What is download allowance?

You may have noticed the “download allowance” column in our broadband comparison tables and wondered what download allowance is.

Every month your internet service provider (ISP) allows you to download a certain amount of data (unless you are on an unlimited package). You download a certain amount of data depending on what activity you are doing online.

Average download sizes

• 20Kb - text emails sent and received
• 50Kb - 1 website page
• 3Mb - 1 song
• 3Mb - 1 video clip (3 minutes)
• 400Mb - 1 film

Gb: Mb: Kb Conversions

1Gb = 1024Mb 1Mb = 1024Kb

1 day on a 3Gb package:

2.4Mb - 50 text emails sent and received

10Mb - 200 website pages

30Mb - 10 songs

60Mb - 20 video clips

=102.4Mb or around 3 hours online.

The above are estimated values, in terms of download allowance, it is hard to know how much you are going to use until you start downloading, though there are a number of programs that monitor the amount of downloads you are using.

Unlimited broadband

There are a number of broadband packages on the market that advertise “unlimited downloads”, while this looks like the best deal going it is important to read the small print.

If you read the small print you will find that most (if not all) unlimited broadband packages are subject to fair usage policies.

A fair usage policy stops any one user using up the majority of bandwidth set aside for an internet provider by limiting their speeds at peak times of the day.

Often broadband providers will notify heavy-users by phone or email to warn them that speeds will be curtailed at certain times.

These policies mostly impact those who use Peer-to-Peer software, online gamers and those who download large volumes of songs and films.

To compare unlimited broadband packages click here >> unlimited broadband

Mobile broadband

You may have noticed that the download allowances on many of the mobile broadband packages are a lot lower than the home broadband packages.

Three and T-Mobile offer high download allowances of 15 and 10Gb respectively on their top-end packages.

In order to find the mobile broadband packages with the highest download allowance click here >> mobile broadband.

Exceeding the download limits

Surpassing the download allowance of your broadband provider will incur a cost from some ISPs. Such costs are detailed in the terms and conditions of your contract. Other ISPs will not charge extra for extra downloads but they may curb the speed of your connection.