Time for basic usage allowances to be increased?

[#1]

Hi Matt,
christmas' posted figures are from the ThinkBroadband Meter so nothing to do with the VMBU page.
I'm not using any monitors currently as I have an issue with my Windows 7 install but I'd be interested to know if others see a similar jump when loading PN community pages.
I do wonder whether this might just be related to the often reported slow loading of the same pages.
@christmas, could you confirm, please, which browser you use and whether you have any add-ins enabled (I'm probably a bit out of date but I once used Firefox with an add-in called something like 'Fasterfox' which AFAIK worked by cacheing pages linked from a newly loaded page so it not only downloaded the page you navigated to but also any pages linked from it - great for 'instantly loading' the next page but bad for bandwidth consumption).

[#2]

Quote from: christmas

Which all seem reasonable compared to the 3.1Mb loading the community welcome page.

Probably my fault to a certain degree for not optimising the blog images. If you look at the file size for each of the blog images on the Community homepage then you get:
53.91 KB
260.1 KB
406.18 KB
303.41 KB
242.83 KB
138.25 KB
= ~1.5MB

[#3]

I also thought that VMBU updated more frequently than hourly, I thought 15 minutes had been mentioned somewhere, although IIRC this didn't happen at all times of day.

[#4]

It's the Community welcome page that greets you with a smile while eating members out of house and home.
The forum pages seem reasonable for usage.
This computer runs with IE9 the other one also has IE9 but I believe Firefox is mainly used, it is that computer that I suspect is gobbling up usage.
By the way with IE closed and no other software running the Think Broadband software shows usage is being quietly nibbled.
Having the TB software confirms to me Broadband providers need to re-think their basic usage allowance or tell website owners to cut the carp, as someone primarily looking at text pages and sitting on those pages while being read can clock up 20Mb in 2 hours.

[#5]

@Christmas - I realise it won't help with images, but it's probably worth looking at http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
Basically this blocks the majority of servers that show adverts on web pages - especially the big flash ones that pop up when you run your mouse over them. I know this won't help a great deal on the community site but I think you'll find it reduces a lot of your bandwidth usage on most other sites. I use it, always a shock when I do a reinstall and forget to update the hosts file and ads load all over the shop.

[#6]

@christmas
You better tell MS to cut the carp as well then     Bloatware seems to be the name of the game these days.
But I suggest you run Malwarebytes and also a full Virus scan with your AV on your "suspect" computer.

[#7]

Thank you Matt, for the link.
A site I visit quite regularly has many flash ads but it only clocked up only 1.4Mb.
You Tube's home page clocked up 3.1Mb thus beating Bob Pullen's attempt to make Plusnet number one. 
Haven't been online since 11:33 and at 13:45 the Your Usage page showed 50.96Mb peak usage of which around 20Mb was the other computer merely quickly checking for any emails at 9.00.
At this time yesterday peak usage was showing around 300Mb and climbing.
Will run various software on the other computer and hopefully sort things out, one thing I noticed yeasterday was that heavy data usage came in bursts.

[#8]

Interesting thread, here are the results from the East Yorkshire jury 
5423 KB - after install and initial 5 MB download test
5634 KB - open member center - default is at High Speed Broadband page 
8380 KB - nav to Community
8393 KB - nav to Forum
8514 KB - nav back to Community
All values via tbbmeter, new install, running on Win7 Home, IE9, cache options set to Automatic
The Community front page is not one I normally use so wouldn't have been in the cache, so gives 2746 KB initially, a revisit to the same page then gives 121 KB.
Maybe this is linked to Cache settings and Cache size if the nav to the Community page always returns approx. 3 MB?

[#9]

I may have rounded up the numbers for dramtic effect. 
In the 1980's it was possible to construct a page using just 1K of data, maybe Mr Pullen could emulate such practise? 

[#10]

Upgrade your browser to Lynx .. that should save a fair bit of usage

[#11]

SKY Anytime+, or another Internet based service, such as BBC's The Space causing excessive usage ?
For anyone finding excessive mystery usage.
I have Anytime+ connected via ethernet into my router from my SKY+HD box, and BBC (and other) interactive services via ethernet into my router from my Freeview HD box, and Freesat HD box too.
These are not recorded on my computer, but obviously PlusNet record all usage through my router and Broadband connection.
Just a thought.

[#12]

Thursdays peak usage was 139.47Mb compared to Wednesdays 453.25.
Yesterday's usage was just one person not doing very much on the internet, definately not doing a lot of googling or research or viewing video clips.
This morning I've checked my emails (2), visited two local community forums, contributed to one, went to a commercial forum and made a contribution then came to Plusnet....Think Broadband shows I've already clocked up 13.5Mb in less than an hour.
With the basic usage allowance the average daily peak allowance is about 330Mb, in a two person household that's 165Mb each. In a household with 2 parents and 2 children that's 83Mb each.
Since last Sunday I've been closely monitoring my peak usage and afforded video clips restricting myself to a small numer of sites which are primarily text and managed to clock up about 80Mb of usage, remember that's restricting my use of the internet to as liitle, visiting just just 4 websites.

[#13]

If PlusNet cannot increase the current 10GB / month peak-time use limit for "value" accounts, then can't they create an "intermediate user" account type for say 20 GB / month for a slightly higher monthly charge ?
This shouldn't be a difficult to set up and might well meet the requirements of those of us who go slightly over our 10 GB limit from time to time, but who wouldn't use anything like the 60GB / month limit for an "extra" account.

[#14]

I think you get 15GB on the BBYW Option2 account, you could try that, think it is 15 pounds/month.

[#15]

Thanks for the suggestion, but this is more than PlusNet charges for 60 GB / month !