How To Buy Internet Data

[Suyay Escarsega]

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Browsing the internet, scrolling through social media posts, streaming catch-up TV and downloading music are just some of the ways we rely on our smartphones for information, shopping and entertainment.

Internet data is used any time we connect to the internet over a mobile connection that is not (Wi-Fi) to browse the web, check emails, play a video game, download music or use online streaming sites such as YouTube.

According to software company RescueTime, we spend an average of three hours and 15 minutes a day on our phones. However, the amount of internet data you actually need will depend on what you use your phone for.

Alternatively, many SIM-only deals are on a one-month rolling contract, which means you can easily cancel or change to an alternative package if you decide you need more or less data at any point. There are no penalty fees for switching.

Some network providers currently allow customers to access certain services without using up their data allowance. All Virgin Mobile customers on a 4G plan can benefit from data-free messaging on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Twitter, for example.

Another way to lower the amount of data you use is to download programmes from Amazon Prime, Netflix and BBC iPlayer over Wi-Fi in advance. You can then watch your downloads whenever you want to, without having to use your data. You can also do this with music from Spotify and Apple Music.

My bill has been increasing by around $200 a month over the past 5 months or so. The main culprit seems to be attributed to "Network Internet Data Transfer Out from Americas to Americas" (the blue bars in the screenshot below).

I was hoping someone could tell me how I can dig into this further and figure out why this is. I know this is based on data transfer so it will vary but the gradual increase resulting in my bill being around $600 more than it was 5 months ago, and this month projected to be higher than it was last month yet again, is a concern.

I, unfortunately, only consider myself a web developer but in my small company I've inherited everything tech related because there is nobody else to. So this stuff is pretty confusing to me. I'm thinking VPC flow logs might be the answer? But I also see that logging also comes with a cost. Is there anyway to figure this out without having to pay for it?

Hi there @jackson-oomdo, Thanks for bringing your questions to the Community! I definitely can empathize with you -- understanding your GCP statement and drill down to how your usage might be creating unexpected bills in frustrating. Hopefully one of our experts will hop onto the thread and help demystify what's going on.

Have you checked out Cloud Billing to help you track and understand your Google Cloud spending, pay your bill, and optimize your costs? There you'll also find video explainers, training and tutorials and resources that will walk you through each line of your bill and goes over topics that help you understand, control, and optimize your Google Cloud costs.

But just knowing that "Network Internet Data Transfer Out from Americas to Americas" cost keeps increasing doesn't help me. I can't drill into that any further in the cost breakdown. I need to be able to see the specifics of what's going on on my servers that have caused this to keep increasing and then I can figure out a solution.

Hi jackson-oomdo

Did you find a solution to identifying what was causing the price increase?

I have the same issue where I have isolated a significant increase on our bill to the SKU - 'Network Internet Data Transfer Out from Belgium to Apac(Excluding Korea and Indonesia)'. However I cannot link this to a process/app on our cluster.

Unrelated to this post - my company was contacted by a Jose Solano Vindas - (PII Removed by Staff) - offering to go over anything GCP related for free. I spoke to him, he wasn't able to help with this issue but he set up a meeting with our company's account manager for next Tuesday and hopefully she will be able to help me with this. This meeting is also for free. I will post what I learn from that meeting but maybe you can contact Jose and get your own meeting set up.

In my billing, the "Network Internet Data Transfer Out from Americas to Americas" spiked after I have deployed a new application, and I have not idea how to debug this to understand what exactly is billing into this categoy.

I hope my comment will bring the attention to this tipic from Google Support

I had a free call with some members from Google. They gave me ideas of what it could be but couldn't help me debug it. They eventually told me to open a ticket with billing support which I did 7 days ago on Tuesday March 12th. I haven't heard back from them.

@jackson-oomdo I was doing some experiments and research, and here is what I found, hoping to be helpful.

So the traffic calculated to "Network Internet Data Transfer Out from Americas to Americas" bucket is all outbound traffic from GCP to consumers within Americas. The inbound traffic to GCP is free. The price for outbound traffic is $0.12 per GB of data.

So all data, that are transered to your counsumers, for web applications, APIs and Services goes to this bucket.

So you see this number is growing because of two reasons:

1. You have more consumers that use your applications

2. Your application generates more outbound traffic because of application changes.

What you need to do, is analyze the dataflow, and what can be improved. In my case, I have reduced the size of static data assets, such as images for my web application. So for each consumer it will transer less data. And at scale it all adds up.

I have found this approach to query raw data from Google to analize per deployed service: -to-calculate-the-monthly-costs-of-an-individual-clo...

I didn't try it, because for me picture is clear. But if you need, you can try to find out which of your apps consumes excessive traffic and can be optimized.

I observed that you have created several VMs and two VPC networks.

Upon checking the Metric Explorer for VM Instance Sent Bytes, it was noted that high bytes were transmitted between September 2023 and February 2024 for Compute Engine instances.

The high charges are attributed to Internet Egress traffic, which occurs when a compute engine instance or application hosted on an instance sends requests outside to the internet.

Unfortunately, it is not possible from our end to pinpoint the exact cause of why the VM instances or applications started sending high traffic during specific periods. This can typically be identified by examining application logs, as traffic is initiated from within the VMs.

I observed that your project does not have any egress-denying firewall rules. It's important to note that every VPC network has implied egress firewall rules that allow traffic to any destination unless explicitly blocked.

To prevent unwanted egress traffic to the internet, we recommend implementing egress deny firewall rules. You can refer to the documentation [2] for guidance on setting up these rules.

Best Practices for Protection:

I will also share documentation [3] outlining best practices for protection, which includes strategies to secure your network and manage traffic effectively.

By implementing egress deny firewall rules and following best practices, you can better control and manage your network traffic, reducing unexpected charges and enhancing security.

If you operate an Internet data center in New York State, certain property that you purchase for use in the data center and certain services related to this property are exempt from sales tax. This bulletin explains who is considered an operator of an Internet data center for purposes of the exemption, and which property and services are exempt from sales tax.

An operator of an Internet data center is a person who:

If any of these services are for property some of which is taxable and some of which is exempt, an allocation may be used to determine the amount related to the exempt property. The exempt portion must be separately stated on the invoice given to the Internet data center operator or the whole invoice is subject to tax. Acceptable allocation methods include allocations based on square footage, time, or property values.

An Internet data center operator should use Form ST-121.5, Exempt Use Certificate for Operators of Internet Data Centers (Web Hosting), when purchasing either property or services exempt from tax.

A contractor, subcontractor, or repairman should use Form ST-120.1, Contractor Exempt Purchase Certificate, to purchase exempt property or services.

Note: A Tax Bulletin is an informational document designed to provide general guidance in simplified language on a topic of interest to taxpayers. It is accurate as of the date issued. However, taxpayers should be aware that subsequent changes in the Tax Law or its interpretation may affect the accuracy of a Tax Bulletin. The information provided in this document does not cover every situation and is not intended to replace the law or change its meaning.

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