mobile Broadband over charging me

ianrout

Hi everyone,

I’m writing regarding mobile browsing – has anyone has issues with usage?

I currently have a 3gig plan with Vodafone.
For the first 3 months I was well under my monthly allowance averaging around 2.5-2.7 gig per month.

My past 3 bills have been well over the limit, this time averaging around 7.5-8.5 gig per month, a huge difference. Upon investigation I found there was a connection of 2.8mb, often 3-6 times per minute whilst being connected. This appears to be eating into my allowance as it occurs so often.

The obvious question is if I’ve been downloading software, music or movies. I would say at most I’ve done about 500mb. Other than that the usage is normal internet surfing and email downloads.
On further research an email averages 10-50kb (not including attachments) and a web page is around 100kb.

Can anyone help to explain what might be going on??
Becoming very annoyed with Vodafone and the amount my monthly bill has increased by. :mad:

Many thanks
Ian

espresso

ianrout wrote: »

Upon investigation I found there was a connection of 2.8mb, often 3-6 times per minute whilst being connected. This appears to be eating into my allowance as it occurs so often.


Becoming very annoyed with Vodafone and the amount my monthly bill has increased by. :mad:

More information required. Why are you very annoyed with Vodafone - it's your handset that is connecting to their network.

ianrout

I'm not using a mobile phone, this is the USB dongle with my laptop.
Attached is an example from my bill - this 2.8mb does not make sense to me when the internet is not being used.
I do not get charged for these until I have gone over the 3gig monthly limit - but what/why is there 2.930mb so often - there are 60 pages + of this.

Wed May 20 09:59,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.578 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:59,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.504 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:59,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.352 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:58,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2929.812 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:58,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.876 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:57,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.395 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:57,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.517 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:56,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2931.009 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:56,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.523 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:55,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2929.950 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:55,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2929.738 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:55,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2929.900 Kb,,0.000,

espresso

ianrout wrote: »

I'm not using a mobile phone, this is the USB dongle with my laptop.
Attached is an example from my bill - this 2.8mb does not make sense to me when the internet is not being used.
I do not get charged for these until I have gone over the 3gig monthly limit - but what/why is there 2.930mb so often - there are 60 pages + of this.

Wed May 20 09:59,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.578 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:59,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.504 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:59,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.352 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:58,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2929.812 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:58,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.876 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:57,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.395 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:57,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.517 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:56,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2931.009 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:56,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.523 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:55,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2929.950 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:55,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2929.738 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:55,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2929.900 Kb,,0.000,

You are reading it wrong surely.

Wed May 20 09:59,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.578 Kb,,0.000,
Wed May 20 09:59,Mobile Browsing,INTERNET,2930.504 Kb,,0.000,

The difference is 74b. Any decent firewall will tell you what application is using this.

ianrout

i'll look into that then, but not sure what you're meaning. why would there be so many of these connections and of that amount? yes there is 74kb difference, but the point is the quantity of these, there are 1000's!!!!!!

liam8282

I have what sounds like the same vodafone package.

It is not really designed for downloading, it is aimed more at browsing, emailing and the odd music download etc.

It is made quite clear that if you go over the 3gb limit, you will get charged for it and the charges are quite high as I recall, not sure if they round it up to the next nearest gb or something along those lines.

If you go to the vodafone website there is a calculator which will give you a rough idea of how much of the allowance you are using, when you are browsing, downloading, etc.

http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=template09&pageID=MB_0005

Looking at that it looks like it will probably downloading movies that has used up your allowance.

espresso

ianrout wrote: »

i'll look into that then, but not sure what you're meaning. why would there be so many of these connections and of that amount? yes there is 74kb difference, but the point is the quantity of these, there are 1000's!!!!!!

No it's 74b. It's your PC so see what's happening on it! Program or OS automatic updates?

liam8282

Those differences look like they will just be regular web browsing, they are only relatively small changes.

Even if you have thousands of them, say 5000 x 74b is only 370kb, so that will hardly even touch your data allowance of 3gb.

Downloading movies on the other hand will probably be about 1gb per movie, that is where your allowance will be spent.

I am not big on computers or downloading etc, so I stand to be corrected, I just googled a quick kb, mb, calculator.

fatlad9

if ur downloadin off limewire etc you also have others downloadin those files off you... i believe.

asbokid

ianrout wrote: »

i'll look into that then, but not sure what you're meaning. why would there be so many of these connections and of that amount? yes there is 74kb difference, but the point is the quantity of these, there are 1000's!!!!!!

Surely it's only one figure you're posted there... showing download traffic of ~2.7Mbps at various instances in time, just a second or two after the last traffic measure..

as someone has said... you need to discover what is using your bandwidth... you might be in for a shock.. it's quite common for a PC, especially one running Windows to be commandeered over the internet... i.e. compromised - hacked into - usually using a script that exploits a know weakness in windows or internet explorer, etc.. Once the script kiddy has gained control of your machine, he then uses it as a 'zombie' for launching attacks or other unpleasant activities on other machines..

The script kiddies build entire networks of machines they now 'ownez'... and using their networks of zombies, they do things like bring down a bank's computer network in a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDOS)...

so it's worth checking.. it's quite possible that your machine has been compromised.. 'they' have control of your machine. Your laptop is now an illicit file server loaded up with images of child !!!!!! which are being served up to every Gary Glitter freak across the globe.... And all you know about it is that you can't fathom why you've exceeding your 3G bandwidth limit...

at the very lowest level, and this doesn't sound like very good advice to you since it needs to be interpreted if you're not familiar... but you could get a shell prompt by running with cmd.exe... then run netstat -n -a and that will show the open sockets on your machine.. i.e. these are the network connections between your PC and the outside world.. do you recognise the type of traffic (by packet type and port number) and the remote machine identities?

if not, you have a problem, houston...

ianrout

Thanks everyone for the input to this issue.
I do feel some have gone off the point. The issue is not the difference of 74b, its how often and the amounts of 2.8mb (and similar) as noted in the last post.
These usages appear many many times eating into my 3gig allowance.

I have not been using limewire or downloading movies, I’m fully aware of the way limewire works and the amount of data a movie uses.

I should have put this at the start, I connect on the internet using a macbook, imac and ibook all running 10.5 (leopard) OS. From my understanding they are very hard to hack or write a script which can do such things as creating a zombie computer.

Could this be done to the dongle??
I have also thought the firewall could be causing the repeated uses, although I would have thought this would only be a small amount and not around the 2.8mb each time.

Any further thoughts???
Thanks!!!