Bandwidth Calculation....

[Freakish_05]

I'm trying to sort my girlfriend out with a Data Card for her laptop so she can go on the internet.
Best deal seems to be T-Mobiles Data Card for £29.99 a month. However while it says 'unlimited' there is, of course a FUP stating:

T-Mobile defines fair use as total UK data use (both sent and received) of up to 3 GB per month. T-Mobile may contact customers who exceed 3GB of data to ask them to reduce their usage. If data usage is not reduced following a request from T-Mobile and/or where use of internet phone calling is detected, notice may be given, after which network protection controls may be applied which will result in a reduced speed of transmission.

Now, with this new-found freedom, she will probably want to spend dubious amounts of time on MSN and surfing the web. And although service won't be terminated if the 3GB cap is exceeded, I'm trying to figure out how much MSN-ing and surfing she could do. Not knowing how much bandwidth MSN uses I'm finding calculations difficult.

Any Takers?
Cheers.

 

[bad_ass_neil]

cant help with the traffic, but have you used these data cards before?

i have, we have them at work and out of g3 (if you can ever get connected) is about as good as dialup!

surfing the net is a pain but possible. also your traffic has no contention so if the networks busy you just get chucked off!
Also where we live its as flaky as it gets, some days its fine but others it just wont connect and if it does you get kicked off a couple of minutes in.

just so you know what you are letting your self in for

does it have to be like this? wont a broadband connection with a wireless router do?

it will also be cheaper, faster, more reliable and better value for money.
good luck!

 

[wij]

I have an Orange 3G card and its been brilliant, have used it all over Europe with no trouble at all, apart from the massive bills

Might be worth checking but IIRC using instant messenger apps like MSN/AOL/Yahoo etc. was also prohibited by T-Mobile in their TOC and FUP when they launched that package.

 

[BenST]

MSN doesn't use a lot. My 3G card has a 2GB/month limit. I use DU Meter to monitor my bandwidth with a 65MB/day alert should I exceed it.