> In Australia data caps are the norm, but you can get unlimited plans with certain ISPs. However, 1TB is a lot of data. To my knowledge there's not a single 1TB plan available in Australia, it's assumed that even on the unlimited plans you're not going to be using that much.

You can easily see by comparison that data caps affect what people do on the internet. I'm consistently above 1TB of traffic a month with only two people in the household that also work from there. (That's on my mobile connection, I also have cable but that's used less and I only have around 100GB there).

Why so much data? I'm not even sure. A bunch of devices updating, streaming, large data files to transfer. Adds up quickly.

You can see this especially with mobile data where people see the caps regularly. In Germany the average mobile SIM uses 300MB a month. In Austria that number is multiple GB.

Take an average family with 3 teenagers. Give them 4k streaming and you're looking at at least half of that a month in streaming alone.

4k might not be widely available now, but it's just a matter of time before it is.

That said, I do believe that 1tb is enough for a while, but I would just fear that they lower that bit by bit because "99% of our customers don't use that much".

Maybe (almost) nobody is using 1TB, but they plan to lower that threshold in the future to make people pay more or switch to more premium plans.

Three people in a household + Netflix + 4K. I am in Australia on an internode nbn plan. Used to be a 1TB limit but now unlimited. I regularly go over 1TB.

>What is it that people are doing that gets them over 1TB?

Living with other people that use data.

I don't live alone ;)

When I'm programming outside of work hours, my wife streams crappy TV shows... so a LOT!

Haha, but yes, I see your point. I guess if you had a few heavy Internet users, who all worked from home (or didn't have jobs) then I guess you could reach 1TB. I imagine that's the exception though.

Is asking people to pay for what they use really that uncommon of an idea in the States?

> Is asking people to pay for what they use really that uncommon of an idea in the States?

Not from the states but from a country without data caps on either mobile data or home: we do pay what we use, but not by the traffic. The pricing is done here by the speed you want to get your data or upload.

Ah, I guess that makes sense. We pay for both.

I literally pay to raise my Internet connection from a measly 5Mbps to 100Mbps (theoretical max) then I pay extra to increase my data allowance. I guess it comes down to how much access costs. I'm presently on unlimited data, max speed available and I'm looking at about $75USD/month.

EDIT: I should note that I'm with a budget ISP. Most charge more than what I'm paying.

Have you ever had a TV that's left on? If that was a medium quality 3Mbps it would blow through 1TB by itself.

((3/8) x 60 x 60 x 24 x 30)/1000 = 972 GB

So no, it wouldn't. Well, okay, on a 31 day month it would ;)

But what streaming service allows you to stream that long without prompting you? That's 720 hours of footage. Not even Star Gate has enough footage for you to do that (most which was pre-HD).

I feel like you really have to clutch at straws to come up with how one could legitimately use 1TB of data on a home Internet connection.

> I feel like you really have to clutch at straws to come up with how one could legitimately use 1TB of data on a home Internet connection.

It just depends on what you do. Steam's and my PS4 auto updates for me alone plow through hundreds of gigabytes a month. Sure, I also work from home so that adds significant amounts of data to my plan but it's already not hard to utilize your internet above 1TB. However data usage is only going to go up and if you add a cap now, you will regret having them in a year.

There is more and more 4K content on small youtube channels and that alone has added significant amounts of data usage for me. I notice it every time I tether from my limited phone plan.

I'm talking about actual TV channels. They go 24/7 without running out of footage. Leaving one TV on is not an unreasonable thing.

I happen to have the weather channel open right now. It's quite possible that later I'll have this plus another stream open, using over 7Mbps total. And I'm only one user in this household.

Well that's one TV. What about a pc dling games, an iPad streaming a different show, a data retrieval after a format etc. It can go faster than you would imagine when your not micro managing.

Telstra offers a 1TB plan right now. I'm on that.

iiNet and AmNet both did however recently-ish (last year or two) switched to offering unlimited instead in the battle for the market as the number of competitors continues to shrink.

I tell you though... 1TB really is a lot. I work from home, stream a lot of video content and also constantly download large swaths of ubuntu packages spinning my test clouds up and down.

I frequently use 2-300GB+ but I've never really come close to clipping the limit. And Telstra offer 3 full additional 1TB packs per year if you do (for free)

It's not that cheap though :) about $145/mo on velocity fibre.

Even if you had multiple children streaming 1080p I think you'd be OK. Limits might have to go up as 4K hits.

>85Mbit

Sounds like fibre to the node. How close are you to it physically?

Or is that 100Mbit cable and that's your real-world throughput?