<p>After recently activating my newly obtained netID, I was dissapointed to learn that Cornell limits data usage and will charge you for going over 100 GB per month. I've never had to worry about data usage over wifi before, and was wondering if I'll run into issues doing any of the following things very regularly:</p>
<p>Playing online computer games (like WoW, Guild Wars 2, etc)
Watching videos(from youtube and such). I do this more than is probably healthy sometimes.
just browsing the internet A LOT and looking at picures.</p>
<p>I know 100 GB is a ton of data per month, but has anyone who is used to spending alot of time online ever had any trouble with going over the limit, or is it really just to dissuade filesharing and such? I'm most worried about the gaming and watching videos regularly (which is what I do if I need more information about a topic taught in class, too). Can this be bypassed by going to the computer lab, or will that also count?</p>
<p>Thanks for any advice, I'm horrified of being stuck in pre-google days unable to figure anything out for fear of using too much data.</p>
<p>Unless you’re streaming 5 hours of 720p youtube videos a day, you’re probably not even going to go over half of that allowance. 100GB is already quite an improvement over the 20GB limit only a couple of years ago.</p>
<p>Ok, thanks, that’s what I figured. I’m just one of those people that will never be fully relaxed watching a video knowing I’m using something up (crazy I guess). If anyone knows how much data mmos use, that’d be great.</p>
<p>I have never heard of anyone going over 100 GB in a single month here. (The charge is also not much per extra gigabyte, I think). They have a site that allows you to monitor your usage if you’re that concerned.</p>
<p>I go over my cap almost every month. I’m always streaming on Hulu, iTunes, or Netflix but the real data hog is Amazon. All it takes is two, maybe 3 movies downloaded from there & you’re over your limit. Same goes for iTunes movies.
I tried to download a game that legally uses P2P for distribution it blew through my whole month’s allotment.</p>
<p>Not even 5 hours of Youtube per day would do it; are you kidding me?</p>
<p>My neighbors play about 30 hours of online games per week and have never had a problem. I’ve never had a problem. You would literally have to be illegally torrenting stuff to hit that limit.</p>
<p>I swear I don’t torrent. Try downloading 4 movies from iTunes. You’ll hit your limit. Maybe I’m downloading HD? I can’t figure it out either but I keep hitting my limit. It’s driving me nuts too.</p>
<p>Unless your computer crashes twice during a month and you decide to redownload WoW/GW2 from their online download portals rather than a box disk, you really shouldn’t have a problem. Also, most HD movies are 1-3 GB in download size, so it’s pretty sketchy if someone downloads 4 and goes over 100…</p>
<p>Ummm I don’t go to Cornell but I can tell you since my computer monitors my wifi usage that with my laptop on and streaming tv shows, movies, and music almost 24-7 I’m using about 40 gb every two weeks so about 80 per month which still gives you a leeway from your cap.</p>
<p>Online gaming doesn’t really use much bandwidth at all. Most of the network usage will probably be from game patches in that regard. As for streaming, you have to do A LOT for that to matter. Downloading movies from iTunes shouldn’t be bad either, unless you do a lot of that. Definitely do not torrent (or anything illegal) at Cornell. They DO monitor the network usage and you will get in trouble.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. I’m contacting the IT department. I thought those notices were strange. I need to see if they can tell me exactly how I’m hitting that limit almost every month.</p>