The Average Household Will Surpass ISP's 1TB Data Caps Within 3 Years, Study Finds (decisiondata.org) 139
According to an analysis from Decision Data, the average broadband-connected U.S. household will surpass current 1TB ISP data caps before 2024. What this could translate to is more overage fees for customers, unless ISPs like Comcast and CenturyLink abandon data caps or continue to waive fees, like some are doing due to the pandemic. From the report: As we reported this month, the average home internet customer is now using close to 400GB of data a month, a number that would have surpassed the original ISP data caps from 2016 by over 50-100GB. At current fee structures for overages (which vary by provider), this would add between $200-$250 a year to the average household cable bill. Our newest analysis of historical FCC data and trending usage data predicts that within the next three years, or before the year 2024, the average household will use over 1TB of broadband data a month, putting them above the current caps. The mean will likely remain below current cap numbers, but as more households turn into power users, the average will continue to spike.
Interestingly, we started conducting research on this trend prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Toward the end of our research and as self-isolation policy started peaking, we are now seeing the largest spikes in home internet usage in history, far beyond what we could have previously predicted or analyzed. ISPs have properly responded by placing temporary holds on their overage fees for breaching data caps, which reflect that many more consumers have reached or exceeded the 1TB monthly data cap during the pandemic. While we believe this spike will mellow as people return to a more normal life in the next 12 months, it will still settle considerably above pre-outbreak levels. As policy gravitates toward more generalized self-isolation and work-from-home, we expect a substantial overall increase of demand on home internet to remain.
Interestingly, we started conducting research on this trend prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Toward the end of our research and as self-isolation policy started peaking, we are now seeing the largest spikes in home internet usage in history, far beyond what we could have previously predicted or analyzed. ISPs have properly responded by placing temporary holds on their overage fees for breaching data caps, which reflect that many more consumers have reached or exceeded the 1TB monthly data cap during the pandemic. While we believe this spike will mellow as people return to a more normal life in the next 12 months, it will still settle considerably above pre-outbreak levels. As policy gravitates toward more generalized self-isolation and work-from-home, we expect a substantial overall increase of demand on home internet to remain.
Streams are Being Throttled Anyway (Score:2)
Before the Covid-19 outbreak, I had to bandwidth shape my Roku boxes to keep form hitting the 1TB Cox cap (it is good to have a DD-WRT router). Now, I am at 50% of the usage with more "per day hours" spent streaming. I think the other end (the streaming providers) are backing down on their stream bandwidth and it more than makes up for the extra hours.
Re: Streams are Being Throttled Anyway (Score:2)
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I have two, but both are just HD (not 4K). At the beginning of the year, I had to watch them carefully to keep under 800 GB. I then programmed my router to rate limit to 9 MB/sec and 6 MB/sec and my usage went down by about 50%. 9 MB/sec is still a quite good HD stream unless it is a really high def action movie or sports.
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No Roku, but this wget mirroring job is taking a really long time to download the internet.
Re:You are out of date with accepted usage (Score:5, Informative)
2016: both AP Styleguide and Chicago Manual of Style changed to accept lowercase "Internet" referring to the global network. You are behind the times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Internet [wikipedia.org]
From your link I'll go with NASA on this issue instead of AP and Chicago snobs. We have one Sun, our planet has one Moon and there is just one Internet.
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No, we have a sun that we call Sun, we have one moon that we call Moon, and we have an internet that may be named Internet but we refer to it as 'the internet', same as you'd say 'the boy' or 'the planet'.
So, you don't say "the sun" but rather "sun", or "the moon" but rather "moon", but you do say "the planet"???
"Sun was shining bright today! And tonight, moon is bright. Hey look up there in the sky, it's the planet. Which the planet? Hmm probably Mars. Hey the boy, bring me another beer!"
This is about 1.35 GB/hour all month long (Score:1)
Honest question. Why shouldnt you pay more than grandma?
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That is 375 KB per second.
Which is 1.35 GB per hour.
That is exactly the 1 TB cap.
A 1 TB cap is just able to sustain streaming standard definition video non-stop all month long to old devices that cant handle modern video compression.
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This is about 1.35 GB/hour, 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Honest question. Why shouldnt you pay more than grandma?
I am -- she's paying for 75mbit, I'm paying for 300mbit, but we both have the same 1TB data cap.
Since you're doing conversions, 1TB/month is 3mbit/sec. Or about 100 hours/month of 4K streaming content (netflix says 25mbit/sec for 4K) - around 3 hours/day.
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>"I am -- she's paying for 75mbit, I'm paying for 300mbit, but we both have the same 1TB data cap."
There is speed and there is volume. It is likely she isn't getting anywhere near close 1TB of volume. She probably doesn't need speed nor volume. It is just the metrics that ISP (and most) used, so she doesn't have an option to pay less for volume she needs.
If you really want what is "fair", we would pay for speed times volume (voltage x amperage = watts). But few consumers would get behind that complic
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>"I am -- she's paying for 75mbit, I'm paying for 300mbit, but we both have the same 1TB data cap."
There is speed and there is volume. It is likely she isn't getting anywhere near close 1TB of volume. She probably doesn't need speed nor volume. It is just the metrics that ISP (and most) used, so she doesn't have an option to pay less for volume she needs.
If you really want what is "fair", we would pay for speed times volume (voltage x amperage = watts). But few consumers would get behind that complication.
Personally, I would rather pay by usage (metered), since I don't use a massive volume of data, and let others who use more volume pay more. I think it is funny the people who complain the loudest about the caps are those who are paying the very least, by volume.
It does seem odd that lots of ISPs will set the same cap on all their "plans" and only charge for speed. I would think they would have some rising scale on the caps so they kinda match each other (like 10Mbs/100GB, 50Mbs/500GB, 100Mbs/1TB, 200Mbs/2TB).
If Comcast was providing the content, sure, I'd say that's fair, but they aren't, all they are doing is providing the transport. Once they build out their network to support peak bandwidth, there's little incremental cost to providing that bandwidth 24x7 vs a 4 hour peak. The actual generation of the bits doesn't cost them anything. Their peering connections are paid by the size of the pipe, not by the number of bytes transferred. If they need a 100 gigabit peering connection to support the bandwidth from m
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The big ones in Canada all seem to in my experience. For the lower connections 5-25Mbps you'll get increasing caps from say 5GB a month (I know, grandma scenario webbrowsing and email no video) to ~200GB. After that most seem to be unlimited. imo they should at least scale the caps to keep pace with the speed you are paying for especially since most people are streaming their content now, the 100Mbps+ connections are basically for the paranoid they won't have enough for good 4k people or people with 3+ devi
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If they need a 100 gigabit peering connection to support the bandwidth from my town, it doesn't matter whether that peering connection is full 2 hours a day or 24 hours a day.
If it's full 24 hours a day under the current single-tier model then they need to get a bigger peering connection, which will cost more. For anything less, though, I agree. Using less than peak capacity doesn't save them any expense. It would be nice if there were a lower-cost tier for background traffic which could simply make use of otherwise wasted capacity. There's no reason why automatic software updates, for example, need to be handled at the same priority (and cost) as live streaming video or real-ti
charge for speed ATT better not some are stuck at (Score:2)
charge for speed ATT better not some are stuck at lower speeds due to there low limits on copper loop lengths
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If you really want what is "fair", we would pay for speed times volume (voltage x amperage = watts). But few consumers would get behind that complication.
Most the cost goes to maintaining the line, equipment and overhead per customer. My ISP is fiber and all the nodes are gigabit capable so it's just software settings, going from 100/100 service to 500/500 service is just 45% more expensive despite being five times the speed. An idiot with a backhoe costs the same no matter what speed you have.
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>"Most the cost goes to maintaining the line, equipment and overhead per customer."
That is true. So it probably should be a flat fee first, and then a speed x volume on top of it.
>"My ISP is fiber and all the nodes are gigabit capable so it's just software settings, going from 100/100 service to 500/500"
Well, no. The ISP has to size all their servers, switches, electricity, etc based on the total speed and volume, and pay for their bandwidth up the chain, also. So it is not "free" for them to just
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Well, no. The ISP has to size all their servers, switches, electricity, etc based on the total speed and volume, and pay for their bandwidth up the chain, also. So it is not "free" for them to just increase speed or volume over some fixed cost.
They only size their equipment based on speed, not volume. They size for the peak speed of all of their customers, if it takes a 10 gigabit uplink to handle the peak traffic from my neighborhood, it doesn't matter whether that pipe is full 1 hour a day or 24 hours a day, it doesn't cost them any more money.
The big ISP's don't pay for upstream bandwidth, they pay for a port at the IXC. They may pay some transport costs to another provider, but again, they usually pay for the size of the pipe, not per byte.
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They size for the peak speed of all of their customers
Ah, bless. In an ideal world, perhaps; in this world, definitely not.
ISPs very much rely on *not* providing enough capacity for the peak speed of all their customers. That's how they manage to sell services for apparently a lot less than they would cost to provide.
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They size for the peak speed of all of their customers
Ah, bless. In an ideal world, perhaps; in this world, definitely not.
ISPs very much rely on *not* providing enough capacity for the peak speed of all their customers. That's how they manage to sell services for apparently a lot less than they would cost to provide.
I meant peak usage, not total purchased bandwidth -- obviously they don't add up the max connection speed for every customer and say "we have 1000 customers paying for 100mbit connections, so we need to provide 100 gigabit of bandwidth", I mean they look at the real traffic patterns and they see that on average they have 1000 customers using 5 mbit of bandwidth at peak usage, so they know they need 5 gigabits of bandwidth to support the traffic (plus some room for growth, if the customers are lucky). Some o
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>"I meant peak usage, not total purchased bandwidth -- obviously they don't add up the max connection speed for every customer"
Bingo!
And because they use necessarily use an average, there are customers with a wide range, some using way more than average. The volume (not just speed) is, thus, an indicator of TIME they were using their speed. So it is relevant in the computation of their share of the expense. So whether the ISP has to pay anything at all for volume, volume still comes into play.
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If you really want what is "fair", we would pay for speed times volume (voltage x amperage = watts).
If you really want what is "fair", you should align with many 3rd word countries who have no broadband volume limits. The customer shouldn't give a shit how much they download or upload, only how large their bandwidth is.
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If you really want what is "fair", we would pay for speed times volume (voltage x amperage = watts). But few consumers would get behind that complication.
Personally, I would rather pay by usage (metered), since I don't use a massive volume of data, and let others who use more volume pay more.
No you wouldn't. One DDOS and you're paying thousands of dollars in overage fees.
Pay by usage Internet is a nonstarter. You do NOT control all the bytes sent your way. Far from it. Without control, I will not pay. So no, pay for usage is totally unacceptable and will always be totally unacceptable because of how IP works.
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The ISPs prefer flat pricing because they'd rather keep charging grandma $80/mo to read her email.
My own opinion is that costs should indeed be tiered. But at that moment, why shouldn't the farmer still get the original payout for the same land? See above.
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Because it actually costs that much regardless of whether or not you need high speed or a lot of throughput. Same thing goes for a lot of utilities like water, electricity, and natural gas. There's a fixed cost of providing the pipes/cables to your house. There's a fixed cost of running the distribution center. There are also some variable costs based on how much you use. The difference between the fixed and variable costs is going to be different for every utility. For internet, There is a very small co
It's just the march of bandwidth progressing. (Score:2)
This is about 1.35 GB/hour, 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
So?
Back in the era of slower modems in the 1980s and early 1990s, back in the 2400 to 33.6Kbps range, connections to bulletin boards we had caps based on time: free for 30 minutes, otherwise pay up for 60 minutes, 90 minutes, or longer. It paid for the hardware on either end, and bigger BBS's became the earliest ISPs as they grew more integrated with telecommunications systems.
When people shifted from BBS and dialup to always on connection, caps changed from times to data limits. Soon the phone companies
Everybody exeeding their data caps is... (Score:2)
...exactly what the telcos are hoping for. All those luscious overage fees from EVERYBODY...
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No, you don't have to download less data. You can continue to download the same amount of data, or even a lot more data, and still download a lot less than they're talking about.
My usage is lower now than it was 15 years ago.
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Ads really aren't that big and don't really count for that much data. Things that use a lot of data are things like 4k video streaming, or video game streaming on services like Stadia, or Geforce Now. 5 minutes of 4k streaming (25 mbit/s) will use use 1 Gigabyte of data. You'd be hard pressed to download a Gigabyte of ads in a day even if you browsed for an entire day.
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I did some more testing, I used the network panel in Chrome, wit
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So... (Score:2)
What you're saying is it is time to buy stock in major ISPs?
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Frontier will take all the money it can get. Have at it!
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What you're saying is it is time to buy stock in major ISPs?
No, alternative ISPs. As they screw their customers, the incentive for alternatives goes up.
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No, alternative ISPs
I've seen both of them, and they're not available where I am.
-99% of the country
Just continuing a trend (Score:2)
When I started at the regional ISP I work at 16 years ago, we were running on an OC3 (roughly 150Mbps), maybe 2, certainly shortly after, it was 2. We're now peaking around 12Gbps. I'm not sure what will come after video, but we haven't seen the end of the move to online video yet, even not counting the pandemic. Bandwidth capacity will adjust (equipment and bandwidth refreshes are a normal part of business) and so will the caps.
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This seems obvious, so I'm not sure I understand the idea that overage fees will be exploding. Is the article just trying to be alarming? Year on year our bandwidth and usage increases and caps inevitably follow. This has been happening since dial-up, where some providers had an hourly limit. This is an interesting snapshot in time but it's otherwise just BAU.
Raise (Score:2)
>"What this could translate to is more overage fees for customers, unless ISPs like Comcast and CenturyLink abandon data caps or continue to waive fees,"
Or raise the caps, as they have many times. Why does your summary ignore that obvious (and historical prevalent) option?
No different with mobile data- my T-Mobile included data (unthrottled/unrestricted/tetherable) has gone up a few GB every few years. It is now 6GB for the same price I was paying for 1GB 6 years ago, and they added 12GB of "banking" o
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Why does your summary ignore that obvious
Click Bait and FUD.
Data rates historically increase over time, unless you were born yesterday.
Data caps? (Score:1)
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My current plan is 100 mbps, no data cap, Netflix, plus another local streaming service for $95 per month. We have lots of ISP's, all offering slightly different options but the fibre network they use is a (heavily regulated) monopoly.
Re: Data caps? (Score:2)
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In the US AT&T fibre has data caps on their cheaper plans. For $80/month I get 1Gbps up and down with no data cap. For a little less, I think $60/month, you get 100Mbps up and down with a surcharge if you exceed the 1TB data cap.
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Mmm, I technically have a 100 GB per month limit, but that's only because my connection is so slow I can't download any more than that in the span of one month - and that's of course cutting myself off from doing anything else online that might want to use a bit of bandwidth, like gaming.
Or they could raise the caps (Score:1)
Why wouldn't the ISPs just raise the caps somewhat?
3 years to use 1TB?! (Score:2)
Whoa!! Is this like grandmas using AOL over Xfinity or something?
As a single guy I was burning about 150gb/month (I don’t stream that much though)
Now that I’m working from home and have started streaming shows during the day (nothing on) I know it’s got to be at least twice that but Xfinity has stopped measuring.
I shudder to think what a family of 4 is burning through
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We have an unlimited plan though, because why wouldn't we?
Competition (Score:2)
Too bad we are zero on competition when it comes to broadband so we are stuck with bandwidth caps.
If we are going to subject ourselves to monopolies we should at least make sure weâ(TM)re getting an OK deal. If a company wants to be an exclusive provider it should be time limited, requiring review every three or four years, and reasonable.
Re: Competition (Score:2)
What's the problem?
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Why are there even data caps ? (Score:5, Informative)
How is it that the USA has such shit broadband with caps ? Oh, that's right, you are left it up to the market to decide rather than what we did which as to a) split up the telco that owned the last mile and b) fund a massive rollout of fibre across the country c) make it possible for any ISP to supply internet connections over the new fibre.
Results of all this nasty, malfeasance socialism? Widespread access to fibre, good speeds, unlimited data.
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I live in Auckland, New Zealand and I have unlimited fibre broadband. 98.7Mbps down and 20Mbps up.
I live in San Jose, CA and I have the same. Fiber is nice if you can get it.
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I'm in the SF Bay Area. AT&T 1Gps up and down, no data cap. Capitalism (sort of). Seriously, while NZ may have a good system it wouldn't scale to a nation as large in population and geography as the US. Doesn't matter if you use private companies or government entities for broadband, some regions will have it good, others will suck.
Re: Why are there even data caps ? (Score:2)
What were you saying? I got lost and forgot while wallowing in my superior home network situation.
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Re: Why are there even data caps ? (Score:2)
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Re: Why are there even data caps ? (Score:2)
Re: Why are there even data caps ? (Score:2)
Re: Why are there even data caps ? (Score:2)
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That argument doesn't really hold water. You're comparing against New Zealand here. Yes one of the posters above was from Auckland, which is a big city, but New Zealand has a population density of about 46 people per square mile, while the US has a population density of 94 people per square mile. That population density is just an average, of course. Over half the population of NZ lives in the top 5 most populated cities. An entire 3rd of the population lives in Auckland alone. So NZ is pretty rural in most
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I live in Auckland, New Zealand and I have unlimited fibre broadband. 98.7Mbps down and 20Mbps up. How is it that the USA has such shit broadband with caps ? Oh, that's right, you are left it up to the market to decide rather than what we did which as to a) split up the telco that owned the last mile and b) fund a massive rollout of fibre across the country c) make it possible for any ISP to supply internet connections over the new fibre.
To be fair, New Zealand is the size of state of Colorado, except Colorado has more active broadband users than New Zealand has citizens. I mean no disrespect as you are highly valued as our 48th largest trading partner, but massive is probably the last word that would come to mind regarding New Zealand. Thank you very much though for your constructive criticism, and of course your humility.
Re:Why are there even data caps ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Compare to the U.S. [globalrecr...dtable.com], which although it too has urban clusters, the entire eastern half has a prominent fuzz of people occupying nearly all rural areas.. It's these areas where it's difficult to saturate with high-speed broadband, 200-500 ppl per mile^2 is 77-200 ppl per km^2, so the red fuzz in the eastern half of the U.S. is equivalent to
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The vast majority of New Zealand's population is tightly clustered in about a dozen tiny urban areas [wikipedia.org]. Huge swaths of the country are unpopulated or sparsely populated.
The urbanisation rate of NZ and the USA are comparable. Fact is some sheep farmer in New Zealand has better internet than what is available to many people living in some of the biggest *cities* in the USA.
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But it has fibre
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How is it that the USA has such shit broadband with caps ? Oh, that's right, you are left it up to the market to decide rather than what we did which as to a) split up the telco that owned the last mile and b) fund a massive rollout of fibre across the country c) make it possible for any ISP to supply internet connections over the new fibre. Results of all this nasty, malfeasance socialism? Widespread access to fibre, good speeds, unlimited data.
Ideas that make that much sense will never happen in the US. Right wing politics will never allow for something sensible and logical. Watching Republicans is like watching someone with a shotgun pointed at their foot constantly shooting themselves in the foot thinking they're doing something good and having a shit eating smile on their face while doing it.
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How is it that the USA has such shit broadband with caps ?
Quick, where's the guy who lives in Seattle and claims to only have access to dial-up?
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Heck one month when I was playing with various remote back up strategies + netflix + kids gaming + etc we did over 10TB, no warning, no slow down, no nothing.
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I live in Auckland, New Zealand and I have unlimited fibre broadband. 98.7Mbps down and 20Mbps up.
Why would they reduce upload on a FTTH connection? It's symmetrical, really sounds awful and looks like you've being lied to, like ISP says Fibre but in fact it's FTTN. This happens in my area, they sell bonded ADSL as "Fibre" 50 mbit. Marketing traps!
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The market is absolutely not responsible for this (Score:5, Informative)
Broadband in the U.S. is the furthest thing possible from a free market. Every local government claimed control over stringing up wires everywhere (which is reasonable), and ended up granting monopolies to companies which string up wires or lay down pipes - electricity, gas, phone, cable TV. The last two became broadband Internet. So thanks to our local governments, we're stuck with local monopolies for broadband Internet. I dunno about NZ, but in Europe the governments (which also control stringing up wires) were smart enough to guarantee that there were multiple competitors who provided Internet over those wires. For some reason, the local governments in the U.S. failed to do this and left its citizens at the mercy of these monopolies.
It's amusing how those in favor of big government, keep trying to blame this massive fail by big government on the market. Especially considering the solution implemented by the successful big governments was to guarantee a competitive market.
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Broadband in the U.S. is the furthest thing possible from a free market. Every local government claimed control over stringing up wires everywhere (which is reasonable), and ended up granting monopolies to companies which string up wires or lay down pipes - electricity, gas, phone, cable TV.
Nope [mo.gov]. -5 Uninformative and flat wrong. Missouri Revised Statutes 67.1842 Prohibited acts by political subdivisions paragraph (5) Enter into a contract or any other agreement for providing for an exclusive use, occupancy or access to any public right-of-way;
It has been illegal for any local government entity in Missouri to establish exclusive franchise agreements for any utility, including broadband, since 2013. It's not even legal to grant a preference to any public utility right-of-way user (paragraph
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", we're stuck with local monopolies "
They've been illegal since the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
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except of course you don't have widespread access, you have great access and speed in the major centres with shit connectivity in the regional areas.
That is a complete lie.
Cable TV can dump the sports and cut about $25+ OF (Score:2)
Cable TV can dump the sports and cut about $25+ off the bill to save it from streaming.
Re:Cable TV can dump the sports and cut about $25+ (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not saying that U.S. ISPs aren't price-gouging and delivering an inferior product, mind you. But still.
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middle of the ocean
In addition to not having local situations in the way of high to-the-home speeds, you probably have multiple undersea links going through the island. Living next to a comms hub is a great start to getting awesome internet.
Oh, how the tables have turned (Score:2)
In the early days of the internet, the US seemed to be leading the world with no data caps and very cheap prices. I was stuck in Australia with either very restrictive caps or massive excess charges.
Pretty much every ISP in Australia now goes by an all you can eat model that allows full speed access no matter how many TB you consume. As some others have noted, the big differentiator here is the speed of the connection. You want 25/5? Go for it and you'll be charged less than someone on 100/40. Both will hav
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I was stuck in Australia with either very restrictive caps or massive excess charges.
I moved from Australia to the Netherlands in 2015 and boy were my eyes opened. 25x the download speed. 50x the upload speed. 75% of the price, and 0% of the data caps. Plus I got Cable TV in that package as well.
In Australia I picked where I lived based on the distance to the exchange.
In the Netherlands when I asked the realtor that question they looked confused and after explanation they said, oh yeah we have that too. Some places have fibre and will let you get 1000mbit, other places only have HFC so you'
Wait a minute... (Score:2)
te>Our newest analysis of historical FCC data and trending usage data predicts that within the next three years, or before the year 2024, the average household will use over 1TB of broadband data a month, putting them above the current caps. The mean will likely remain below current cap numbers, but as more households turn into power users, the average will continue to spike.
The ground-breaking, stop-the-presses story here is that in three years, the average household will use as much bandwidth and a pow
Isn't this expected? (Score:3)
just did a wget on old.reddit.com and then looked in firefox what scripts it loads. The html is 300 KB alone, before anything else is loaded. Slashdot is about half that.
it also loads between twenty and fourty pages worth of javascript files. files, not file contents. (i just went to the debugger and did "expand all" on the "Webpack" node. All in all, roughly 1.7 MB worth of data for a page reload.
And let's not get into video streaming, OS updates (which don't patch anything with diffs, they just redownload entire subsystems) etcetcetc
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And all of that pales in comparison to the day Doom Eternal was released and I smashed down some 80GB in the shortest possible timeframe while we were streaming Netflix in 4K nextdoor.
Stuff isn't as small as it used to be.
Data caps? What the heck are they? (Score:2)
Here in the UK, most ISPs offer unlimited bandwidth plans for home broadband as standard and for the few that have any caps, it's usually done by speed throttling rather than extra charges when the cap is hit. Data caps with extra charges when hit are frankly hopeless for home broadband - US ISPs need to be dragged into the 21st century and permanently remove them.
Yes, it's different for UK mobile broadband where data caps and charges for exceeding that do apply, but with 5G starting to roll out and UK ISPs
Wait... (Score:2)
Another Great ISP Con (Score:3)
Go from say a 256Mb circuit to a 1Gb fiber and in the same amount of time you should be able to get 4x the amount of data.
Did your data cap go up by 4x? No. No, it did not.
Welcome to "ISP reality", where down is up, black is white, and you get to pay more.
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Did your data cap go up by 4x? No. No, it did not.
Yes it did. At least in countries outside the USA it did. Hell in Australia they didn't even offer 1TB plans a few years back.
400GB of data a month (Score:2)
400GB of data a month seemed a lot, so I calculated what I can get running my measly 3Mbit/s DSL continuously. 750GB a month.
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They've been saying "wait a year longer" for the past 10 years.