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Can you share what has led you to believe that you're the average rather than just an outlier?

by fao_ 7y ago

CydeWeys 7y ago
For the average bandwidth usage of a city to be 100 MB/s per user, the average monthly total per user would have to be 263,974 GB. Obviously the real figure is much, much less than that.
- fao_ 7y ago
  Sure not everyone is always going to be using it at the same time, but streaming times are going to be around the same because most people will clock off at around the same time, and new technology such as Google Stadia, the introduction of 4k streaming, etc. mean that it's very likely that people will start needing more bandwidth soon, no? Also the target audience of this, the people that will be able to afford it, are going to be highly paid people (assumption: it's going be charged higher than 30£/month, or even £60/mo) who will be more likely to do those sorts of activities due to having more free time.
fao_ 7y ago
lol at getting downvoted by asking for evidence that a highly paid technology worker who browses hacker news represents "the average" and isn't just an outlier. Do the people on this site understand that they are not the average? A lot of the hackernewses seem to enjoy the idea of being an outlier in medicine, knowledge, etc. but reject the rather more likely idea that they're an outlier with regards to their usage of technology and internet.
- gbear605 7y ago
  The vast majority of people in this country have data caps of under 20GB/month, so 4GB/month is hardly a low outlier.
  - fao_ 7y ago
    Are you going to serve that up without a citation?
    - kbaker 7y ago
      I'll allow it... According to this 2018 article even a lot of "Unlimited" plans are actually around a 20 GB/month cap before they start throttling speeds. [0] - Verizon’s Beyond Unlimited plan is capped at 22GB of high-speed 4G LTE data per month, while the Above Unlimited is curbed at 75GB. - AT&T caps both unlimited plans at 22GB of data per billing cycle, after which it may slow your speeds down - Sprint will throttle your speeds if you exceed more than 50GB of data in a month but, as you can see, your speeds are throttled from the get-go for most things anyway. - T-Mobile One includes 50GB of high-speed 4G LTE data. Once you go above that, as with other carriers, T-Mobile can drop this to slower speeds. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/unlimited-data-plan-caps-verizon-att-tmobile-sprint.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/unlimited-data-plan-caps-ver...
- Cogito 7y ago
  Unless the comment has been edited, they never claimed they were "the average". The claimed that most people aren't going to use 100 MB/s 24/7/365 and gave themselves as an example. Their data point is useful, as the chance of the typical user downloading 263,974 GB a month when they download 4 GB is incredibly low. Even if they were an outlier, it's far more reasonable to think that they are an outlier by using far more data, not far less data, then typical. Their data point remains useful even if they are an outlier. To reiterate - they never claimed to be average or an outlier, in fact there is no claim like that at all. One data point is better than none.

Can you share what has led you to believe that you're the average rather than just an outlier?

by fao_ 7y ago

Can you share what has led you to believe that you're the average rather than just an outlier?

For the average bandwidth usage of a city to be 100 MB/s per user, the average monthly total per user would have to be 263,974 GB. Obviously the real figure is much, much less than that.

fao_ 7y ago
Sure not everyone is always going to be using it at the same time, but streaming times are going to be around the same because most people will clock off at around the same time, and new technology such as Google Stadia, the introduction of 4k streaming, etc. mean that it's very likely that people will start needing more bandwidth soon, no? Also the target audience of this, the people that will be able to afford it, are going to be highly paid people (assumption: it's going be charged higher than 30£/month, or even £60/mo) who will be more likely to do those sorts of activities due to having more free time.

fao_ 7y ago

lol at getting downvoted by asking for evidence that a highly paid technology worker who browses hacker news represents "the average" and isn't just an outlier. Do the people on this site understand that they are not the average? A lot of the hackernewses seem to enjoy the idea of being an outlier in medicine, knowledge, etc. but reject the rather more likely idea that they're an outlier with regards to their usage of technology and internet.

gbear605 7y ago
The vast majority of people in this country have data caps of under 20GB/month, so 4GB/month is hardly a low outlier.
- fao_ 7y ago
  Are you going to serve that up without a citation?
  - kbaker 7y ago
    I'll allow it... According to this 2018 article even a lot of "Unlimited" plans are actually around a 20 GB/month cap before they start throttling speeds. [0] - Verizon’s Beyond Unlimited plan is capped at 22GB of high-speed 4G LTE data per month, while the Above Unlimited is curbed at 75GB. - AT&T caps both unlimited plans at 22GB of data per billing cycle, after which it may slow your speeds down - Sprint will throttle your speeds if you exceed more than 50GB of data in a month but, as you can see, your speeds are throttled from the get-go for most things anyway. - T-Mobile One includes 50GB of high-speed 4G LTE data. Once you go above that, as with other carriers, T-Mobile can drop this to slower speeds. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/unlimited-data-plan-caps-verizon-att-tmobile-sprint.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/unlimited-data-plan-caps-ver...
Cogito 7y ago
Unless the comment has been edited, they never claimed they were "the average". The claimed that most people aren't going to use 100 MB/s 24/7/365 and gave themselves as an example. Their data point is useful, as the chance of the typical user downloading 263,974 GB a month when they download 4 GB is incredibly low. Even if they were an outlier, it's far more reasonable to think that they are an outlier by using far more data, not far less data, then typical. Their data point remains useful even if they are an outlier. To reiterate - they never claimed to be average or an outlier, in fact there is no claim like that at all. One data point is better than none.