, surf heavily, run a home FTP server, but I have no issues staying under 25 GB. Keep in mind that my uploads are not capped (not sure if Comcast's 250 GB includes uploads or not).
A poster above mentioned the issue of people launching attacks on your connection that flood you with unrequested packets. Yes this would be counted against your usage. But I've never heard of it being an issue...certainly hasn't happened to me in my 8+ years of using capped broadband. In the very unlikely circumstance that it did happen, call the ISP and they will be able to see the attack in their logs, and here, they would be reasonable and not charge you for it.
Now onto the subject of why I think caps, provided they are clearly stated, are generally a good thing!
Contrary to some people's knee-jerk reaction however, the reason Australia has caps is not because it's a technology backwater. Far from it actually - DSL speeds here are generally faster than in most parts of the US (although I admit, FiOS rocks, where it's available).
Australian bandwidth caps basically exist because:
a) most English speaking content comes from the US (i.e. most traffic is international, vs mostly domestic in the US); and
b) we are an island a long way from anywhere. Those undersea cables don't pay for themselves. Peering and transit costs here a an order of magnitude higher than in the US. ISPs thus have to impose monthly download caps to stop a few high volume users sending them bankrupt.
But on the plus side, because we pay for what we use, there are a number of advantages. My ISP, like most in Australia:
- Is far less contended than most US ISPs. Download speeds are always meet my connected speed. I have an 8/1 Mbps connection, and I get that speed, all the time (~850 kb/s downstream and slightly over 100 kb/s up). Whereas some US ISPs, when I've used them, seem sluggish in peak hours.
- Never fiddles with my traffic. No bittorrent deprioritising, no deep packet inspection, no random throttling or any of that nonsense. In the US though, well you know all about the shenanigans some of your ISPs have been up to.
- Allows me to run anything whatsoever on my connection. Whereas most US DSL providers I have read the AUP for have 20 clauses about how you cant run servers etc.
The other thing to note is that because we get charged for what we use, ISPs can allow us faster speeds here, without worrying that we will completely trash their network by leeching 24/7. In the US, your DSL connections mostly seem to be 3 or 6 Mbps, with maybe 768kbps up. In Australia, DSL is generally from 8, up to 24 Mbps down (ADSL2+), and if you have Annex M support on your modem/ISP, you can get up to 2.5 Mbps upload. Personally, I'd rather faster speeds with a cap, than slow speeds but unlimited downloads and annoying packet tampering.
The final thing to note is that virtually all ISPs here have massive download mirrors which aren't counted against your quota. For instance, my ISP has full Sourceforge, MajorGeeks etc. mirrors that contain most large things I would ever want to download anyway.
So yeah - don't fear your (very generous!) download caps over there. It's good news for you. Get the 0.1% of people off the network that abuse the hell out of it, and speeds will be faster for the rest of you.
Re:Download caps are not as bad as they are made o (Score:5, Funny)
They only get laid once. Then they get used repeatedly. I'm sure they pay for themselves & then some.
That phrase is the perfect description of Slashdot as a whole.
Parent
Re:Download caps are not as bad as they are made o (Score:4, Informative)
It takes a good 10-15 years to recover the cost actually. But the ISPs aren't shafting us, I don't think. A decent sized download allowance is very affordable (which wasn't the case 5 years ago, but things are a lot better now).
Also we literally can't build international links quick enough to keep up with the rapid increase in traffic over the last few years (youtube etc.). In the long term, they will pay for themselves but it DOES take a long time.
Remember, you are building a 10,000 km long cable to service an Australian population less than a single large US city.
Parent
Check your router/firewall (Score:5, Interesting)
Most half-decent routers and firewalls keep rudimentary port statistics. According to my router I'm using about 30GB per month on my ADSL2+ line, and my family does little or no movie/music downloads. But I do run remote desktop sessions and remote backup (rsync) on the link and I get ISO's occasionally.
Simple answer: don't tolerate caps, jump ship! (Score:3, Insightful)
Every area covered by cable is also covered by DSL and satellite.
Don't tolerate bandwidth caps.. when your ISP imposes them, jump ship!
Even if the other ISP has caps it impacts the bottom line on your original.
Enough people do this and they won't dare try that crap.
Also, FYI, my bandwidth usage annually is rather spiky .. i'll use minimal browsing 2 months, then fill up a 300 gig drive the next.
I wont tolerate comcast pulling this cap crap, and neither should you.
avg 25~GB /mo last 6mos (Score:5, Informative)
lots of VoIP ..fair amount of gaming .. fair amount of downloading distros / patches / updates..etc lots of Streaming audio.. ummm some streaming video
2x people (who frequently work from home via VPN connection back to respective offices.)
I have been shocked a how little our usage actually is
still I'm not thrilled about a cap ... but OTOH wasn't TW talking about testing a lot low cap than this?
Emegency VoIP? (Score:5, Interesting)
640k should be enough for anyone (Score:4, Insightful)
I have two choices with my ISP:
Low Latency 100GB Cap
High Latency Unlimited
I chose the low latency with cap. And I come close.
Most of the major ISPs are imposing a 60GB cap.
The point is that this is damn short sighted. The ISPs are doing this because they know whats coming. High Def streaming. If you don't get near 250GB now, you may soon enough.