Guest ‘net usage etiquette
In Australia – unlike many other countries – ISPs enforce limits on how much you can download before you’re either charged excess usage fees, or ’shaped’ (also known as capped) to speeds barely better than dialup (64kbps). It’s fairly simple – you pay more, you get more allowance (aka quota).
The usage is (usually) broken up into two time blocks – peak and offpeak. Offpeak is cheaper for the ISP since less people use that time period, so you (generally) get more data during that time.
My plan is 25gb peak/45gb offpeak/month, and my ISPs offpeak times are 2am-12pm everyday.
Last month I woke up to find a significant chunk of my download allowance was used up. Why? Because my brother in law (BIL) was staying with us. He managed to go through 8gb peak and 4gb offpeak (all while I was asleep!), equating to 32% of peak & 8% of offpeak in one night.
Guest Internet Etiquette
- If you’re not paying for it, you have no ‘rights’ to it
If you’re not contributing money towards the internet bill, you have no rights to it. If you exceed a reasonable amount for a guest, you’ll lose access entirely. - If you can’t adhere to the rules: Bring your own internets
If you can’t behave, bring your own internet connection (3G/WiMAX) - Always ask if you want to download several gigabytes
Given that Australians are somewhat forced to "ration" their internet allowance so they’re not capped before the end of the billing cycle, be polite and ask if you need to download several gigabytes and beg if you just ‘want’ to download several gigabytes. - Don’t presume they have an unlimited plan.
BIL certainly doesn’t have an unlimited plan at his own house, so why would we? If the guest happened to be from another country (or had recently visited another country) it would be excusable for thinking that. BIL lives in Australia, he has his own broadband plan at home. - Don’t hog the bandwidth
It’s like using up all the milk or sauce in a bottle, you just don’t do it. Making your hosts connection slow is not nice for anybody. - Don’t commit any traceable felonies or piss off the Russians/Chinese/4Chan’s
I don’t want my network DDoS’d, hacked, or attacked in anyway, and I don’t want notices from RIAA or MPAA because a guest got my IP in trouble.
How much is acceptable for a guest to use?
Usage/Days in Billing Cycle/People in the house (including guest) = Very generous usage per day for a guest.
ie, For my circumstances, a single guest could use 277mb/peak (25,000/30/3) and 500mb/offpeak (45,000/30/3) each day. At that rate, BIL used 28 days worth of peak usage and 8 days of offpeak usage in a single night
Realistically, you really only "need" to check your email, maybe do some banking, etc. You don’t need to be downloading, you don’t need to be YouTube-ing, you don’t need to be using social networks (hell, the social network is "offline" when you’re visiting!)
What happens if a guest doesn’t behave?
Know your router/modem – find out if you can block the MAC address(s) of the guest so they don’t do even more damage as soon as you notice huge chunks missing.
To his credit, BIL offered to pay for the plan upgrade (and subsequent downgrade fee at the end of the month) so I had some download allowance left for the month. Other ISPs allow you to buy data blocks, that would have worked out too (iinet, my ISP, do not). This is the best case scenario.
Worst case is you’re on an ISP who still charges excess usage fees, many people have been able to rack up thousands of dollars in excess usage fees.