Is it normal to have 1.6TB of download and 600GB of upload a month in a 2 person household? - eviltoast

Hey guys,

So first of all - I live with my little brother, we’re both in our 20s. We watch streams here and there, we both own a smart TV, watch Youtube here and there, we both own PCs, and phones which are in the WIFI most of the time.

We’re not streaming / gaming 24/7, but more like a 3-4 hour gaming session every few days in the evening, maybe some Youtube here and there.

We don’t download huge games, we don’t upload anything at all, besides maybe an image here and there, or some videos over Whatsapp.

Today I checked my router because I feel like my internet’s just weird for whatever reason. I then found the “data usage” section on my router, and was kinda… surprised.

1.650.000MB of data used in the last month, 1,500,000MB this month, download. Upload, around 500,000MB last month, 450,000MB this month.

Let me mention that we’re running a 100mbit/s connection, with 50mbit/s upload.

Isn’t this weird for some reason? We’re not huge gamers, we live alone, this is our router, and nobody else is in it. We just enjoy watching streams in the evening, mostly just Youtube, and that’s it already.

  • Chigzy@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Normal all depends.

    Here in the UK we don’t have data caps but our personal household usage roughly is 500GB a month between 3 of us on 65Mb. We don’t do anything other than stream in 1080p and I’m the only one who games. I don’t know about upload usage, of 20Mb, never actually asked our ISP.

    The UK is on average about 456GB in May 2022. With the UK passing over 60% of households having fibre to the home as of late, that number is likely closer to double that now; especially as more people can watch content reliably in 4K and upload more since WfH etc…

    • Gardium90@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Download, yes.

      My guess for upload, P2P through game DRMs if OP is centrally located with low latency.

      • TheEthyr@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Gaming doesn’t use a lot of bandwidth. OP says the brother plays 20 hours a week. Let’s say 80 hours per month. It would require an average bandwidth of about 15 Mbps during those 80 hours to consume 600 GB. Possible? Yes, but unlikely, especially since he’s not streaming his games.

        • Gardium90@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          You do realise steam, blizzard/battle.net, origin, etc. all use P2P by default to share updates?