Time for basic usage allowances to be increased?

[#1]

While I'm here I see the BBC are running a campaign to give an hour and help an old lady across the super highway, demonstrating what can be done on the internet.
What they say is if the poor old dear uses BBC Player to cathup on the lottery numbers she'll die a pauper due to the usage allowance the hi-def videos chompaway at.
I can see a Watchdog special coming up....

[#2]

Ha ha ha your a better one than us then, our BB has only been active about 5 hours and already we have steamed through 528mb! And that is low use for us, have a feeling I am going to turn into a very good customer for PN
Going to now upgrade to the new 120GB deal, I really would love to see an unlimited option though PN cough cough I do not mind paying as long as it is reasonable and in line with your competitors, this is 2012 after all and from here data usage is only going to go 1 way and that certainly is not down............

[#3]

Well it isn't just downloads that eat away at the usage allowance....hadn't noticed till today how many uploads seem to happen adding up to almost 10Mb a day....and I'm not a heavy user of the internet. That works out at one days allowance each month gone by just left clicking the mouse.
Well the record for the webpage soaking up most usage goes to a Commercial Forum one page spewed out a massive 9Mb.

[#4]

My SKY+HD and my Freeview HD boxes have ethernet connections to my router.
I note quite often they both seem to access the internet, possibly just a few seconds, but it all must add up.
Unplugged until the Olympics, and soon afterwards.

[#5]

Most software is chomping away at the usage allowance.
Buy software on a CD and it's just a skeleton, the main program and required updates have to be downloaded...then they tick away in the background talking to their masters as if they own the broadband connection.
There's an article on Plusnet about Smart TV's and streaming programmes over the internet, no mention of required usage allowance or cost.
Well Day 3 of the re-install and another set of Windows updates of over 300Mb, that seems to be the last one, a grand total of around 1Gb.

[#6]

I turn off virtually all automatic updating that I can't schedule after midnight and do manual updates when it suits me.

[#7]

Quote

Well Day 3 of the re-install and another set of Windows updates of over 300Mb, that seems to be the last one, a grand total of around 1Gb

I remember the good old days on windows 3.1 and Dos 6.22 where you could format your computer and reinstall everything 3 or 4 times within the afternoon. I sat for about an hour the first time I formatted my computer, just staring at the Format C: command, too scared to press the enter key. When I finally did and it had finished installing, I had no CD rom drivers, no sound card drivers, no GFX card drivers.  Ahhh the good old days 

[#8]

Just been to the Microsoft website looking at a page 'Getting Started with Windows Live'.... it helped itself to a whopping 20Mb.

[#9]

It would drive me nuts keeping track of what sites use, I cannot believe you are still dong it! If the 10GB a month is that much of a problem why don't you just upgrade it? Surely you have better things to do online rather than checking to see how much each site is using and also limiting what you do because of it?
Not being rude, but come on now...........

[#10]

To be fair, he's just making a point. And I'm interested in how much usage various pages/sites gobble up, saves me having to check those mentioned out.

[#11]

The Think Broadband usage meter indicates if there heavy traffic on a particalur page and 20Mb is the most for any webpage thus far, if all web pages were like that it would curtail usage of the internet to viewing 16 and a half pages a day.
As I've indicated the extra £60 a year is not good value if someone is only going to use possibly an extra 1Gb a month.
The Basic allowance is £6.49 a month, allowing for admin costs the fee for usage could be £5 for 10gb a month or £1 per Gigabyte, compared to £5 for a Value account.
Now if the Value account had the option to sell unwanted usage allowance to other customers then I might be interested in a Value account.

[#12]

Quote from: christmas

The Think Broadband usage meter indicates if there heavy traffic on a particalur page and 20Mb is the most for any webpage thus far, if all web pages were like that it would curtail usage of the internet to viewing 16 and a half pages a day.

I've never looked at it like that. That's truly scarey.
But the rest of your post has confused me, I thought you were already on the Value package?

[#13]

Our usage allowance is 10Gb a month which is the Basic package?
Yesterday the BBC News channel interuppted their coverage of the parliamentary questioning of G4S for the hourly news and advised viewers they could watch continous coverage online.
I dread to think how many Mbs 30 minutes of high definition video would eat up.....broadcasters don't seem to be aware there may be a hidden cost to viewers for watching online.
I am providing examples of extreme cases but they are slowy becoming the norm.

[#14]

The Value package is 10Gb http://www.plus.net/broadband/?source=carouselSwitch

[#15]

You've made be like a right idiot! 
Apologise for any confusion, is there an allowance less than 10Gb?
But for the purposes of this thread I was drawing attention how easily usage allowance can be be gobbled up and with smart TV's broadband providers will have to re-think how they package  allowances.