I may be in the wrong fourum. This may belong in the Canadian TV section. Or is it an internet thing?

If you were using a torrent program to dowload legal media, obviously bandwidth is going to be a concern for HD content. My ISP gives me 60Gb of bandwidth per month.

Say I wanted to run traffic constantly. Most bandwith throttles speak in Kb/s. If I want to allocate say 40Gb of my bandwitdh limit to legal HD content, then I need to figure out the number of seconds in a month and set my upload rate to half and my download rate to half.

So 40 Gb is 40million Kb right? so thats 4x10e7 right? "to the power of seven" not sure I got my nomenclature right there.

30 days * 24h * 60 min * 60s = 3.7x10e9

So my total transfer rate is 4x10e7 / 3.7x10e9 So my target rate is about .01kb/s without the need to belabour such a miniscule number. Half that to each up and down.

If I download for 1/100th of the time in a month at 1kb/s I get my rate?

30*24=720 hours per month. I can run traffic for 7.2 hours a month at 1kb/s and stay within my bandwidth use?

From my experience that's not right.

Anyone know a way to figure this out, more accurate than trial and error.

I understand that the true formulae are going to be outrageous calculus operations given the variations in traffic at any given time at any place in teh world and the differnt upload download rates, number of peers etc.... Me and calculus aren't good buddies.

I'm hoping that someone maybe can speak from experience.

Just call your isp and ask them to notify you when you reach say 50gb :) keep in mind its more your upload amounts than your download that they really worry about.

Im really curious if anyone knows the answer to your question however.

My ISP is rogers canada. They warn us at, I think, 75%, and one at almost max. Again not sure exactly. I can log on and check a useage estimte at any time.

My strategy will be to use just enough to keep me in TV content for the month. I'll max my useage to get the shows I want, near the end of the month, then ration my watching. There are things I could be doing to better use my time than TV; though few are as relaxing.

Anyone know the legal issues with downloading TV?

Realistically, how could they mind? I see the advertisements they got paid to put in there. I pay for cable, and if I had a PVR, I would have the same thing recorded.

Or if it's broadcast OTA its freely available to anyone

Is there a forum that dissusses this aspect of it?

If you wanted to use 40GB (20GB up and 20GB down) you would set up and down speed to 8KBps (66kbps) for the month. (30 day month, 24/7).

Boy I was sleepy when I did that math. Did I mention I have three month old and a three year old.

40 000 000 000/30=bits per day/24=bits per hour/60=bits per min/60=bits per second/1000=kbps.

Right?

That does get me about 8, but eight is rounded up, and would put me over, so if you budget your full bandwidth limit you'd be over and get charged. So round down.


Now, at 8kbps, would you actually be able to get any content down? Probably not right?

I'm sticking with the max it out near the end of the month and moderate viewing rate.

Are you sure the cap is in bits or is it in Bytes? There are 8 bits in a Byte and Bytes normally use a capital B vs a lower case b for bits. I believe my cap with Rogers is 60 GB - I am pretty sure that the caps that are discussed are in bytes, not bits. Not that it matters if you are consistent - your calculation of about 8 would be about right.

1mbps * 3600s per hour = 440mb
40gb *1024 mb (per gb) / 440mb = 93 hours per month.

Depending on the bitrate (1mbps is definitely low for quality HD.. youtube is 2-3mbps for 720p. Don't have a number on 1080p yet, but I'd guess double that)

That means your 93 hours becomes 46 or 31 for 720p
Or maybe even 16 for 1080p.


Aaand now you know the reason for "bandwidth" (not really bandwidth by the meaning of the word, should be 'data transfer') caps in Canada.
You can't realistically replace the $100/mo tv package.

:) sorry I double posted

woa....... all that math.... your over thinking this.
why dont you just use a reasonable and comfortable amout for one month and have a look at your bill.
This will give you a model of a one month window and a solution to your calculus operations.
If you exceed your limit, find out if its practical to go to the next tier.
Just like a cell phone