How much data do I need?

The data needs of every household are different, but the average household usage of data is between 80GB – 200GB per month. This means that most of the options outlined in our blog here would meet the needs of most households.

If you mainly use the internet for emailing, checking social media, staying in touch with family and basic web browsing you are unlikely to need more data than is available in our highlighted entry level offers. Any of these would also allow for moderate usage of streaming services and downloading.

To help understand how much data your household may use, check the below table. This is a rough guide to the amount of data used for typical online activities.

 My family are glued to the internet, how much data do I need?

Families often use more data, and if you regularly use the internet for streaming content, downloading videos and music or gaming it is likely that your demand for data is going to be higher.

Recent research from Telstra shows that the Aussie suburbs using the most internet have households that are downloading an average of just over 300GB per month. So if your family uses the internet a lot, a 500GB or unlimited plan is likely to be the most suitable for your households needs.

The first step to work out how much data you need is to ask your family about what activities they are using the internet for, and how frequently, and then find out how data intensive this usage is. The table above can help as a general guide of the data demands of common activities.