broadband and gb useage explanation/help please

purplecatlover

ont he 5th jan i got an email form bt saying last month i exceeded my 10gb allowance and used 13gb thsu was being charged extra.

last month i also had an email saying similar but 1gb over iirc and they didnt charge as it was the first time.

i thought it was strange that happened in november given i have been with bt option 1 for the last 4 years at least and never ever gone over the useage allowance. but there was a week or two where i had 2 computers running and i had re downloaded various security softwares and windows updates following factory restores on both computers so figured that may have been the cause.

this one i cant believe i was over by that much in december, i was away form home form the 17/18th of december until today. my router was turned off for that whole time. so how in 17 days have i managed to use 13gb?

i actually have no clue what the 10gb/13gb etc actually means either.

i dont tend to download things, the odd game free trial and antivirus/security update type stuff is all. i dont often watch tv/movies/videos and dont stream music, and watching a bunch of one tv series (8 episodes over a few days iirc) early autumn didnt send me over my limit, i dont think ive watched anything since.

my internet useage hasnt changed really, i have spent most of the last few years online nearly all day most days, on forums, blogs, lj and playing games via yahoo or msn games or pogo or neopets or though facebook and facebook games are new ish within my net browsing which may be leading to more page loads/refreshing.....

thus i really do not understand what has suddenly changed. i will be phoning bt to ask !!!!!! is going on....but if anyone here can help me make more sense of it that would be good.

if its going to be a regular thing and has been caused by increased refreshing or loading of web pages then i will give in and upgrade (sods got me with a new contract in october because they made me a good offer to renew it for 12mths even though it was a couple of months before it should be switched/renewed)

sorry thats long and rambly an i have no idea if its relevant or not.....

closed

bt broadband is overpriced, you can get unlimited for much less elsewhere.

Video can easily take you over 10GB.

davb

You could install something like Netlimiter Monitor on each of your PC's which will record the bandwidth usage by hour/day/month etc - you should then be able to tell what is going on.
The other obvious question is that if you have a wireless router, is it secure - it wouldn't take an uninvited guest long to download 13GB

John_Gray

The best monitor for network usage I've found is NetWorx, and it, too, has to be installed on all PCs/laptops which use your router.

But really the place where the monitoring should be done is at the router, and all routers should have a log which totals the data transferred on a daily basis... (But no consumer router seems to have this, as far as I am aware.)

gonzo127

for a slight explaination of the download limit required for things, and please take into account these are rough ideas on sizes of normal downloads

high quality movie ~ 4GB
AVI quality movie ~ 0.7GB (700mb)
single 40 min TV program ~ 0.3GB (300mb)
single 20 min TV program ~ 0.1GB (100mb)
music album ~ 0.1GB (100mb)
single track ~ 0.005GB (5mb)

i am unsure about the flash games myself however i wouldnt expect they would lead to a 3-4gb increase in average usage so i would do as suggested above and get a net montior of some sort installed on all your computers plus double check your wireless security is set to WPA or WPA2 maybe go as far as changing the password incase someone has managed to hack your password

pitkin2020

John_Gray wrote: »

The best monitor for network usage I've found is NetWorx, and it, too, has to be installed on all PCs/laptops which use your router.

But really the place where the monitoring should be done is at the router, and all routers should have a log which totals the data transferred on a daily basis... (But no consumer router seems to have this, as far as I am aware.)

most routers do have this facilty but its not clear cut and is rarely measured in MB or GB but in packets, you then have to calculate the size of each packet to work out how much you have used, its far easier and simplier to use a monitor like you mentioned

purplecatlover

closed wrote: »

bt broadband is overpriced, you can get unlimited for much less elsewhere.

Video can easily take you over 10GB.

i knwo but 1. ive never had trouble wiht them, 2. they always fix issues fast and i have always been able to get through to and get connection issues solved with their customer service, unlike with other cheaper suppliers i have had in the past.

if i was watching videos fine, but i ahvent been and was only online at home in december for 17days during which i didnt watch a single video. and like i said previous months (eg august) where i watched 6 -8 hours worth of tv/video online over a couple days didnt bring me over 10gb so why has it happened in two months were i ahve not watched anything or streamed anything?

purplecatlover

davb wrote: »

You could install something like Netlimiter Monitor on each of your PC's which will record the bandwidth usage by hour/day/month etc - you should then be able to tell what is going on.
The other obvious question is that if you have a wireless router, is it secure - it wouldn't take an uninvited guest long to download 13GB

it is wireless and is supposed ot be secure but i am questioning that now, though ahve no idea how to make sure or sort it out if its not. iu did have to enter the wirelkess key to get this new puter to access the network.

John_Gray

When you look at the list of available wireless networks on your laptop, what does it say about your own network's security level: WEP? WPA? WPA2?

kwikbreaks

Have you turned off BT OpenZone?

If not you are maybe providing a free WiFi hotspot...

http://www.polkaspots.com/_blog/WiFi_News/post/Hurrah_for_BT_Openzone_Wi-Fi_Hotspots/

http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9787/c/426,427,1955

My son logged hundreds of OpenZone hotspots on his drive home. There are 3 in the small close he lives in.

purplecatlover

John_Gray wrote: »

When you look at the list of available wireless networks on your laptop, what does it say about your own network's security level: WEP? WPA? WPA2?

says WEP (took me a wee while to find it they have comnplicated windows 7 omapared to xp lol)


it shows bt openzone as an available wireless network but wont let me see its properties unless i connect, i may try that tomorrow, but iirc its an unsecured network....the http://home it gives to find router settings doesnt seem to work....im missing something i should add maybe?

i am remembering that the puter was being slow slow evenings nov/dec ..bt had to come and fix the phone line in december which also improved my internet speeds immensly.

according to bt i used 6gb in august, 8 in sept, 6 in oct 12 in nov and 13 in dec.

she asked if anyone else was using it, or if anyone had access while i was away (im sure i had to turn it on at the plug yesterday to get online again, having switched it off when i left on the 17th or 18th december) and told me their systems for monitoring are 100% accurate and the culprit is usually a gaming system such as xbox. ill attempt to translate the figures given by the monitoring thingy above form mb to gb and figure it out for usage fomr today till the end of jan to see if it agrees with bts figures or not but its all gobbeldy goop to me lol