Is 200GB A Month Enough For 2 People?

[Tiny Tot]

Hello,

My sister and I have a package that includes a 200GB monthly internet allowance. I'm just curious - does anyone know if that will be enough for 2 people? I'm an average gamer, not a heavy user, and my sister will be on her phone often (as will I likely) but she's not a gamer. We're both shift workers working 12 hour days with 4 days on and 4 days off. With no way to gauge just how much we'll use, does anyone think that 200GB a month will be more than enough between 2 people? Usage will vary greatly, but we don't want to go over the limit, so we're wondering if 200GB will suffice or if we'll need the 500GB package. We have 10 days to decide if we want to switch or not. I know we won't come close to 500GB but we don't want to find out the hard way that 200GB isn't enough and pay for monthly overage fees (there is no 250GB option). Thanks for the help! Not sure where this topic fits in the community here.

[FPS]

Can you switch to ISP that has unlimited traffic but limited bandwidth? The whole concept of packages seems like a scam to me

[Longhaul]

200gb?? Frak... we go through that every couple of days lol
Gotta love Unlimited

[Ogami]

200 GB is really nothing. Had a 300 GB plan just for myself last year for a few months and it was a nightmare. Just watching Twitch ,Youtube and downloading 1-2 modern games will completely use up that download volume.
Many new games reach up to a 100 GB of data.

Honeslty, if you can, go for an unlimted plan even if you have to pay an extry fee each month.
Having to limit yourself to a certain download volume is not fun at all.

[Tiny Tot]

Thanks for the input so far guys! Forgot to say that we moved into a new building that has a Telus promo offer - free for 1 year with 200GB. $20 a monthvmore for 500GB so unfortunately there's no unlimited for us. Not for a year anyway.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by Rango:

Any cap at all is unacceptable

Yeah, here in Germany we started out with unlimited flatrates for internet but a few of the big internet providers tried to impose some new "limited" volume contracts in the last few years.
Usually in the range of 300-400 GB a month and if you go over it for three months in a row you would get your speed cut down to 2 mbit or so if you go above your limit.
You could opt out of those restrictions for a additional 15 euro a month.
Public was NOT happy with that at all.

By now nearly all the providers have given up that idea and switched back to only
complete limitless download plans. at least if you have a 16k upwards connection.
For lower tier speed contracts they still have some volume restricted ones.

[Tiny Tot]

Yeah well we're getting a deal with the package for free and that includes channels. So the only thing extra would be the 500GB because we could be paying as much as $45 extra for overages for the internet alone.

[Sleepy Yoshi]

You should be able to see how much data you've used on Telus's website as they give that information to you once the service starts.

At any rate it's hard to say whether 200gb will be enough as it's going to depend largely on what being a "heavy user" consists of. If you spend a lot of time watching streaming video's (Youtube, twitch, movies etc), you're likely to go over. Game's when downloading them (especially on the AAA front) can eat up significant data. Then you have the patches etc.

But if that doesn't describe what you'd be doing and you're largely just playing games and browsing the web, you'll probably be fine at 200 as gameplay itself doesn't actually eat that much data per hour. Games do vary though in terms of what they use. Destiny for example has higher data usage than average. However, take a game that uses 500mb/h which is extremely high end and I haven't seen a game that actually averages that. That'd get you 400 hours a month. In general it's not playing a game that's gonna push you over the edge especially if you're working 48 hours a week.

Personally, if you can't alter the contract after the 10 day limit, then I'd go with 500 just to be on the safe side, but ultimately that's up to you and your financial situation.

[HLCinSC]

If you are currently on a plan you have been using normally, you should be able to see your data usage on your phones and computers (Android and Win 10 will give you 30days worth of data). That can help you estimate how much you will need as a minimum. Make sure you factor in other devices you may have like a roku, smart tv, game consoles, etc...