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.