Back in the relatively early days of broadband internet, I was on a limited download contract. I got 10GB a month and trust me when I say that I quickly became aware that I had to start monitoring like like a hawk. Generally just after the first 10 days of the fresh month! – Fortunately, these days I’m completely unlimited in terms of the internet, and, incidentally, phone data usage. I think I just prefer not having to worry about (often ludicrously high) additional charges for going over capped limits.
With that being said, however, I have absolutely no idea now how much data I go through in a month, but all I can say with some certainty is that it’s a bloody lot higher than 10GB!
Following a report via ComputerWeekly, however, new market research has concluded that following an examination of Q4 2022 broadband figures, the average data a user consumes within a month has now risen to a new record high of nearly 600GB. And yes, that’s per month!
Average Monthly Broadband Usage Hits New High of Nearly 600GB
Just to make the point clear, the research isn’t suggesting that you ‘download’ up to 600GB of data per month. Albeit, if you play Call of Duty, that possibility certainly exists! – What you do have to consider though is the data usage when streaming. No, this isn’t technically a ‘download’ in the traditional sense, but if you’re on Netflix, YouTube, Disney+ or any kind of video platform, you are still technically receiving the data as if it was a download.
And given that an average Netflix movie will likely eat up 6GB, I can easily see where 600GB could end up being, very subtly, gobbled up.
What do you think though? Do you monitor your data usage per month, and, if so, how much do you typically tend to use? – Let us know in the comments!
I sure don’t miss being under a bandwidth cap. Staying under 1 terabyte wasn’t easy when I had no choice but to monitor it. When I found out about being able to pay Comcast a surcharge to lift their 1.2 terabyte cap, that was a Godsend as I had actually gone over it once. Now I pay Surf Internet (fiber) not much more than I payed Comcast with the surcharge and get unlimited internet.
Well anyways, I still like to see what my bandwidth usage is and I’m able to do that through my router as it keeps track of our data usage. I can tell you we occasionally do clip over a terabyte. On the 4th alone we used 249 gigabytes (182.6 by just by my PC as it needed a ton of updates!) We watch a lot of HD and 4K video, so thankfully caps are becoming a thing of the past!