Cable companies - arrrrggghhh
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I know some of you have posted from time to time battles with your internet supplier. Mine has gone to the surreal level. Here in the US, the cable companies are pretty much a monopoly. If you want performance, it's the rare location that has a choice of multiple suppliers. In my area it's ATT UVerse (max speed around 30 Mbps, maybe) and Comcast (100+ Mbps and climbing). Against my better judgment and giving in to household members, I switched us to Comcast for the higher speed. Fully aware of the data caps they "measure", I did their estimate and reasonably concluded there was no way we would touch the 300 GB / month cap. Wait for it.... First month came in at nearly 800 GB. No elephanting way. Since I had a three month grace period, I wasn't worried (well into my second month now), but I became more watchful. In the next week, we allegedly used 300GB. Hmmm, might have an issue (I do have some heavy gamers, and one daughter loves YouTube). Made sure there were no bit torrents running, changed the Wi-Fi password, etc. Almost had a stroke talking to their support staff. They tried to explain that if you were streaming movies it would use data (no $hit sherlock). Data continues to hemorrhage. Bought a new router, changed passwords, the flood, according to their meter continues. The problem is that the router tracks the data coming and going on a mac address level. I know who is using what. I see my heavy data users as expected, but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month. I installed network monitoring software on all major devices - PCs, laptops, and I'm still looking for something for a chromebook (if you know of any app?). Those numbers track nearly 1:1 with the router. Of course, when I feed this data to Comcast, I get the same automated cut/paste response from their "techs" - change your wifi password, our numbers are correct, blah, blah, blah. There are some s/w packages I can download for a month that will monitor traffic across a lan, I might try one of those. I know my ultimate alternative is to cancel and go back to uverse, but this has sort of pissed me off, so I'm not willing to let it go. Data is data, and you imply I don't know what I'm talking about, then back it up with data. Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this? Appreciate any suggestions. Let the beating commence :) I have a friend who went away for a 5 day weekend
Charlie Gilley Stuck in
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I know some of you have posted from time to time battles with your internet supplier. Mine has gone to the surreal level. Here in the US, the cable companies are pretty much a monopoly. If you want performance, it's the rare location that has a choice of multiple suppliers. In my area it's ATT UVerse (max speed around 30 Mbps, maybe) and Comcast (100+ Mbps and climbing). Against my better judgment and giving in to household members, I switched us to Comcast for the higher speed. Fully aware of the data caps they "measure", I did their estimate and reasonably concluded there was no way we would touch the 300 GB / month cap. Wait for it.... First month came in at nearly 800 GB. No elephanting way. Since I had a three month grace period, I wasn't worried (well into my second month now), but I became more watchful. In the next week, we allegedly used 300GB. Hmmm, might have an issue (I do have some heavy gamers, and one daughter loves YouTube). Made sure there were no bit torrents running, changed the Wi-Fi password, etc. Almost had a stroke talking to their support staff. They tried to explain that if you were streaming movies it would use data (no $hit sherlock). Data continues to hemorrhage. Bought a new router, changed passwords, the flood, according to their meter continues. The problem is that the router tracks the data coming and going on a mac address level. I know who is using what. I see my heavy data users as expected, but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month. I installed network monitoring software on all major devices - PCs, laptops, and I'm still looking for something for a chromebook (if you know of any app?). Those numbers track nearly 1:1 with the router. Of course, when I feed this data to Comcast, I get the same automated cut/paste response from their "techs" - change your wifi password, our numbers are correct, blah, blah, blah. There are some s/w packages I can download for a month that will monitor traffic across a lan, I might try one of those. I know my ultimate alternative is to cancel and go back to uverse, but this has sort of pissed me off, so I'm not willing to let it go. Data is data, and you imply I don't know what I'm talking about, then back it up with data. Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this? Appreciate any suggestions. Let the beating commence :) I have a friend who went away for a 5 day weekend
Charlie Gilley Stuck in
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I know some of you have posted from time to time battles with your internet supplier. Mine has gone to the surreal level. Here in the US, the cable companies are pretty much a monopoly. If you want performance, it's the rare location that has a choice of multiple suppliers. In my area it's ATT UVerse (max speed around 30 Mbps, maybe) and Comcast (100+ Mbps and climbing). Against my better judgment and giving in to household members, I switched us to Comcast for the higher speed. Fully aware of the data caps they "measure", I did their estimate and reasonably concluded there was no way we would touch the 300 GB / month cap. Wait for it.... First month came in at nearly 800 GB. No elephanting way. Since I had a three month grace period, I wasn't worried (well into my second month now), but I became more watchful. In the next week, we allegedly used 300GB. Hmmm, might have an issue (I do have some heavy gamers, and one daughter loves YouTube). Made sure there were no bit torrents running, changed the Wi-Fi password, etc. Almost had a stroke talking to their support staff. They tried to explain that if you were streaming movies it would use data (no $hit sherlock). Data continues to hemorrhage. Bought a new router, changed passwords, the flood, according to their meter continues. The problem is that the router tracks the data coming and going on a mac address level. I know who is using what. I see my heavy data users as expected, but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month. I installed network monitoring software on all major devices - PCs, laptops, and I'm still looking for something for a chromebook (if you know of any app?). Those numbers track nearly 1:1 with the router. Of course, when I feed this data to Comcast, I get the same automated cut/paste response from their "techs" - change your wifi password, our numbers are correct, blah, blah, blah. There are some s/w packages I can download for a month that will monitor traffic across a lan, I might try one of those. I know my ultimate alternative is to cancel and go back to uverse, but this has sort of pissed me off, so I'm not willing to let it go. Data is data, and you imply I don't know what I'm talking about, then back it up with data. Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this? Appreciate any suggestions. Let the beating commence :) I have a friend who went away for a 5 day weekend
Charlie Gilley Stuck in
You got it wrong! It is not gigabyte but gigabit. :-D
Mongo: Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
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I know some of you have posted from time to time battles with your internet supplier. Mine has gone to the surreal level. Here in the US, the cable companies are pretty much a monopoly. If you want performance, it's the rare location that has a choice of multiple suppliers. In my area it's ATT UVerse (max speed around 30 Mbps, maybe) and Comcast (100+ Mbps and climbing). Against my better judgment and giving in to household members, I switched us to Comcast for the higher speed. Fully aware of the data caps they "measure", I did their estimate and reasonably concluded there was no way we would touch the 300 GB / month cap. Wait for it.... First month came in at nearly 800 GB. No elephanting way. Since I had a three month grace period, I wasn't worried (well into my second month now), but I became more watchful. In the next week, we allegedly used 300GB. Hmmm, might have an issue (I do have some heavy gamers, and one daughter loves YouTube). Made sure there were no bit torrents running, changed the Wi-Fi password, etc. Almost had a stroke talking to their support staff. They tried to explain that if you were streaming movies it would use data (no $hit sherlock). Data continues to hemorrhage. Bought a new router, changed passwords, the flood, according to their meter continues. The problem is that the router tracks the data coming and going on a mac address level. I know who is using what. I see my heavy data users as expected, but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month. I installed network monitoring software on all major devices - PCs, laptops, and I'm still looking for something for a chromebook (if you know of any app?). Those numbers track nearly 1:1 with the router. Of course, when I feed this data to Comcast, I get the same automated cut/paste response from their "techs" - change your wifi password, our numbers are correct, blah, blah, blah. There are some s/w packages I can download for a month that will monitor traffic across a lan, I might try one of those. I know my ultimate alternative is to cancel and go back to uverse, but this has sort of pissed me off, so I'm not willing to let it go. Data is data, and you imply I don't know what I'm talking about, then back it up with data. Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this? Appreciate any suggestions. Let the beating commence :) I have a friend who went away for a 5 day weekend
Charlie Gilley Stuck in
charlieg wrote:
Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this?
Turn off WiFi, connect a single computer that is running a proxy server and have all other computers/devices get to the internet via the proxy server. This will give you your true usage figures that you can compare with the cable company. Failing that, a quick trip to said cable company and a quick beating may be in order.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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I know some of you have posted from time to time battles with your internet supplier. Mine has gone to the surreal level. Here in the US, the cable companies are pretty much a monopoly. If you want performance, it's the rare location that has a choice of multiple suppliers. In my area it's ATT UVerse (max speed around 30 Mbps, maybe) and Comcast (100+ Mbps and climbing). Against my better judgment and giving in to household members, I switched us to Comcast for the higher speed. Fully aware of the data caps they "measure", I did their estimate and reasonably concluded there was no way we would touch the 300 GB / month cap. Wait for it.... First month came in at nearly 800 GB. No elephanting way. Since I had a three month grace period, I wasn't worried (well into my second month now), but I became more watchful. In the next week, we allegedly used 300GB. Hmmm, might have an issue (I do have some heavy gamers, and one daughter loves YouTube). Made sure there were no bit torrents running, changed the Wi-Fi password, etc. Almost had a stroke talking to their support staff. They tried to explain that if you were streaming movies it would use data (no $hit sherlock). Data continues to hemorrhage. Bought a new router, changed passwords, the flood, according to their meter continues. The problem is that the router tracks the data coming and going on a mac address level. I know who is using what. I see my heavy data users as expected, but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month. I installed network monitoring software on all major devices - PCs, laptops, and I'm still looking for something for a chromebook (if you know of any app?). Those numbers track nearly 1:1 with the router. Of course, when I feed this data to Comcast, I get the same automated cut/paste response from their "techs" - change your wifi password, our numbers are correct, blah, blah, blah. There are some s/w packages I can download for a month that will monitor traffic across a lan, I might try one of those. I know my ultimate alternative is to cancel and go back to uverse, but this has sort of pissed me off, so I'm not willing to let it go. Data is data, and you imply I don't know what I'm talking about, then back it up with data. Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this? Appreciate any suggestions. Let the beating commence :) I have a friend who went away for a 5 day weekend
Charlie Gilley Stuck in
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I know some of you have posted from time to time battles with your internet supplier. Mine has gone to the surreal level. Here in the US, the cable companies are pretty much a monopoly. If you want performance, it's the rare location that has a choice of multiple suppliers. In my area it's ATT UVerse (max speed around 30 Mbps, maybe) and Comcast (100+ Mbps and climbing). Against my better judgment and giving in to household members, I switched us to Comcast for the higher speed. Fully aware of the data caps they "measure", I did their estimate and reasonably concluded there was no way we would touch the 300 GB / month cap. Wait for it.... First month came in at nearly 800 GB. No elephanting way. Since I had a three month grace period, I wasn't worried (well into my second month now), but I became more watchful. In the next week, we allegedly used 300GB. Hmmm, might have an issue (I do have some heavy gamers, and one daughter loves YouTube). Made sure there were no bit torrents running, changed the Wi-Fi password, etc. Almost had a stroke talking to their support staff. They tried to explain that if you were streaming movies it would use data (no $hit sherlock). Data continues to hemorrhage. Bought a new router, changed passwords, the flood, according to their meter continues. The problem is that the router tracks the data coming and going on a mac address level. I know who is using what. I see my heavy data users as expected, but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month. I installed network monitoring software on all major devices - PCs, laptops, and I'm still looking for something for a chromebook (if you know of any app?). Those numbers track nearly 1:1 with the router. Of course, when I feed this data to Comcast, I get the same automated cut/paste response from their "techs" - change your wifi password, our numbers are correct, blah, blah, blah. There are some s/w packages I can download for a month that will monitor traffic across a lan, I might try one of those. I know my ultimate alternative is to cancel and go back to uverse, but this has sort of pissed me off, so I'm not willing to let it go. Data is data, and you imply I don't know what I'm talking about, then back it up with data. Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this? Appreciate any suggestions. Let the beating commence :) I have a friend who went away for a 5 day weekend
Charlie Gilley Stuck in
You mentioned three times about changing passwords. I assume that was to keep unauthorized users off. Is that outsiders or family members?
charlieg wrote:
...but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month.
You need to do this on a daily basis. In other words, instead of gathering a few days's usage and extrapolating that out to a full month (e.g., a 100MB difference per day would result in a 3GB difference for the month), you need to monitor each connection for a day and compare that to your ISP's numbers for the same time period. Narrowing the scope down like that will help you to zero in on why your usage numbers differ from theirs. The only other thing I could suggest would be to tighten the rein on family members. That shouldn't be too hard to do.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Is there not some functionality available in your router that will at least correlate the figures with the ISP's? I did that with my ADSL router (Netgear) and showed at least that I really was using that much traffic!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
To be clear: The #s on my router are a factor of 10 less; The #s on my router are tracking 1:1 with a network usage tool I installed on my laptop. This is over a wired and wireless connection. I don't have a reason to distrust the numbers from the router as assigned to mac addresses. Like I said, if I SAW we were using that much data, I could address it, but it isn't there. Comcast goes, "sniff, sucks to be you, our numbers are correct."
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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You got it wrong! It is not gigabyte but gigabit. :-D
Mongo: Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
You might have a point. But they all say "GB" :)
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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charlieg wrote:
Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this?
Turn off WiFi, connect a single computer that is running a proxy server and have all other computers/devices get to the internet via the proxy server. This will give you your true usage figures that you can compare with the cable company. Failing that, a quick trip to said cable company and a quick beating may be in order.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
Michael, I understand what you are suggesting - a single point - which is what I thought I had. This is my setup: Wall -> cable coax -> Cable modem (mine btw) -> router -> every other device in the house. I'm measuring at the router point. The frustrating thing is that they don't even bother to listen to the data. I'll keep the beating as a last resort. ;P
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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You mentioned three times about changing passwords. I assume that was to keep unauthorized users off. Is that outsiders or family members?
charlieg wrote:
...but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month.
You need to do this on a daily basis. In other words, instead of gathering a few days's usage and extrapolating that out to a full month (e.g., a 100MB difference per day would result in a 3GB difference for the month), you need to monitor each connection for a day and compare that to your ISP's numbers for the same time period. Narrowing the scope down like that will help you to zero in on why your usage numbers differ from theirs. The only other thing I could suggest would be to tighten the rein on family members. That shouldn't be too hard to do.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
Outside users. The router is setup as a secure WIFI. Password has been changed twice in the last two weeks. This weekend, I will restrict access to only MAC addresses I recognize (that's about as tight as you can get). However, I can see the list of MAC addresses accessing my router. There are only 3 that I have no identified. I think one is a roku, another is a phone, and another is a tablet somewhere. But they are not using any data. Agreed on the sampling. Has been started.
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I know some of you have posted from time to time battles with your internet supplier. Mine has gone to the surreal level. Here in the US, the cable companies are pretty much a monopoly. If you want performance, it's the rare location that has a choice of multiple suppliers. In my area it's ATT UVerse (max speed around 30 Mbps, maybe) and Comcast (100+ Mbps and climbing). Against my better judgment and giving in to household members, I switched us to Comcast for the higher speed. Fully aware of the data caps they "measure", I did their estimate and reasonably concluded there was no way we would touch the 300 GB / month cap. Wait for it.... First month came in at nearly 800 GB. No elephanting way. Since I had a three month grace period, I wasn't worried (well into my second month now), but I became more watchful. In the next week, we allegedly used 300GB. Hmmm, might have an issue (I do have some heavy gamers, and one daughter loves YouTube). Made sure there were no bit torrents running, changed the Wi-Fi password, etc. Almost had a stroke talking to their support staff. They tried to explain that if you were streaming movies it would use data (no $hit sherlock). Data continues to hemorrhage. Bought a new router, changed passwords, the flood, according to their meter continues. The problem is that the router tracks the data coming and going on a mac address level. I know who is using what. I see my heavy data users as expected, but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month. I installed network monitoring software on all major devices - PCs, laptops, and I'm still looking for something for a chromebook (if you know of any app?). Those numbers track nearly 1:1 with the router. Of course, when I feed this data to Comcast, I get the same automated cut/paste response from their "techs" - change your wifi password, our numbers are correct, blah, blah, blah. There are some s/w packages I can download for a month that will monitor traffic across a lan, I might try one of those. I know my ultimate alternative is to cancel and go back to uverse, but this has sort of pissed me off, so I'm not willing to let it go. Data is data, and you imply I don't know what I'm talking about, then back it up with data. Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this? Appreciate any suggestions. Let the beating commence :) I have a friend who went away for a 5 day weekend
Charlie Gilley Stuck in
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I know some of you have posted from time to time battles with your internet supplier. Mine has gone to the surreal level. Here in the US, the cable companies are pretty much a monopoly. If you want performance, it's the rare location that has a choice of multiple suppliers. In my area it's ATT UVerse (max speed around 30 Mbps, maybe) and Comcast (100+ Mbps and climbing). Against my better judgment and giving in to household members, I switched us to Comcast for the higher speed. Fully aware of the data caps they "measure", I did their estimate and reasonably concluded there was no way we would touch the 300 GB / month cap. Wait for it.... First month came in at nearly 800 GB. No elephanting way. Since I had a three month grace period, I wasn't worried (well into my second month now), but I became more watchful. In the next week, we allegedly used 300GB. Hmmm, might have an issue (I do have some heavy gamers, and one daughter loves YouTube). Made sure there were no bit torrents running, changed the Wi-Fi password, etc. Almost had a stroke talking to their support staff. They tried to explain that if you were streaming movies it would use data (no $hit sherlock). Data continues to hemorrhage. Bought a new router, changed passwords, the flood, according to their meter continues. The problem is that the router tracks the data coming and going on a mac address level. I know who is using what. I see my heavy data users as expected, but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month. I installed network monitoring software on all major devices - PCs, laptops, and I'm still looking for something for a chromebook (if you know of any app?). Those numbers track nearly 1:1 with the router. Of course, when I feed this data to Comcast, I get the same automated cut/paste response from their "techs" - change your wifi password, our numbers are correct, blah, blah, blah. There are some s/w packages I can download for a month that will monitor traffic across a lan, I might try one of those. I know my ultimate alternative is to cancel and go back to uverse, but this has sort of pissed me off, so I'm not willing to let it go. Data is data, and you imply I don't know what I'm talking about, then back it up with data. Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this? Appreciate any suggestions. Let the beating commence :) I have a friend who went away for a 5 day weekend
Charlie Gilley Stuck in
Do you have X1? Most of the system is very web dependent, especially the DVR. I just got X1 about 4 weeks ago. No problems but I also haven't tracked the data usage yet on the new system. Now you've got me curious. I used to use about 350GB a month before the switch so I have a good baseline to look at.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject
Click this: Asking questions is a skill. Seriously, do it.
Dave Kreskowiak -
Michael, I understand what you are suggesting - a single point - which is what I thought I had. This is my setup: Wall -> cable coax -> Cable modem (mine btw) -> router -> every other device in the house. I'm measuring at the router point. The frustrating thing is that they don't even bother to listen to the data. I'll keep the beating as a last resort. ;P
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
charlieg wrote:
Michael, I understand what you are suggesting - a single point - which is what I thought I had. This is my setup: Wall -> cable coax -> Cable modem (mine btw) -> router -> every other device in the house. I'm measuring at the router point. The frustrating thing is that they don't even bother to listen to the data. I'll keep the beating as a last resort. ;-P
You do have a single point in the router, and since it is yours it is probably more reliable than if it was cable company supplied. But it is still a black box and will be limited in what information it will provide. The proxy server is obviously more work and if you use Squid (or whatever the new thing is now) it is open source and able to get what information you need. In the end though, you are stuffed as you say the cable company are not listening to you anyway. Maybe you should build a home made digital clock and take it down to them.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Michael, I understand what you are suggesting - a single point - which is what I thought I had. This is my setup: Wall -> cable coax -> Cable modem (mine btw) -> router -> every other device in the house. I'm measuring at the router point. The frustrating thing is that they don't even bother to listen to the data. I'll keep the beating as a last resort. ;P
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
charlieg wrote:
I'll keep the beating as a last resort. ;-P
It's Comcast. The beating needs to be the 1st resort, and the 3rd, and the 4th...
CPallini wrote:
You cannot argue with agile people so just take the extreme approach and shoot him. :Smile:
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charlieg wrote:
Michael, I understand what you are suggesting - a single point - which is what I thought I had. This is my setup: Wall -> cable coax -> Cable modem (mine btw) -> router -> every other device in the house. I'm measuring at the router point. The frustrating thing is that they don't even bother to listen to the data. I'll keep the beating as a last resort. ;-P
You do have a single point in the router, and since it is yours it is probably more reliable than if it was cable company supplied. But it is still a black box and will be limited in what information it will provide. The proxy server is obviously more work and if you use Squid (or whatever the new thing is now) it is open source and able to get what information you need. In the end though, you are stuffed as you say the cable company are not listening to you anyway. Maybe you should build a home made digital clock and take it down to them.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
I have a Linux box sitting in my closet somewhere. Leftover from my days of attempting to build my own web filter. It was easier to just take laptops and tablets away. Even so, I'm sure it still runs, has Ubuntu, so we should be close. The router goes okay, but if I want pure customization, I have to flash it with dd-wrt or tomato. Stuffed is what's pissing me off. If I were using the data, I would pay for the data. In a prescient moment, I left my old UVerse connection on for a month or two. I just disconnected the router from the cable modem and to the UVerse box. We'll see what happens to the usage *then* muahahaa
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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You mentioned three times about changing passwords. I assume that was to keep unauthorized users off. Is that outsiders or family members?
charlieg wrote:
...but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month.
You need to do this on a daily basis. In other words, instead of gathering a few days's usage and extrapolating that out to a full month (e.g., a 100MB difference per day would result in a 3GB difference for the month), you need to monitor each connection for a day and compare that to your ISP's numbers for the same time period. Narrowing the scope down like that will help you to zero in on why your usage numbers differ from theirs. The only other thing I could suggest would be to tighten the rein on family members. That shouldn't be too hard to do.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
"family members" - I have a fairly technically literate 18 yo. She's the main bw hog (my opinion). But her router #s are not unreasonable. I have a theory that Comcast gives extra credit to any streaming service that isn't from them. Just a theory.
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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good link! I'll save it.
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Do you have X1? Most of the system is very web dependent, especially the DVR. I just got X1 about 4 weeks ago. No problems but I also haven't tracked the data usage yet on the new system. Now you've got me curious. I used to use about 350GB a month before the switch so I have a good baseline to look at.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject
Click this: Asking questions is a skill. Seriously, do it.
Dave KreskowiakI do, and this is what Comcast "says": Will live TV and/or XFINITY On Demand streaming on the XFINITY TV app or XFINITY TV website (xtv.comcast.net) count against my XFINITY Internet data usage threshold? No. Live TV and select XFINITY On Demand streaming does not count against your Internet data usage threshold. Streaming XFINITY TV Go On Demand content, however, will count against your Internet data usage.
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I do, and this is what Comcast "says": Will live TV and/or XFINITY On Demand streaming on the XFINITY TV app or XFINITY TV website (xtv.comcast.net) count against my XFINITY Internet data usage threshold? No. Live TV and select XFINITY On Demand streaming does not count against your Internet data usage threshold. Streaming XFINITY TV Go On Demand content, however, will count against your Internet data usage.
Charlie Gilley Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Yeah, that's live TV and select OnDemand streaming. You don't see a reference to DVR in there, do you? :) Also, the last time I looked at my bill, there was a message that said the data caps we not being enforced.
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Dave Kreskowiak -
I know some of you have posted from time to time battles with your internet supplier. Mine has gone to the surreal level. Here in the US, the cable companies are pretty much a monopoly. If you want performance, it's the rare location that has a choice of multiple suppliers. In my area it's ATT UVerse (max speed around 30 Mbps, maybe) and Comcast (100+ Mbps and climbing). Against my better judgment and giving in to household members, I switched us to Comcast for the higher speed. Fully aware of the data caps they "measure", I did their estimate and reasonably concluded there was no way we would touch the 300 GB / month cap. Wait for it.... First month came in at nearly 800 GB. No elephanting way. Since I had a three month grace period, I wasn't worried (well into my second month now), but I became more watchful. In the next week, we allegedly used 300GB. Hmmm, might have an issue (I do have some heavy gamers, and one daughter loves YouTube). Made sure there were no bit torrents running, changed the Wi-Fi password, etc. Almost had a stroke talking to their support staff. They tried to explain that if you were streaming movies it would use data (no $hit sherlock). Data continues to hemorrhage. Bought a new router, changed passwords, the flood, according to their meter continues. The problem is that the router tracks the data coming and going on a mac address level. I know who is using what. I see my heavy data users as expected, but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month. I installed network monitoring software on all major devices - PCs, laptops, and I'm still looking for something for a chromebook (if you know of any app?). Those numbers track nearly 1:1 with the router. Of course, when I feed this data to Comcast, I get the same automated cut/paste response from their "techs" - change your wifi password, our numbers are correct, blah, blah, blah. There are some s/w packages I can download for a month that will monitor traffic across a lan, I might try one of those. I know my ultimate alternative is to cancel and go back to uverse, but this has sort of pissed me off, so I'm not willing to let it go. Data is data, and you imply I don't know what I'm talking about, then back it up with data. Any ideas from you other techies about tracking data usage like this? Appreciate any suggestions. Let the beating commence :) I have a friend who went away for a 5 day weekend
Charlie Gilley Stuck in
I currently with Comcast and my family (2 adults, 4 teenagers) consistently uses about 400 GB each month, however Comcast has never enforced their cap on us (which is only 250 GB according to my account info). Been with them a few years now and I use them for TV, internet, and phones. Their internet speed is great compared to other alternatives I've used such as AT&T. But I've found their internet is not as reliable as I would like. It goes down about once a week (and I hear about it from everyone in the family when it happens). Usually requires me to pull the router battery and power cable to reset it. In this age of cell phones, I've decided using Comcast for phone service is stupid, however my wife does not want to give up the "home" phone number. :sigh: I'm currently undecided about their TV services. I love the search feature to find shows, and the on demand services are pretty good. But the X1 platform is buggy as hell, and the DVR hardware is slow. I hate pressing a button on the remote and then waiting a couple of seconds to see if anything happens on the screen. I just don't have enough patience to use their equipment. Whoever designed their software needs to be fired before they do any more damage. Popup screens with an OK button that takes over the whole system for a couple of seconds? Seriously? Just add a status string at the bottom of the screen so I can get back to my show. The DVR freezes up often (at least once a month) and requires a "hard" boot to reset the DVR by pulling the power cable and then waiting five minutes for the damn thing to start up again. Seems like that always happens right in the middle of a sporting event I'm watching. I've talked to Comcast service a couple of times now about these issues and though they are very friendly, they are pretty much useless. Nothing has changed since I've been with them. I'd say there's a good chance I'll be dumping Comcast when my current contract is up. But who to switch to? I've been with AT&T, DirectTV, and DishNet. They all suck...that's why I keep switching. I've just about decided to switch to a local company for my internet, dump the internet phones (she'll get over it), and go to on demand services for TV (AppleTV or Amazon Fire or something similar). I'll miss my sports but some of those are on demand now and more will be that way in the future. One thing for sure, no more contracts. I'm sick of those.
-NP Never underestimate the creativity of the end-user.