Jump to content

How much do you use ADSL?


Ben Zwycky
 Share

Recommended Posts

Our national telecom company, in its great wisdom, has decided to change the way ADSL is run in this country (ADSL is still pretty new here, and has only just reached my local phone exchange).

Instead of a 192/64 or 320/128 connection with unlimited data transfer for 1400 or 2400 crowns a month (about 50 or 85 bucks), they have decided to provide 512/128 with 10GB/month or 1024/256 with 20GB/month for the same initial price. For every 10GB you go over that limit costs an extra 400 crowns (about 13-14 dollars). This makes my plan (which I still intend to implement) of setting up a WAN on my estate to share the connection (and cost) a little more complicated.

I was hoping to get between 10 and 20 people to share the connection and allow for a certain number of 10GB units in the shared monthly charge, evening up accounts every 6 months or so (if we’ve used it less, giving money back, if more sending everyone an extra bill (which I’m sure won’t go down very well, alternatively I could just unplug the router when we get too close to the monthly limit, which I’m sure won’t go down well either). Of course I would monitor our use and send out a message to everyone when we’re getting near the limit to tell them to cut down their use until the end of the month and avoid either of these situations.) The monthly charge will also include a fixed network maintenance charge (a worst-case scenario one of the cost of buying the router and all the cards right after their 5-year guarantee is up, spread across those 5 years and number of users.)

Obviously the smoothest operation of such a scheme depends on choosing an appropriate data limit per user while trying to keep the monthly charge to a minimum to attract more people to join in the first place.

So, what I want to know from you guys is, what is an appropriate average data limit per month per user? (I know that most of you are probably above-average users, so I’ll bear that in mind.)

My favourite schemes (depending on the number of people who sign up) are as follows:

No of users / Connection speed / data limit per user (GB/month) / Cost per person (crowns)

5 / 512/128kbps / 2 / 340

8 / 512/128kbps / 3.75 / 325

10 / 512/128kbps / 4 / 310

15 / 1024/256kbps / 4 / 310

20 / 1024/256kbps / 4.5 / 300

25 / 1024/256kbps / 4.8 / 300

1 crown is a little less than 30 per dollar, but wages here are massively lower than in the US (average is about 13,500 crowns (450 bucks) a month)

I don’t like the 5-user scheme but that’s the minimum number of users to make it at all affordable. Basically the more users, the higher data limit per person we can afford, but also the slower the connection, obviously.

is 3-4 GB per month per user enough to allow relative freedom of use or not? (I’m hoping that some people who sign up will be below average users so that I might be able to use it a little more, but I can’t depend on that too much)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel your pain.

Wages here are similar to the USA, and the dollar is equal.

And unlimited dialup access is $99.95

512k of unlimited DSL will cost nearly $400 a month.

I get a special deal and my 129k wireless connection is only $79 a month...

I miss America sometimes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, my brother and I spend 70$ CAD every month for our DSL line 3Mbit d/l - 1 Mbit u/l.

We get unlimited bandwidth, which is good because our bandwidth usage is rather excessive, to say the least. In our last biling period we aproached 100GB's of bandwidth usage.

Thank goodness for contracts, especially to be on the winning end for once.

Cheers!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My package from Verizon DSL is 768/128 don't remember the web page size or the email allotment. But when it first came to my area April 2002 it was a special 1 month free then 3months for $39.99

then $49.99 thereafter but just this past May they reduced the price on me to $30bucks WOW. Something in this crack head city (NY) went down in price for a change!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wages i get with sympatico/qc

I don't know about the amounts of users that can be on a single account

All prices are in canadian dollars, 1 cnd = 0.72 us

All downloads limits have been removed last month

It is much recommended to use the modem location service

dial-up 56k | 22.95 a mo | no setup fee

DSL basic 128k/64k | 29.95 a mo | 25.00 self-install kit | no modem location fee

DSL high speed 1mb/128k | 44.95 a mo including 10.00 modem location | self-install kit 25.00

DSL ultra 3mb/640k | 69.95 a mo including 10.00 modem location | self-install kit 25.00

You have 6 email adresses for any DSL services

FYI my mother alone uses about 2gigs a month using msn, checking outwebsites and all the little funny stuff her friends send ger by email. Personally, i vary between 8 gigs and 16 gigs, depending on how much i download / listen to internet radio. I have the ultra service, and use 2 ips (users) at once.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New announcement: apparently the faster but limited data connection is optional for current customers, and they can carry on with their current setup until the end of the year when there's going to be a whole new range of options. Basically it's a confused mess, so we're going to put this off until after the new year at least to reassess our options, because the initial investment (just under 200 bucks for the router and about 70 for each card) is far too high for something so uncertain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...