Im in australia and i am an avid file sharer. how ever we have download limits here. internet providers say unlimited downloads which in essence is true. but we are limited to 25 gig per month on my plan at maximum upload and download speed, once i exceed that 25 gig my speeds drop right down to dial up speeds. what this causes me to have to do, when i have little bandwidth left is really watch my uploading which in turn affects my sharing abbility which fucken shits me to no end. im paying $80 aus a month for 25 gig at 1500/256. what i would like to know is the bandwidth limit unique to australia and is our price dear. unlike the us we have only one major phone carrier/internet provider, there are a few smaller ones but they all rely on the major ones infrustructure so they cant compete any way.

ps i am fully aware that australia is a bit slow in general when it comes to technolgy

Hey trollster - I just noticed your email. I subscribe to a cable server and they provide variable bandwidth for which you can choose to pay more or less depending on how much B/W you want. Presently I have 10 gb. This is considered the maximum I can purchase and still be considered a residential customer. I can purchase greater bandwith but then they put me into the commercial customer catagory and then I have to pay big money. Generally speaking, my download speed averages about 125kb/sec but this is also dependant on the other side/user's speed ability. I have achieved download speeds of 500kb/sec but that's rare. As you know, the more downloaders downloading a specific file, the faster you can download that file. I can usually download a 700mb file in about 20 minutes with 12 downloaders online.

Cost-wise, it's difficult to break down as my cable server also include television and pay-per-view movies. I have included on my cable service about 250 television channels and 20 pay-per-view channels that provide new movies.

The internet service by itself is about $41.95 US per month.

Additionally, I have Vonage telephone internet service connected to the internet so I can generally telephone all over the U.S. for free and just about anywhere in the world for about one cent/penny per minute.

Not a bad deal! :)

Hope this answers your questions. :)

-= hawley =-