This May, AT&T DSL users are going to get a DSL cap (in their arse) of 150GB or 250GB for U-verse users. I thought I was going to be in trouble because I like to watch a lot of tv shows and movies on my computer and I’m also on the internet all day long so I never really had a gauge on how much internet I have been using until now.

I’ve been looking at my DSL usage every month to make sure I don’t go over 150GB because once you go over they start charging you $10 for every 50GB. The first thing that came to mind was EverQuest. When I was playing EverQuest, I was on that game for up to 16 hours a day. It was the first thing I did when I woke up and the last thing I did before I went to bed. I was a hardcore gamer. But I haven’t played it since 2008 so no problems right?

Well, I’ve been wanting to get back into it the last few months but not with EverQuest, this time with a free game but would I be screwed if all of a sudden I started playing a game that uses up a lot of internet?

Here’s my test. I started playing Lord of the Rings Online 1 month ago on 3/19/2011 and I’ve been playing practically every day since. Here in this graph you can see my data usage in mid February through mid March as 17.29GB download and 6.26 up. That was with just regular internet being on Twitter, blogging, looking at Hulu and YouTube videos, facebook, email etc.

Now look at this last month from March 17 through April 16. Not a lot of difference is there? It only went up by 3GB and the upload actually went down by 3GB which I wasn’t expecting.  I don’t really understand why my upload is so high, I mean, I never send files to anyone.  The only uploading I ever do is when I upload an image to my blog and even then it’s only a few KB here and a few KB there.  I don’t even upload videos to YouTube so that confuses me.

(I’m sure someone will explain it to me and I will feel stupid lol.)

Now keep in mind, I’m not on this game 16 hours a day. I can’t, my carpal tunnel doesn’t allow it. I mean, I’m having pain now just from typing this. I usually get on at around 10 or 11am and play until 3 to 4pm or when my hands start to hurt.

I get off the game not just because of my hands but because of my shows.  When I was playing EQ I would miss my shows every night because we were a raiding/family guild and they expected me to be on every night.  I would have to record my shows so that I could watch them later but I can’t do that anymore since the Digital Cable can block certain signals from recording.  The only way for me to do that now is if I had a DVR which I don’t so I play during the day and reserve my nighttime for my shows.  I don’t want a game to rule my life which is one of the many reasons I quit playing EQ.

So this was a good test to see how much DSL data I use every month with a game at the hours that I play.  I’m very satisfied that I won’t have to worry about going over my 150GB/mo.  I mean, I don’t care about $10 if I go over but I don’t want that hanging over my head and it won’t because I don’t use enough to ever have that problem.

As far as me playing Lord of the Rings Online, I absolutely love it.  I’m not as much of a hardcore gamer as I used to be and that’s a good thing.  Actually I start getting bored after awhile.  Yesterday I was falling asleep because I was bored with the area that I was in since I had been there for a couple of days.  I had to leave and go somewhere else to wake me up.

This game is really fun and relaxed and even though I’m already hooked on it, I don’t think it will rule me because of my hands.  So that’s a good thing.  My hands are like a timer for me.  When they start hurting, it’s time to sign off and go watch tv.