Another BT Infinity Overuse issue

MikeDuffy21

What a nightmare dealing with BT!!!

Last night I spent over 1 hour and 15 mins being passed around by BT people when trying get them to justify why they claim that my internet usage has suddenly increased from less than 10Gb per month when we had been with BE for more than 4 years, to suddenly more than 60GB per month in the 3 months since BT installed Infinity.

Most of that time was spent with them asking me how many machines I was using and what we were doing and saying that the increase was due to us using more because Infinity is faster. However, we don't have any extra machines/devices than we did before, and our desired usage has not increased.

However, after the first warning of overuse, we have instigated significant RATIONING of internet usage. We have reduced the amount of catch-up TV viewing significantly, we are now less than 3 hours per week and now that Waterloo Road has finished it will be even less. We don't have a PS2 or other on-line game system, however my daughters have even switched the wireless off their iphone and ipad so that they can't play their apps on-line. The rest of the usage that I am aware of is facebook and tes where I download teaching resources.

There is no-one in the house from 7:30am until 4:30pm, we are asleep from midnight through to 6:00am, so by my reckoning we are only able to use the internet for around 8-9 hours per day and yet BT claim that we are using more than 2GB EACH AND EVERY DAY.
That equates to 2048MB of data every day, which is 256MB every hour that the system is operating. SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE.

When asking BT to detail my data usage they claim that the only information they have is summary data of weekly usage. Frankly I don't believe it!!! Somewhere there must be a log of my traffic else how can they tell that I have used the data. If they cant prove the basis of their usage claims then I don't see why I should have to pay for it.

When expressing a concern that this usage looks like I have been hacked, they had the audacity to claim that their lines are "tamper proof". What a joke!!!
Do they really expect that these little devices are impossible to hack, when organisations like the CIA, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook cant even protect themselves.

With over 20 years of working in Telecoms, I recognised that the way I was being "handled" meant that BT knows that they have a security problem and as they have done so many times in the past they are trying to hide it by blaming the consumer.
Because I was unwilling to accept their platitudes they terminated the call with a commitment that a Manager was looking at my account that exact moment and would be calling me back instantly.

That was 6:30pm last night...that is now 16 hours ago...interesting concept of instant and from a COMMUNICATIONS company!!!

Reading the thread today has reassured me that I am not the only one. However, has ANYONE had their issues resolved!
While the BT representative will no doubt respond and ask me to take my issues to him in a private setting, a classic PR image management technique, however, this issue seems to be huge and we need answers NOW!!!

kwikbreaks

Do you have WiFi turned on and is it secured with a password? If it is on the old WEP security it's possible that someone has hacked it but that's less likely with WPA. Unsecured and anybody could be using your connection.

Any children using computers unmonitored?

I've seen lots of complaints that BT usage monitoring is inaccurate. I never seen a post saying someone has proved that to be the case and had charges refunded.

I don't think the BT unlimited packages are significantly more than the light user 10GB ones and swapping will mean you can use your connection pretty much how you like. I wouldn't expect to use catch up TV at all on the 10GB product and certainly not the better quality streams as I'd be concerned about over-use charges.

lee111s

Your hourly usage calculations are not really much at all in the real world. How many people have devices that connect to the internet?

I used to work for high levels complaints in BT and in the 5 years I did, not one usage complaint that we got was found out to be genuine. People massively underestimate how much data they use. With iPhone and iPads the ability to watch videos simply will see data usage increase quite dramatically. You also need to factor in the more devices you have the more updates for software and apps there will be.

My advice is pay the exta £5 a month or whatever it is and never have to worry about your usage again.

John_Ashtone

Have you put a monitor on your usage to see compare with what you think you use www dot thinkbroadband dot com network tools/bandwidthtools do one (not sure whether I can put a link so I am playing safe here) and BT do one (you can check your yesterday's usage daily anyway) there is a graph within MY BT.

Also softpedia dot com look in software tools.

These are free, and will check just what you use, not what BT say you use, and check against their usage chart.

securityguy

MikeDuffy21 wrote: »

There is no-one in the house from 7:30am until 4:30pm, we are asleep from midnight through to 6:00am, so by my reckoning we are only able to use the internet for around 8-9 hours per day and yet BT claim that we are using more than 2GB EACH AND EVERY DAY.

Why are you surprised? House of four, at work or school all day, small amount of catchup TV, VPNs to work, some odds and ends. We're getting through around 125GB per month downstream, or about 4GB per day. I know where it's all going, as I've got a lot more network management in place than a typical home configuration. What's the extra cost of unlimited traffic? Five quid a month? Pay up and spare your blood pressure.

MikeDuffy21

Thanks for your advice, I will be looking at getting the monitoring software to see get an independent view of the usage.

However, I am still confused why my usage has increased so much since infinity went live, after all there is no extra machines or extra kids than we had when we were using BE, yet we are now looking at nearly 10 times what we were doing before. Especially, as we are now actively rationing the usage which we never had to do before.

The other thing is that the price difference is nearer £20 per month extra not £5 so I cant afford to upgrade.

colin79666

Are you using the bt home hub or your own router?
If you have the home hub, have you got Fon/openzone enabled?

securityguy

MikeDuffy21 wrote: »

Thanks for your advice, I will be looking at getting the monitoring software to see get an independent view of the usage.

It'll be right: it's unlikely that BT are either deliberately faking or incompetently mis-measuring the traffic over a PPPoA connection. You might be able to measure the bandwidth utilisation down to individual devices, but it isn't easy (I'm using cacti on a Unix box, but it involves having SNMP management on all the devices, plus a managed ethernet switch, both of which are unlikely in typical scenarios). Do you have counters in the router that would give you a back of a fag packet total on a day to day basis?

However, I am still confused why my usage has increased so much since infinity went live, after all there is no extra machines or extra kids than we had when we were using BE, yet we are now looking at nearly 10 times what we were doing before.

Much nicer to use, however, and it doesn't take a lot more catchup TV, in particular. For example, you (or your family) might now be using HD rather than SD streams, because you can. An HD catch-up stream is between 1 and 1.5 GB/hour. 3 hours per week of HD catchup is at least 12GB/mo. Even SD catchup is normally around 500MB per hour.

Especially, as we are now actively rationing the usage which we never had to do before.

It's also possible that BE didn't bother enforcing their limits, but just kept them in their pocket in case people started taking the mick. I've heard of ISPs doing that: they offer a variety of tariffs so they have something at every price point, but don't bother enforcing the limits.

10GB/mo for a family who are using multiple devices and catchup TV is very, very low. It's highly unlikely that figure is correct. Those sorts of deals are meant for little old ladies living on their own.

MikeDuffy21

Thanks Securityguy,
Just to correct a few things that I don't think I have made clear. We are on the 40 GB package rather than the 10 GB and yet they are telling me we are using over 60 GB. Previously we were using less than 10 GB when we were with BE.
In terms of the catch-up TV, I don't think it is the HD vs SD issue as we are using BBC i-player just as when we were on BE. The only change has been our rationing which means we are now watching significantly less catch-up.

In terms of what the girls are using, the BT usage tracker tells me that we used 2 GB yesterday, yet we were out for most of the day, when we got home there was
* no Catch-up TV,
* no i-phone or i-pad used as the girls have turned off their WiFi
* No Computer usage as I was on the laptop
* The laptop was used to download about 30 Mb of files and browsing the internet dealing with BT
* I also turned the wireless off for a large chunk of the night.

So how did we use 2 GB of data?

Toxteth_OGrady

Try disconnecting everything except your laptop for 24 hrs, make sure you are the only one who uses the laptop in that period and then see what the usage is.

securityguy

MikeDuffy21 wrote: »

In terms of the catch-up TV, I don't think it is the HD vs SD issue as we are using BBC i-player just as when we were on BE.

iPlayer self-tunes, and uses more bandwidth if it's available. So if you up the available bandwidth, it's possible it'll also up the consumption.

In terms of what the girls are using, the BT usage tracker tells me that we used 2 GB yesterday, yet we were out for most of the day, when we got home there was
* no Catch-up TV,
* no i-phone or i-pad used as the girls have turned off their WiFi
* No Computer usage as I was on the laptop
* The laptop was used to download about 30 Mb of files and browsing the internet dealing with BT
* I also turned the wireless off for a large chunk of the night.

So how did we use 2 GB of data?

Pass. But unless you're accusing BT of lying, the chances are that it's something on your side. Is the WiFi secured? Is it possible your neighbours are using it? Is the laptop definitely free from any malware? With modern WiFi and a fast internet connection, 2GB could be trivially consumed by anything that was up to no good.

Have you tried checking the usage counter before you leave the house in the morning, and then the first person back into the house in the evening?