Managing your Internet usage

If your Internet plan includes a data cap, it can be difficult to properly gauge your usage and determine which habits consume the most data. In this article, you’ll learn more about the factors that influence how much data you use and how much data your everyday activities consume. This will give you a better understanding of your Internet consumption and help you better manage your usage to avoid data overages.

Factors that contribute to your data usage

Your data consumption depends on four factors: the number of users in your home, the number of devices used simultaneously by each user, the type of activity you do on the Internet and the time spent on each activity.

• The number of users

  If five people are using the Internet connection, you will definitely consume more data than if you are the only one using it. The usage of each member of your household should be compiled to get a good picture of how much data you are using.

• The number of devices

  If you usually do several different activities on separate devices at the same time, you will consume more data. For example, if you play online video games while streaming music on another device, each device consumes data at the same time. This applies to all users in your home.

• The type of activity

  Some activities use more data than others. For example, downloading a large video game uses much more data than browsing the web. If you stream music, you use less data than if you stream movies or shows.

• The time allotted to each activity

  Lastly, your data usage depends on how much time you spend using the Internet.

Estimating your data usage

To estimate your data usage, you need to compile all the downloads and the time allocated to different activities of each user in your home. Keep in mind that one user can do multiple things on the Internet at once using different devices.