How to check your Internet usage (bandwidth)

espresso · 18 October 2006 at 12:30PM

Many forum members subscribe to popular ISP packages which impose a monthly usage limit. When this limit is exceeded the user will then be charged, usually at a set rate for each extra GB (or part of) used that month. This limit may be set as low a 2GB which can easily be exceeded on a fast connection or even on dial-up!

You may just be curious to know exactly how much bandwidth you are actually using, so that you can change to a cheaper package, hence saving money.

There are various programs available to monitor your bandwidth but the one that I have used for a long time is NetMeter available to download for free from here. NetMeter will check dial-up as well as broadband usage.

NetMeter is a small, customisable network bandwidth monitoring program for Windows 95/98/98SE/ME/NT4/2000/XP/Vista

This is an excellent program which works very well and has new been further developed.

EDIT: NetMeter 1.1.14 (beta) is now available - released 27 Sept 10.

NetMeter is a simple but very useful program that is easy to configure to your requirements. Once installed on your PC, right clicking on it's icon in the system tray, will display Options, Totals, About, etc.

In the General options tab, be sure to check the Load on windows startup box and then configure the other options as required:

If you wish to set a Traffic volume alert, to warn when a pre-set figure has been reached, click on the Alerts + Reports Tab to configure your specific requirements:

To check your usage, right click on the system tray icon and select Totals. As well as full daily, weekly, monthly and Total data transferred since last reset figures, there is also a useful Projected Tab which will display projected usage based on your current usage:

All NetMeter data can be exported, for use in other applications in .csv format if required.

:T

Edinburghlass_2 · 18 October 2006 at 12:36PM

Thank you to expresso for posting this thread and if other members have a similar website they use please post on here.

Should members find this under discussion in another thread/post please link to this thread

starving_artist · 18 October 2006 at 5:01PM

Anything I can use on OS 9.2.1 on a mac? Netmeter not compatible.

ashli_2 · 30 October 2006 at 12:47PM

Brilliant! i've been wondering how to do this, thanks!

zenmaster · 18 November 2006 at 2:12PM

NetMeter is indeed a fine piece of kit but, bear in mind, it only measures the traffic for the computer on which it is installed.

Therefore, if you have more than one PC connected via a router, you will need a copy of NetMeter on each and you will have to manually add the Traffic shown for each to determine the total usage.

Also, if you want a Traffic Alert, you will need to share your allowance across all the computers.

For example, if you have 3 PCs in a network and an 8G cap then you might set the alert on two of them at 3G and the third at 2G. Obviously the allocation can be redistributed to suit your needs. Then, if one PC gets an alert, you would check the others to see if you are sailing close to the wind.

ailuro2 · 18 November 2006 at 3:45PM

I used to have this years ago, now we are with Telewest unlimited downloads I wondered if we can swop to a cheaper version?

This will soon tell us, thanks very much espresso:beer:

ManAtHome · 18 November 2006 at 4:42PM

I've used v0.8 something for a while - you could sort-of trap usage by hibernating rather than shutting down then resetting totals monthly.

One drawback was that it also trapped (and added in) network traffic between PCs - can you isolate this with v0.9 or still just limit monitoring by adapter (eg any one of dial-up, wireless, wired or all together).

espresso · 18 November 2006 at 4:48PM

ManAtHome wrote:

I've used v0.8 something for a while - you could sort-of trap usage by hibernating rather than shutting down then resetting totals monthly.

One drawback was that it also trapped (and added in) network traffic between PCs - can you isolate this with v0.9 or still just limit monitoring by adapter (eg any one of dial-up, wireless, wired or all together).

You can select the Network interface to monitor from:

All interfaces
Dial Up interfaces only
Ethernet adaptor

Not sure about wireless, as this PC does not have wireless.

HTH

Edit: Your wireless adaptor should appear in the Network interface to monitor drop-down list.

ManAtHome · 21 November 2006 at 2:29AM

Thanks, sounds the same as the version I have in that respect. As PC to PC transfers come through the ethernet adaptor (and/or wireless), plays havoc with your internert stats.

bobbarley · 19 January 2007 at 8:23PM

What a fantastic piece of software, I love you

monomer · 24 January 2007 at 5:54PM

I used to only use software on my laptop to give me an idea of internet usage. I now use a wifi router, and have my telephone connected to it so I can use VoIP (bypassing the laptop altogether). I've found that my router has a web interface that has a counter of how much data has been transferred since the last power-down and reboot. Nowadays, I keep the meter on the laptop for rough figures of usage, but also power off the router at the start of each billing cycle so I can get a 'truer' measurement of monthly throughput.

If using a router, it may be worth looking through the manual and seeing what it can do!

How to check your Internet usage (bandwidth)

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