arstechnica.com— A Belgian ISP has released a list of its top 25 downloaders. Try hard enough and it is apparently possible to download more than 2 terabytes of data in a single month. Few people can manage it, though.
Aug 20, 2010View in Crawl 4
"Can you imagine downloading 2,680GB of data in a single month?"
I downloaded 1,317.24 GB last month. I was only downloading about a third of the time, and I'm only on a 16mbit connection. So yeah, I can imagine downloading 2,680 GB.
I'm just glad I'm not being throttled. I pay for unlimited, and by god, I'm going to f**king download as much as I want.
DD-WRT is worth installing for a hell of a lot more than just the bandwidth meter. ANYONE using a Linksys router should upgrade the firmware. You'll never regret it.
True. They make software for a lot more than Linksys. But the reason I specified Linksys is that they make good HARDWARE, but their firmware sucks ass. Upgrade that, and you've got a rockin' little router.
I've been using this for months (maybe a year+), and it appears to be accurate so long as you only track your internet usage (not local network bandwidth).
In order to actually be able to download 2.7TB you have to have a pretty decent connections and there are some blazing fast ones out there; the fastest in my area has a theoretical maximum of just over 16TB of monthly bandwidth. I've always been told it's "unlimited" monthly bandwidth but I dont' really believe them; point is, if you're willing to pay for the bandwidth, 2.7TB isn't that much data anymore.
Thing here is that the whole data capping discussion in Belgium is really heating up. Especially between the 2 major ISP's Telenet (Cable / FIber) and Belgacom (DSL).
Up until this year, these ISP's have capped our data at approx 10 - 30GB per month (depending on the formula).
Now it's kind of going in the right direction with alot of subscriptions offering FUP (which usually still sucks as they complain after about 100GB).
These stats are actually more of a "test" done by Telent to also promote their ISP for the larger users "Look.. with us, we have what is called "Free use" where you have periods of time during the day (I suspect) where whatever you download is not counted in your monthly FUP".. something like that anyway.
There are, however, smaller ISP's in Belgium that DO offer REAL unlimited data subscriptions for quite a soft price. Those ISP's have my full support.
These bigger giants just really piss me off and act all "great" because they offer high speeds and "extra large" downloading packages for the unknowing consumer.
It's not like it's really a secret. It's just that all the P2P software with easy to use interfaces and no learning curve attracted all of the attention of the unwashed masses and left our archaic system alone.
I don't see how throwing around big numbers is cool. Well done you can download TB's... but what the f**k for? I've got daily access to a gigabit line that I can saturate when accessing Newsgroups. I can download as much as I like. Do i? No because i don't have all day to watch movies. The most I've ever done is probably 2-3TB and that's getting enough bluray rips to last me months.
If you're in college, or someone who has 10+ TB of storage at home, you have the time or the space.
Either way, it's pretty simple. You download movies/porn/games, watch/wank/play them, and delete them when you're done. You leave the torrent/downloader on overnight, so that when you get up in the morning you have a slew of fresh new content.
It's allowing me to watch TV series that I've never had a chance to be interested in, because I've never had a schedule that revolved around when my show is going to come on. But one night and 15 GB later, I've got three new seasons of different shows to watch while I'm relaxing at home, on public transit, or doing something at work that doesn't demand my full attention.
I managed a 1TB binge a couple of months ago after my ISP introduced a new unlimited data plan. But I don't think I'll manage that again soon - I'm actually starting to run out of things I want to download!
I did a 1TB binge last year as well. My ISP introduced traffic shaping on torrents, so i made a script that looped linux ISO downloads 24/7 for a month, as well as re-downloading all my games on steam :)
Easy to do if you're providing some service to the world, like seeding torrents or operating a darknet node (TOR/I2P/Freenet, etc), though I wouldn't run an exit node from a home connection, people do.
That's true, but only if you need deniability. If you've secured and anonymized anything you think should be secure and anonymous then you're merely drawing unnecessary suspicion on yourself. Say someone on TOR does something from your exit node which brings the authorities to your door. They might suspect it really wasn't you, but they don't need much doubt to go through your stuff to make sure. Are you certain there's no pirated media/software, weed, or other illegal stuff in your home or on your drives? Can you even be sure, given the huge amount of spottily enforced law?
I'd keep a low profile, law-abiding or not, rather than deal with that.
So there are 8 people on their network using a lot of bandwidth?
Why don't they just drop those 8 customers instead of screwing every one else that uses their service or it the fact that a few people use a lot of bandwidth just a bad excuse to f**k their customers?Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
Depending on their service agreement signed when it was initiated, maybe they can't drop them. To protect themselves from others doing it, they developed their current data plans. Shrug...sure it sucks, but chances are whatever other company you could sign up for will do the same.
FYI
That was the first month Telenet started offering unlimited downloading. All the really big downloaders in Belgium are on other ISPs. (2.7TB isn't that much if you divide it by 10-20 people in a dorm room or something)
Also, many people were trying to find out if there was a throttle cap on this "fair use" and were downloading as much as possible to find this out.
And how much of that data you're downloading is legal?
It would be interesting if you can find anyone actually downloading 2.7TB data/month that's all completely legal, and I don't mean repeatedly downloading DVD iso images, but actually making use of the data you download.
The point I'm raising is that at the moment is that unless you're watching HDTV over the net (nowhere near profitable if free at the moment) you'll not be needing such a massive amount of data transfer, the only reason some people use this much is because of the obvious, they're torrenting illegal movies & porn in huge amounts.
I would guess that at least 90% of that data transfer is illegal, if you were speeding for 90% of the time, you would lose your licence to drive pretty quickly.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
These days you can get 2TB drives for under $100. Start doing a Full HDD Clone to some off-site backup service/server and that much data usage won't seem like a ton.
I was all ready to attack the ISP for being dicks -- then I read that they meant it as a sales point. "Check out how much you can download with us!" Why are Belgians always so cool?
I thought the same thing. Recently a coworker got cut off and fined for hitting about half of this in a month. When he asked what the limit was, they told him there was no monthly limit but he was still downloading too much data. Go Belgian ISPs.
I once worked at a retail store selling computers where we had roughly 20 computers with internet connections on the sales floor. I installed utorrent on every one of these computers and downloaded 100's of MB of data a day on each one of these computers. I probably did 2.7 TB of data every couple days.
The best part was the store's ISP used to call and threaten to take away our internet connection, but when they talked to the store manager he didn't understand why they were threatening to do this so he used to flip out over the phone and hang up on them. He was standing up for net neutrality and didn't even know it.
While over 2TB/month for a home connection if it's not a server is high, it's still nothing like the amount you can transfer symmetrically with even just a 10MBPS connection.
So hang on - my desktop PC has a now fairly standard 1TB hard drive. If I back it up just once over the internet, I'm already in the top 7 internet users in the country!
in Belgium? wow that is a achievement. that country has some of the worst ISP in western europe. slow, expensive and all use download limits. (because the government failed to step in and break open the network monopolies, unlike in their northern neighbours, who did step in, and set off a explosion of consumer choice, price drops and available services as a result resulting in some of the fastest and cheapest connects in europe without having to build a new network)
Only 2.7 TB? Lightweights. I hit 3.8 TB last month. :/
Honestly, I don't care about "fair" as defined by my ISP. The user pays for a connection (sure, the fine print says "up to" but its continually advertised using the max speed) and expects to be able to use what they pay for. It's the ISP's problem that their 5 year... network plan used numbers from the dial-up age to plan their expansion in the streaming age.
Guys, guys, guys... nobody gives a s**t that you've downloaded more than this guy. In fact, if half of you are being honest, YOU'RE the reason why the rest of us are looking at extreme data caps. So shut the f**k up, already.
creationismlolAug 20, 2010
lightweight.
thatevilguyAug 20, 2010
Notin but a Peanut.
akchrsAug 20, 2010
That's only about 3 Blu Ray discs a day for a month. That's nothing.
creationismlolAug 20, 2010
ehh BluRay ~ 50GB / disc 50x3 = 150.
1TB ~= 1000GB 2.7TB ~= 2700GB
150 / 2700 = not much (too late for math)
Basically that's a lot of porn. He's a trooper. Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
swillysAug 20, 2010
He said 'a day'.
asym79Aug 20, 2010
"Can you imagine downloading 2,680GB of data in a single month?"
I downloaded 1,317.24 GB last month. I was only downloading about a third of the time, and I'm only on a 16mbit connection. So yeah, I can imagine downloading 2,680 GB.
I'm just glad I'm not being throttled. I pay for unlimited, and by god, I'm going to f**king download as much as I want.
ocelot13Aug 20, 2010
you could download a total of 4.94 TB in a month if you maxed out 24/7... you should use what ya... download all the time... none of this 1/3 crap :P
frazzletAug 20, 2010
Out of interest, what do you download to use that much?
apextekAug 20, 2010
everything
berserk87Aug 20, 2010
He only downloads linux distros.
llanowarAug 20, 2010
I have an average speed of 2.4 mb per second. If I downloaded full time I could download over 6 terrabyte per month.
However, I'd need a lot of HDDs.
apextekAug 20, 2010
first day i used usenet and didnt quite understand it, i filled 350 gb first 24 hours.
otequeAug 20, 2010
What? 18 diggs and front page? Nice..
mrquackerAug 20, 2010
I'm only pulling in 2-300GB a month...
llanowarAug 20, 2010
That's a normal amount for a casual downloader and gamer.
fdiskAug 20, 2010
TB or PB?
2.7TB is nothing
mrquackerAug 20, 2010
For PB scale data transfer, a sneakernet is the fastest and cheapest way to go.
ocelot13Aug 20, 2010
thats not really data transfer though.. thats physical transfer..
chriscanadaAug 20, 2010
I think the sneakernet may be updated to a trucknet for that. I think a PB of data would send the sneakernet crashing down in it's current state.
haydentechAug 20, 2010
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes.
doswareAug 20, 2010
But how does one get access to the sneakernets?
kashk5Aug 20, 2010
Yea, but latency is a bitch
quaxonAug 20, 2010
Is there any simple (or even technical) way to find out how much you have downloaded? If it helps any I have comcast.
ocelot13Aug 20, 2010
on my router it logs the amount of traffic passing in and out of it, shows each day and monthly totals. look for ddwrt for you router
bjornskiAug 20, 2010
DD-WRT is worth installing for a hell of a lot more than just the bandwidth meter. ANYONE using a Linksys router should upgrade the firmware. You'll never regret it.
ocelot13Aug 20, 2010
doesnt even need to be a linksys.. i have it on my netgear wndr3300
bjornskiAug 21, 2010
True. They make software for a lot more than Linksys. But the reason I specified Linksys is that they make good HARDWARE, but their firmware sucks ass. Upgrade that, and you've got a rockin' little router.
heliofeelioAug 20, 2010
Comcast gives you this info from within your account area (through comcast.net). I don't know if they break it down into upload / download, though.
You can also use an app like Bitmeter:
http://codebox.org.uk/pages/bitmeter2
I've been using this for months (maybe a year+), and it appears to be accurate so long as you only track your internet usage (not local network bandwidth).
theaceoffireAug 20, 2010
Yeah, but every time you check it they mark the account.
//Only the guilty want to know how much they use.
////*sigh*
azathothhAug 20, 2010
http://www.hootech.com/NetMeter/
for example
sully213Aug 20, 2010
https://customer.comcast.com/Secure/UsageMeterDetail.aspx
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
Buried as sensationalism. 2.7 TB isn't really that much data anymore
mcreynoldsAug 20, 2010
Don't pretend that it isn't a lot.
The statistics beg to differ.
If you are sucking up 2.7TB a month in Europe/US/Canada on a residential account you are almost guaranteed to be at the top for every ISP.
ISP are posting stats left, right and center and 2.7TB is way above normal.
mrquackerAug 20, 2010
Depends. I am on a 7mbps DSL line, my max DL speed is 780k, about 2.2Gb an hour. Thats about 1.5Tb if I was downloading 24/7 all month.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
In order to actually be able to download 2.7TB you have to have a pretty decent connections and there are some blazing fast ones out there; the fastest in my area has a theoretical maximum of just over 16TB of monthly bandwidth. I've always been told it's "unlimited" monthly bandwidth but I dont' really believe them; point is, if you're willing to pay for the bandwidth, 2.7TB isn't that much data anymore.
ryanx0rAug 20, 2010
Thing here is that the whole data capping discussion in Belgium is really heating up. Especially between the 2 major ISP's Telenet (Cable / FIber) and Belgacom (DSL).
Up until this year, these ISP's have capped our data at approx 10 - 30GB per month (depending on the formula).
Now it's kind of going in the right direction with alot of subscriptions offering FUP (which usually still sucks as they complain after about 100GB).
These stats are actually more of a "test" done by Telent to also promote their ISP for the larger users "Look.. with us, we have what is called "Free use" where you have periods of time during the day (I suspect) where whatever you download is not counted in your monthly FUP".. something like that anyway.
There are, however, smaller ISP's in Belgium that DO offer REAL unlimited data subscriptions for quite a soft price. Those ISP's have my full support.
These bigger giants just really piss me off and act all "great" because they offer high speeds and "extra large" downloading packages for the unknowing consumer.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
A LOT is 2 words, you don't say: abunch, afew, or aporkchop.
orbishAug 20, 2010
I'm guessing this guy knows what an NZB is.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
Nazi-byte?
sexyboboAug 20, 2010
NZB is used by people that enjoy paying to pirate films.
countess666Aug 20, 2010
they enjoy having a cheap monthly subscription to give them access to unlimited amounts of pr0n, movies and software.
swillysAug 20, 2010
1) First rule.
2) Goto 1.
orbishAug 20, 2010
hush hush
ocelot13Aug 20, 2010
nzbs arent the subject of that.
what is the subject is what the nzbs are used with
restilAug 20, 2010
It's not like it's really a secret. It's just that all the P2P software with easy to use interfaces and no learning curve attracted all of the attention of the unwashed masses and left our archaic system alone.
zimstersAug 20, 2010
It's really that much at all. On my 50mbit connection I could pull 15TB a month...
eastlondonmansAug 20, 2010
I don't see how throwing around big numbers is cool. Well done you can download TB's... but what the f**k for? I've got daily access to a gigabit line that I can saturate when accessing Newsgroups. I can download as much as I like. Do i? No because i don't have all day to watch movies. The most I've ever done is probably 2-3TB and that's getting enough bluray rips to last me months.
firesightsAug 20, 2010
If you're in college, or someone who has 10+ TB of storage at home, you have the time or the space.
Either way, it's pretty simple. You download movies/porn/games, watch/wank/play them, and delete them when you're done. You leave the torrent/downloader on overnight, so that when you get up in the morning you have a slew of fresh new content.
It's allowing me to watch TV series that I've never had a chance to be interested in, because I've never had a schedule that revolved around when my show is going to come on. But one night and 15 GB later, I've got three new seasons of different shows to watch while I'm relaxing at home, on public transit, or doing something at work that doesn't demand my full attention.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
I managed a 1TB binge a couple of months ago after my ISP introduced a new unlimited data plan. But I don't think I'll manage that again soon - I'm actually starting to run out of things I want to download!
chriscanadaAug 20, 2010
I did a 1TB binge last year as well. My ISP introduced traffic shaping on torrents, so i made a script that looped linux ISO downloads 24/7 for a month, as well as re-downloading all my games on steam :)
almostevilAug 20, 2010
These men are my new idols. I can only hope I can live up to their great ideals.
mrquackerAug 20, 2010
Thats a lot of porn...
anockaAug 20, 2010
He better be seeding as well.
firesightsAug 20, 2010
He's giving out some seed, alright.
nyxerebosAug 20, 2010
Easy to do if you're providing some service to the world, like seeding torrents or operating a darknet node (TOR/I2P/Freenet, etc), though I wouldn't run an exit node from a home connection, people do.
ac1115Aug 20, 2010
why not? it's plausible deniability. Same logic as purposely keeping your wifi router open.
"oh no officer, that wasn't me. that must've been a random stranger"
nyxerebosAug 20, 2010
That's true, but only if you need deniability. If you've secured and anonymized anything you think should be secure and anonymous then you're merely drawing unnecessary suspicion on yourself. Say someone on TOR does something from your exit node which brings the authorities to your door. They might suspect it really wasn't you, but they don't need much doubt to go through your stuff to make sure. Are you certain there's no pirated media/software, weed, or other illegal stuff in your home or on your drives? Can you even be sure, given the huge amount of spottily enforced law?
I'd keep a low profile, law-abiding or not, rather than deal with that.
sexyboboAug 20, 2010
So there are 8 people on their network using a lot of bandwidth?
Why don't they just drop those 8 customers instead of screwing every one else that uses their service or it the fact that a few people use a lot of bandwidth just a bad excuse to f**k their customers?Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
macparrotAug 20, 2010
Depending on their service agreement signed when it was initiated, maybe they can't drop them. To protect themselves from others doing it, they developed their current data plans. Shrug...sure it sucks, but chances are whatever other company you could sign up for will do the same.
darkstar3333Aug 20, 2010
Slippery slope, they pay for unlimited and they should get unlimited.
ohplzstfuAug 20, 2010
That's still very far away from theoretical max you could get with 100meg connection using it at max 24/7.
elisliderAug 20, 2010
all that HD midget tentacle porn ain't gonna download itself!
seth024Aug 20, 2010
FYI
That was the first month Telenet started offering unlimited downloading. All the really big downloaders in Belgium are on other ISPs. (2.7TB isn't that much if you divide it by 10-20 people in a dorm room or something)
Also, many people were trying to find out if there was a throttle cap on this "fair use" and were downloading as much as possible to find this out.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
And how much of that data you're downloading is legal?
It would be interesting if you can find anyone actually downloading 2.7TB data/month that's all completely legal, and I don't mean repeatedly downloading DVD iso images, but actually making use of the data you download.
spiralspiritAug 20, 2010
next we can look at gas the same way. oh, you used 5 liters? how much of that was speeding?
I'd be very interested in why you give a s**t what someone else does.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
The point I'm raising is that at the moment is that unless you're watching HDTV over the net (nowhere near profitable if free at the moment) you'll not be needing such a massive amount of data transfer, the only reason some people use this much is because of the obvious, they're torrenting illegal movies & porn in huge amounts.
I would guess that at least 90% of that data transfer is illegal, if you were speeding for 90% of the time, you would lose your licence to drive pretty quickly.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
To clarify: people like this are the reason net-neutrality will become something we talk about in the past tense.
khyberkitsuneAug 20, 2010
This account has been closed by the user
yensedAug 20, 2010
These days you can get 2TB drives for under $100. Start doing a Full HDD Clone to some off-site backup service/server and that much data usage won't seem like a ton.
staticfireAug 20, 2010
Where can you get a 2TB drive for under $100? I will get off my ass and buy one immediately. I have yet to see one under $160.
darkstar3333Aug 20, 2010
NCIX, NewEgg, Frys when they go on sale (which is like every other week)
Look at the WD Green HDDs, you can usually find those for $99-109.
atarioAug 20, 2010
I was all ready to attack the ISP for being dicks -- then I read that they meant it as a sales point. "Check out how much you can download with us!" Why are Belgians always so cool?
swimmin00Aug 20, 2010
I thought the same thing. Recently a coworker got cut off and fined for hitting about half of this in a month. When he asked what the limit was, they told him there was no monthly limit but he was still downloading too much data. Go Belgian ISPs.
memorex386Aug 20, 2010
I once worked at a retail store selling computers where we had roughly 20 computers with internet connections on the sales floor. I installed utorrent on every one of these computers and downloaded 100's of MB of data a day on each one of these computers. I probably did 2.7 TB of data every couple days.
The best part was the store's ISP used to call and threaten to take away our internet connection, but when they talked to the store manager he didn't understand why they were threatening to do this so he used to flip out over the phone and hang up on them. He was standing up for net neutrality and didn't even know it.
alexweiskerAug 20, 2010
I use Netflicks, stream HD content (I have no cableTV) , and run game servers there are lots of ways to use bandwidth legally.
tk0680Aug 20, 2010
ITT: "My downloads are bigger." x (number of commenters / 2)
krinnAug 20, 2010
2.7TB a month is around 8Mbit/sec. Quite a bit less than the 30-100Mbps max speed that the ISP advertises.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
I'm only on a 2mb residential line and I've managed 171gb in the last 31 days.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
While over 2TB/month for a home connection if it's not a server is high, it's still nothing like the amount you can transfer symmetrically with even just a 10MBPS connection.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
This is why bandwidth is figured by average user rate.
homerrAug 20, 2010
Per Comcast's rules I only download 250gb per month. Bastards.
johnvmAug 20, 2010
My top month for trailing 12 month average is 15.9TB....
2.6TB aint s**t.
hello1024Aug 20, 2010
So hang on - my desktop PC has a now fairly standard 1TB hard drive. If I back it up just once over the internet, I'm already in the top 7 internet users in the country!
WOW
boozedrinkerAug 20, 2010
HEY KID! STOP ALL THE DOWNLOADIN'!
countess666Aug 20, 2010
in Belgium? wow that is a achievement. that country has some of the worst ISP in western europe. slow, expensive and all use download limits. (because the government failed to step in and break open the network monopolies, unlike in their northern neighbours, who did step in, and set off a explosion of consumer choice, price drops and available services as a result resulting in some of the fastest and cheapest connects in europe without having to build a new network)
in fact i hardly believe this... unless its from a Belgium glass-fibre ISP, maybe.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
dbw051000Aug 20, 2010
Only 2.7 TB? Lightweights. I hit 3.8 TB last month. :/
Honestly, I don't care about "fair" as defined by my ISP. The user pays for a connection (sure, the fine print says "up to" but its continually advertised using the max speed) and expects to be able to use what they pay for. It's the ISP's problem that their 5 year... network plan used numbers from the dial-up age to plan their expansion in the streaming age.
Closed AccountAug 20, 2010
OM NOM NOM NOM
fredfredricksonAug 20, 2010
Guys, guys, guys... nobody gives a s**t that you've downloaded more than this guy. In fact, if half of you are being honest, YOU'RE the reason why the rest of us are looking at extreme data caps. So shut the f**k up, already.
chingy1788Aug 21, 2010
pfft, I download 300TB per month from my file server at home over my gigabit ethernet connection
yage2006Aug 21, 2010
He must have a kickass pron collection :)