The Download Limit

[LeyLineWalker]

Alright,

So I'm new to these forums and I have a couple of questions regarding the limitations of downloading.

Surfing the net doesn't use up my alotted 5 GB's.

Does email? I use Gmail, so does sending messages or reading messages use up a portion of my 5 GB?

I have an Xbox, and where I live it's always been dial up for me. Now that I have the USB760, I finally feel like I can get together with my friends online for some co-op or what have you. Would the act of Co-Oping on games (GoW, Halo, etc...) use up my 5 GB's? Or just the act of downloading new maps and what have you.

I plugged the USB760 into my laptop, and after two days have downloaded about 400 KB worth of updates for my Anti-Virus.

How cautious should I be?

Any comments or suggestions would be very appreciated!

Thank you for your time,

- Joseph.

[Qdog123]

Hi Joe,

Remember, everything you do on the internet is going against that 5GB. While 5GB is a huge amount of usage, I don't think I'd stream netflix through my xbox or anything. My recommendation would be to check your MyVerizon account for data usage, then go in and play your xbox live games one night, and then check your MyVerizon account again the next day. This will give you a good idea of how much usage that activity accounts for. A good example of what 5GB gives you is to look at it in terms of music downloads. The average mp3 is 3MB, so 5 GB is 1706 3MB sized mp3's. That's a lot of downloads! The average uncompressed DVD is like 8GB though, so in that case 5GB doesn't sound that large, but I don't know anyone who downloads an uncompressed DVD...

Test it out and monitor your MyVerizon account and you should be fine.

Good Luck!

[paulpuri]

Same reply here Joseph. Anything you do on the internet is going against your 5GB. I would restrict your usage to the basics. Email, websites that don't have video, chat, and occassional visits to sites like Youtube. If you use it everyday, limit yourself to about 160 MB per day as an average. If you really need to keep good track, my favorite program is Bit Meter. Google it. It is a small and light program that measures your daily usage and also warns you when you are close to your cap.