Detailed Breakdown of Broadband usage

EdwardTeach

EdwardTeach

EdwardTeach

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18 Mar 2010
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We have BT infinity with a 40gb cap.

For about 11 months BT were unable to monitor our data usage, so we effectively had uncapped data. They have recently rectified this and a few days ago we were emailed to inform us that we are approaching our limit. At that point I tried to limit our internet use, I asked my wife and her sister to restrict their internet use to web browsing, i.e not to use youtube etc and I have done the same myself.
Despite trying to limit data use we have gone from 28gb on 15th, to 36gb on the 17th to 46gb as of today. I cant really work out were the data has been used, 4gb/ day seems wildly excessive for web browsing.
There are some programs like windows update and steam that will have used some data. I have checked windows update and it it downloaded some security updates and definition updates, so i don't think that will account for much data. With regards to steam, it doesn't download when you are playing a game, and my computer has mostly been on when playing games so I would be surprised if it could account for all the excess data, though it is a possible culprit.

TLDR:

  1. what is a reasonable estimate for "web browsing" per hour?
  2. Is their any way to monitor my household internet usage specifically (i.e which applications are using the data)?
  3. How can I check if anyone is "stealing" our internet! (seems unlikely)
 
Its hard to estimate web browsing per hour in this day and age :S

You only need to stick a few sites into the loop with a bit of media content and you can easily blow a load of bandwidth especially if people are using facebook with default settings where autoplay is on, etc.

With a few moderately heavy users we average about 400GB a month these days :S

2014-11 219.06 GB 70.39 GB 289.44 GB
2014-10 314.39 GB 121.01 GB 435.40 GB
 
For some perspective, an hour of HD video from Netflix is typically 3GB, according to them (https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87), which is in line with what you'd expect from video compressed that way.

4GB a day is in no way excessive if there's frequent YouTubing, downloading bits and pieces, etc. Video is the killer, gaming uses virtually nothing.

That said, you guys are saying 40GB is laughable, BT's latest package offer with free Netflix is limited to 20GB a month.
 
It's about £3 extra to go unlimited with BT Infinity. That's a lot less effort than trying to keep track of usage.
 
40GB allowance. That was the sort of limit that had back in the 512kbit days and it was easy to slam that then. At 40Mbit/sec fibre speed it takes just over 2 hours to use up all that bandwidth.

Is BTs TV offering included in the 40GB cap? Does it use a box? If it does maybe that's downloading stuff that it thinks you might like to watch.

You'd better review your package as it says on their website they'll charge you for every 5GB extra you use, some £5ish each.
 
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lamboman said:
For some perspective, an hour of HD video from Netflix is typically 3GB, according to them (https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87), which is in line with what you'd expect from video compressed that way.

4GB a day is in no way excessive if there's frequent YouTubing, downloading bits and pieces, etc. Video is the killer, gaming uses virtually nothing.

That said, you guys are saying 40GB is laughable, BT's latest package offer with free Netflix is limited to 20GB a month.
Click to expand...

I know roughly how much youtube etc will use, but the thing is no one was using it for the last few days, hence why i dont know how we could have been using 4gb/day.

Tealc said:
40GB allowance. That was the sort of limit that had back in the 512kbit days and it was easy to slam that then. At 40Mbit/sec fibre speed it takes just over 2 hours to use up all that bandwidth.

Is BTs TV offering included in the 40GB cap? Does it use a box? If it does maybe that's downloading stuff that it thinks you might like to watch.

You'd better review your package as it says on their website they'll charge you for every 5GB extra you use, some £5ish each.
Click to expand...

With BT any usage via the BT youview box is supposed to be "free"
 
KIA said:
Go unlimited. :)
Click to expand...

I did a couple of hours ago!

Bt weren't able to monitor my usage/provide me with usage data until this month so they haven't charged us for going over in the past, but speaking to them today our usage was typically 2 or 3 times the cap. We have saved about £100 by being on the capped plan until now though.
 
EdwardTeach said:
With regards to steam, it doesn't download when you are playing a game, and my computer has mostly been on when playing games so I would be surprised if it could account for all the excess data, though it is a possible culprit.
Click to expand...

Steam could easily swallow up a few GB from game updates, especially if you have a lot of games and have auto-updates enabled. At Fibre speed it wouldn't take long, e.g. you go for a dump and bam that's a gig or two down the drain so to speak. Also bear in mind the settings changed fairly recently such that you can prevent downloads from stopping when you launch a game, although I'd imagine it may still default to on.
 
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