download/usage confusion

[ferret]

I seem to spend most of my life being confused by the most simplest of things 
so the question is, if I'm listening to radio on my pc how much of my usage thingy am I using ? you can tell I know what I'm talking about can't you

[Kim]

In simple terms, bitrate of the stream multiplied by the number of seconds you're listening for.  A quick google will bring up dozens of online calculators to help you work it out.

It adds up surprisingly quickly.

[ferret]

oopps so listening to planet rock for 4 or 5 hours is not a good idea then,

[plum]

rough calculation, typical internet radio broadcasting at 128kb/s = 16kB/s = 16 x 3600kB/h

That's 57600kB = approx 58MB/hr

So for every 1GB of bandwidth in your allowance you get 1000/58 = 17.5 hours of listening.

[tonycollinet]

And you need to cut that down by 10 to 20% to allow for overheads (not all the data going up/down your wire are bits you actually want. Some of them are bits required to make the whole thing work.