How Much Is 8MB of Internet Usage?

An average plain text file is about 1.5KB per page, while a word processed document without any fancy formatting or images can be as small as 15KB per page. Eight megabytes of Internet usage would theoretically be enough to transmit 533 pages of word processed content or 5,333 pages of plain text material.

Many other computer documents are also relatively small. Spreadsheet files are frequently small, taking up just 6KB per page, so you could transfer over 1,300 pages using 8MB. Presentation files average 57KB per slide, so 8MB would be around 140 slides. 8MB would also be enough bandwidth to transfer 800 average-sized 10KB emails, or 80 pages of Acrobat PDF files at an average size of 100KB per page.

While raw images from high-end digital SLRs are frequently very large, the kind of images that get used on the Web are relatively small. Typically, small images are 30KB or less while large, higher-resolution images can still be kept between 60- and 100KB. Eight megabytes would transfer 80 100KB images or 266 lower-resolution 30KB images.

When you start transferring audio and video, 8MB can get used up very quickly. With MP3 encoding, which compresses audio, 8MB transfers 11.1 minutes of 96 kbps MP3 music, 6.7 minutes of 160 kbps MP3 music or 4.2 minutes of 256 kbps MP3 music. At Adobe's recommend 800 kbps bit rate for DVD-quality streaming video, 8MB transfers 80 seconds of content, while it only transfers 35.6 seconds of 1,800 kbps 720p HD-quality video.