Excessively High Broadband Usage with BT

Retrogamer

From my reading of the recent posts here it seems like having the BT Hotspot (FON) active in the router is the problem.

It also appears it's on as default.

This (from my reading here) appears to mean that when someone outside the home is also a BT customer and in range of your router they can use your wireless connection for access to the internet.

This seems to be the cause of the extra useage. When a stranger connects to your WiFi (which BT allow as default via the FON hotspots) it's counting towards your useage

Gordon_Hose

Can you turn FON hotspot off?

barneyboy

I asked if they would disable fon during one of my many calls, they said ok but never said if it was immediate or how long it takes (it still shows as active in my hub manager page, i think i read somewhere it takes a while to disconnect)
My BT usage monitor still shows the same usage as before( but it was after a remote session with a tech person they agreed that the usage monitor was incorrect)
I have had my bill and BT have not charged me for the data over 10 GB so thats something, they still never gave a reason as to why this happened or if it could happen again.

bellabooski

I've got a similar problem with higher than average bandwidth use this month with BT
I've just spotted this reply to a letter from a reader of Computeractive who is querying the security of BTFon.
'BTFon does reserve 512kbps of your bandwidth for use by account-holding passers-by, but you almost certainly won't notice this in daily use. However, if you are uncomfortable with the idea of BTFon then you can opt out. First, visit https://www.bt.com/btfon and click "check my status" link. Now enter your username and password and click the "check my status" button. Scroll down to find the opt-out area, type your credentials again, click Send and then follow the instructions.'

I've just done this to opt out of BTFon and when complete it tells you to keep your hub switched on for a couple of days so that opt-out can be completed. I hope this helps and makes a difference to our suspiciously high usage.:)

woopsy

woopsy wrote: »

I too have 10GB broadband which is usually not a problem. On 23rd December I got an email saying I had used 8GB. We never download films although my daughter watched one half hour programme on iplayer over xmas. As soon as I got the email I turned the wifi off my phone which is what I use most, but accepted that just maybe we might go over the 10GB limit in December which would only be the second time in the last year (at least).

To my horror I got an email from BT yesterday saying we'd used 17GB in December which would cost an extra £10.60!! NO WAY!!

I phoned BT and the accounts people said they couldn't tell me what had made our usage so high, but technical may be able to help. Put me through to technical and after queuing was told they couldn't help me as it was accounts who dealt with that.

I asked to be put through to a manager, and was asked if I wanted accounts or technical, to which I replied whichever could help me. So I was put through to a number with a message that the office is now closed!!!!

As we're right on the edge of an exchange our BB speed is ridiculously slow (a friend who works for Sky told me it's slower that dial-up), so I've been thinking of leaving BT and going to Virgin, as they won't offer me a decent deal for fibre-optic. In fact that's why I'm on the forum now looking at the best option when I stumbled on this thread.

Can you help me BT rep?

Just an update on this. Having had technical tell me in one phone call that it was probably due to updates at the end of the year, and in another call that it appeared my broadband had been hacked, after 2 and a half hours of phone calls I got a refund of £10.60 for the excess usage.

BT retention team couldn't offer me a deal anywhere near as good as Virgin, so told me how bad they were and it would still be copper cables so speed wouldn't be any better.

Rang Virgin media to check this out and they assure me that it's only the cable from the one that runs down the middle of the road that is copper so we'll get a much better speed. I mentioned the MSE offer of £4 a month plus line rental and got it there and then in one 15 minute call. Being installed next week.

Wake up BT. If you want to keep customers of nearly 30 years you're going to have to do much better!!

Queenie1

Hi BT company representative, reading this thread after having googled my mothers issue with sudden and excessive high internet use it sounds as though she is not alone.
My parents have for years been within their 10gb usage but all of a sudden BT say they have gone over this and they have been charged £5. They have now upgraded to the 40Gb but are already running up high usage for the month and this may not be enough although they are frightened to use the internet much now. They do not have a PC as this stopped working circa last October and they have being my netbook with Avg antivirus. In December we bought them a hudl tablet and the increase seems to have come at this same time which may be a coincidence. They had been getting red flashing lights on some connection boxes from the hub and they have had a new hub fitted last week but the BT man said he had fixed the red flashing lights but as soon as he left they started flashing again. The man did not replace the silver vision box and so this was not compatible with the new hub and so she has been unable to record for a week, a new one has now been sent for her to install herself but the usage is still really high and we still have flashing lights. They do not download any music or films and have only used I player for one hour ever and are now frightened to do so, they surf the net for a couple of hours most but not every day a week so I cannot see where this this usage is coming from.
My mother is at the end of her tether and has been on the phone constantly to India, Sunderland and Newcastle and is exhausted by it all and is being told that this usage is correct.

Please can you help, is it the hudl or the flashing lights? The password seems secure.

I've sent my details to the link under your profile and would be grateful if you could assist.

Thanks

stk31

I've also recently had an email from BT informing me that I'm likely to go over my 40Gb monthly allowance. For 12 months I've averaged 22Gb, I'm now on 32Gb after 20 days of the month.

I have a Youview box and all content viewed through that should be exempt from the allowance mentioned above. I believe my sudden increase is due to me subscribing to NowTV on the 4th January, and the failure of BT to be able to safely record what is and what is not part of my monthly usage. They even state on their monitor that they know some content is being recorded incorrectly, this means nothing. They are out to scam me to pay for an unlimited package that I do not require. I have not changed anything in my online usage in 2 years other than the NowTV account, this is definitely causing the increase, although it's impossible to prove as the usage monitor is always a day or two in arrears.

Many calls to them have left me very disillusioned, the lack of product knowledge of their call centre staff is staggering, none of them seem to know what is included in my Broadband and TV package. I had an argument with one member who kept telling me my package only had a 20Gb download limit per month (it was what he could see you would get if you signed up for Infinity 1 today).

The only way I can see an end to this for myself and for BT is for them to put all Youview users with a TV Package on an unlimited Broadband tariff, this would mean they wouldn't have the problems they clearly have with monitoring what is and what isn't chargeable, they could increase the charges per month to cover their costs, if it was compulsory then no-one would really mind.

I will contact the BT representative in this thread to see if anything can be looked into and resolved but I'm not holding my breath.

Katem

This is a very interesting thread. We had infinity installed last year for my business. The office we use is at the very back of the house and our normal wifi (EE) wouldn't reach into the office, and we also wanted to keep business and pleasure separate. So the only device linked to the BT wifi is the office computer, which isn't used for gaming, streaming, watching tv or anything that might use up loads of data.

Everything was ok until about November, when the usage shot through the roof, using ridiculous amounts of data within days (30ish gb within 5 days over Christmas/NY when the business computer wasn't even switched on). The person I spoke to at BT assured me everything was ok with the line and that we must be gaming/streaming/whatever to use that much. TBH I gave in after lengthy phone calls and upgraded to unlimited use because I couldn't be bothered and my time is money, so it's much better spent working, than on the phone for ages to BT. They couldn't give me any idea of what might be causing the spikes in usage, just that it was high on certain days (days when I know we never touched the work computer).

Anyone any ideas what else might be causing high usage other than that already mentioned? Uploading word documents to cloud storage wouldn't use that much I think and that's the only other thing I can think of. Because I'm not terribly computer savvy, I have no idea how to access the router etc to stop people loggin onto our system.

I received an email from BT yesterday saying they were charging me £20+ for the extra amounts we'd used over our 40gb limit.

BT must love customers like me, who just give in. I wonder how many people just do that for an easy life!

MataNui

I was told specifically that FON does not count towards usage when i asked to have it turned off. It does however use bandwidth. Not a problem really if you have a good speed but if (like me in the sticks) you struggle to get 2-3 Meg then FON would make a difference between using iPlayer or Netflix and not being able to use them. The BT monkey on the other end of the line couldnt get this simple fact. Anyway, I got them to turn it off. It takes a couple of hours then you need to restart the router BUT - If you turn FON off then BT disable your access to the FON network (old openzone). Its a bit of a scam really (nothing new for BT). They tell you to have BT broadband and you can use openzone free. What they dont tell you is that its conditional on you sharing your broadband and acting as a hotspot for them. The best option is to keep FON turned on on your account but ditch the piece of crap BT homehub for a proper router.

G-Man83

Hi Ballunatic,
Yep, I had a similar package with Virgin & never went over. 1 month after being with BT (clear of the cooling off period) and they start telling me I'm going over my limit