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
Roku Warning: it can accidentally be left streaming whilst you aren't watching anything. Happens at home, although rarely. Solutions for that: one Roku is in an energy saver power strip which has a master/slave relationship with several of the sockets. If TV off, Roku is powered off in about 30 sec. I'm planning on doing the same for the other as it was on all day, no one home, on Tuesday. Fortunately (for now) my ISP, CableVision, doesn't meter usage at this time. Possibly with ulterior motives, they're actually advertising to cable-cutters even though the supply telephone & cable TV along with internet. They do not have any kind of contracts.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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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 KreskowiakI'll check. We use the DVR heavily but not from a remote location. The way they have our house wired - we have cable that comes to my office -> cable modem. Also cable that goes to DVR and another set top box, so cable protocol, no Ethernet.
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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Roku Warning: it can accidentally be left streaming whilst you aren't watching anything. Happens at home, although rarely. Solutions for that: one Roku is in an energy saver power strip which has a master/slave relationship with several of the sockets. If TV off, Roku is powered off in about 30 sec. I'm planning on doing the same for the other as it was on all day, no one home, on Tuesday. Fortunately (for now) my ISP, CableVision, doesn't meter usage at this time. Possibly with ulterior motives, they're actually advertising to cable-cutters even though the supply telephone & cable TV along with internet. They do not have any kind of contracts.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
Good point about roku. But I know that mac address, and there is nothing going there. Might be I need to set up that suggested proxy server just to see who is using what.
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'll check. We use the DVR heavily but not from a remote location. The way they have our house wired - we have cable that comes to my office -> cable modem. Also cable that goes to DVR and another set top box, so cable protocol, no Ethernet.
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
When you DVR something, it's actually being recorded "in the cloud", not on your local box. Play that back and you're using data. You'll have to verify that, but I think that's what's going on. [EDIT] Well, I guess I was wrong. I just found this:
Quote:
Does the functionality enabled by X1 DVR with Cloud Technology count against the XFINITY Internet data usage threshold? Downloading and/or streaming DVR recordings, live TV or XFINITY On Demand content will not count against your Internet data usage threshold if you are connected to your in-home XFINITY network. However, if you choose to stream or download DVR recordings outside of the home, this may count against your data usage threshold.
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Dave Kreskowiak -
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.
I haven't seen any reliability issues yet. And I have the same issue with cutting the land line - we use ooma now. $120 or so buy in, $4/month taxes and fees. For the 5 calls we get / day, it's about the right price. TV services - I'm waiting for the breakup of the packages. If Netflix and the other companies keep rolling out their own material, it may happen sooner. I only watch maybe 6 shows other than an occasional movie, I'm tired of subsidizing all of the other garbage out there.
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 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
Not only "might have a point", but "That's it!" Network people ALWAYS count bits, not bytes. They always did. First: Networking standards were established before a byte was fixed to be 8 bits. At least up to 1980, a byte could be anywhere from 5 bits and upwards - 7 was a common size, as was 9. A byte was the space requrired to store a single character. Second: Communication overhead comes is bits (or even half bits, in modem communication). What's interesting to the cable guys is how much they have to carry, whether usable data, check digits, start/stop bits, preamble bits, link layer bit stuffing or whatever. It doesn't matter whether that 36 bit Univac word carries six 5-bit Fieldata characters, five 7-bit ASCII characters or four 9-bit characters. Another thing to remember: Communication guys have ten fingers. Like in 56kbps channels - they are 56,000 bits/sec, not 57,344 (that is 56 * 1024) bits/sec. Or in more modern unit: 1 gpbs is 1,000,000,000 bits/sec, not 1,073,741,824. (So you get 7% less than you expected.) About B/b: Some computer guys (those not working with communication) has tried to establish a convention of B = Byte, b = bit - but without success. Certainly not in communication; those guys do not have any 'byte' concept. They carry bits, period. Besides, the computer guys are not at all consistent themselves: You frequently see the size of a data structure given as, say, 1.5 kb, references to 4kb disk pages etc. The context tells you that these are byte sizes, not bit sizes, whether you use upper or lower case b. A communication context is similar: They are bit sizes, not byte sizes, whether you use upper or lower case b.
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When you DVR something, it's actually being recorded "in the cloud", not on your local box. Play that back and you're using data. You'll have to verify that, but I think that's what's going on. [EDIT] Well, I guess I was wrong. I just found this:
Quote:
Does the functionality enabled by X1 DVR with Cloud Technology count against the XFINITY Internet data usage threshold? Downloading and/or streaming DVR recordings, live TV or XFINITY On Demand content will not count against your Internet data usage threshold if you are connected to your in-home XFINITY network. However, if you choose to stream or download DVR recordings outside of the home, this may count against your data usage threshold.
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Dave KreskowiakDave Kreskowiak wrote:
When you DVR something, it's actually being recorded "in the cloud", not on your local box.
Is that really true? If so, that's yet another reason to shy away from cloud services. I do NOT want anyone, neither the cable company nor authorities, to have the facilities to monitor which movies I am watching, when I watch them, and how many times I watch them. (It is bad enough with the facilites for tracing which movies I am buying! I prefer to pay for DVDs in cash, over the counter...) I do NOT want to risk that my movies (or music or photos) suddenly becomes inaccessible because someone in the Establishment points out, say, that one of the actors has declared himself as a communist. (I do have a collection of Chaplin movies...) Or that "for the protection of the children", a photo of my baby daughter at the changing table must be removed within 48 hours, or my account will be closed down. I DO want to have full access to my movies, music and photos even if my cable connection experiences an 'excavator error', or the switching center experiences a power down, or if the cloud server is overloaded. If I go on vacation, bringing my portable, I want to have access to music and other entertainment on the trip, even when visiting places where 'cable' is something that carries AC only and the only wireless is the AM radio. Nowadays, the disk costs for storing a movie is in the range of ten US cents - even less if you buy an internal disk for your desktop (rather than an external disk for your portable). That gives you privacy, reliability, independence of the network, stable quality, no risk of loss due to the contents of the movies or photos. No monthly fee - those 10cents/movie is a one-time fee. Is there any real reason for using the cloud storage for anything? I can see a single one: I handle that by keeping a duplicate of my disk(s) at the office, in case my house burns down. So: No cloud service for me!
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Not only "might have a point", but "That's it!" Network people ALWAYS count bits, not bytes. They always did. First: Networking standards were established before a byte was fixed to be 8 bits. At least up to 1980, a byte could be anywhere from 5 bits and upwards - 7 was a common size, as was 9. A byte was the space requrired to store a single character. Second: Communication overhead comes is bits (or even half bits, in modem communication). What's interesting to the cable guys is how much they have to carry, whether usable data, check digits, start/stop bits, preamble bits, link layer bit stuffing or whatever. It doesn't matter whether that 36 bit Univac word carries six 5-bit Fieldata characters, five 7-bit ASCII characters or four 9-bit characters. Another thing to remember: Communication guys have ten fingers. Like in 56kbps channels - they are 56,000 bits/sec, not 57,344 (that is 56 * 1024) bits/sec. Or in more modern unit: 1 gpbs is 1,000,000,000 bits/sec, not 1,073,741,824. (So you get 7% less than you expected.) About B/b: Some computer guys (those not working with communication) has tried to establish a convention of B = Byte, b = bit - but without success. Certainly not in communication; those guys do not have any 'byte' concept. They carry bits, period. Besides, the computer guys are not at all consistent themselves: You frequently see the size of a data structure given as, say, 1.5 kb, references to 4kb disk pages etc. The context tells you that these are byte sizes, not bit sizes, whether you use upper or lower case b. A communication context is similar: They are bit sizes, not byte sizes, whether you use upper or lower case b.
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
When you DVR something, it's actually being recorded "in the cloud", not on your local box.
Is that really true? If so, that's yet another reason to shy away from cloud services. I do NOT want anyone, neither the cable company nor authorities, to have the facilities to monitor which movies I am watching, when I watch them, and how many times I watch them. (It is bad enough with the facilites for tracing which movies I am buying! I prefer to pay for DVDs in cash, over the counter...) I do NOT want to risk that my movies (or music or photos) suddenly becomes inaccessible because someone in the Establishment points out, say, that one of the actors has declared himself as a communist. (I do have a collection of Chaplin movies...) Or that "for the protection of the children", a photo of my baby daughter at the changing table must be removed within 48 hours, or my account will be closed down. I DO want to have full access to my movies, music and photos even if my cable connection experiences an 'excavator error', or the switching center experiences a power down, or if the cloud server is overloaded. If I go on vacation, bringing my portable, I want to have access to music and other entertainment on the trip, even when visiting places where 'cable' is something that carries AC only and the only wireless is the AM radio. Nowadays, the disk costs for storing a movie is in the range of ten US cents - even less if you buy an internal disk for your desktop (rather than an external disk for your portable). That gives you privacy, reliability, independence of the network, stable quality, no risk of loss due to the contents of the movies or photos. No monthly fee - those 10cents/movie is a one-time fee. Is there any real reason for using the cloud storage for anything? I can see a single one: I handle that by keeping a duplicate of my disk(s) at the office, in case my house burns down. So: No cloud service for me!
It comes in handy when your recording something and the box crashes and restarts in the middle of the recording. When the box comes back up there's no break in the recording at all.
Member 7989122 wrote:
Is there any real reason for using the cloud storage for anything?
Yeah. I save whatever I want and can access the content from anywhere and I don't have to carry around anything other than my phone.
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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:
Wall -> cable coax -> Cable modem (mine btw) -> router -> every other device in the house.
I fought a similar battle with Cox a few years ago and I implemented a SmoothWall as my single access path from my LAN to the Cox WAN network
Wall -> Cable Model -> SmoothWall PC -> Linksys Router -> Every other device in the house
In my case, I discovered that the Cox usage figures were accurate. Before I stood up the Smoothwall router/firewall PC between my LAN and WAN I had my Linksys Router connected directly to the cable modem and quickly determined the Linksys bandwidth monitoring was way off, by an enormous amount (like 50 GB of usage or so during my first month of analysis). Like others mentioned, a Squid proxy server or a firewall PC (SmoothWall, PfSense, etc) sitting between your LAN and WAN is the only accurate way to measure bandwidth utilization.
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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.
Maxim 6[^]: If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
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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
One way to get attention is to say you will begin legal action. I developed software for a call center here in Canada. As soon as legal action was mentioned, the issue was immediately moved up the chain to people who would listen. Who knows, it might really be a case for legal action.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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When you DVR something, it's actually being recorded "in the cloud", not on your local box. Play that back and you're using data. You'll have to verify that, but I think that's what's going on. [EDIT] Well, I guess I was wrong. I just found this:
Quote:
Does the functionality enabled by X1 DVR with Cloud Technology count against the XFINITY Internet data usage threshold? Downloading and/or streaming DVR recordings, live TV or XFINITY On Demand content will not count against your Internet data usage threshold if you are connected to your in-home XFINITY network. However, if you choose to stream or download DVR recordings outside of the home, this may count against your data usage threshold.
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Dave KreskowiakWell, I did a test yesterday. I still have my uverse service, so I unplugged from the Comcast cable modem. Network usage dropped to zero, and that is after watching multiple recorded shows. Rough conclusion? The dvr is not counted against your data cap.
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
I have the same provider and have been able to track and manage usage by installing software at the router. I'm using Gargoyle router management software https://www.gargoyle-router.com. If you have a compatible router, I'd suggest trying that. The software not only measures usage, but allows setting of quotas for usage. The usage totals from Gargoyle are within a couple of percent of those from the ISP, as there is some traffic that hits the modem that does not make it to the router (filtered at the modem).
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Not only "might have a point", but "That's it!" Network people ALWAYS count bits, not bytes. They always did. First: Networking standards were established before a byte was fixed to be 8 bits. At least up to 1980, a byte could be anywhere from 5 bits and upwards - 7 was a common size, as was 9. A byte was the space requrired to store a single character. Second: Communication overhead comes is bits (or even half bits, in modem communication). What's interesting to the cable guys is how much they have to carry, whether usable data, check digits, start/stop bits, preamble bits, link layer bit stuffing or whatever. It doesn't matter whether that 36 bit Univac word carries six 5-bit Fieldata characters, five 7-bit ASCII characters or four 9-bit characters. Another thing to remember: Communication guys have ten fingers. Like in 56kbps channels - they are 56,000 bits/sec, not 57,344 (that is 56 * 1024) bits/sec. Or in more modern unit: 1 gpbs is 1,000,000,000 bits/sec, not 1,073,741,824. (So you get 7% less than you expected.) About B/b: Some computer guys (those not working with communication) has tried to establish a convention of B = Byte, b = bit - but without success. Certainly not in communication; those guys do not have any 'byte' concept. They carry bits, period. Besides, the computer guys are not at all consistent themselves: You frequently see the size of a data structure given as, say, 1.5 kb, references to 4kb disk pages etc. The context tells you that these are byte sizes, not bit sizes, whether you use upper or lower case b. A communication context is similar: They are bit sizes, not byte sizes, whether you use upper or lower case b.
As a former subscriber to Comcast (I moved out of their area, and now I'm stuck with Charter's bullshit instead), I can at least confirm that the 300GB data cap they list is actually 300 gigabytes, as it reads. I frequently crossed it on my 50up/10down gbps connection, but they were not enforcing the cap at the time, and my router's logs (I have and had an ASUS RT-AC66U, behind my own Motorola Surfboard modem) agreed with Comcast's. I do wonder how accurate OP's router logs are. I normally wouldn't have any doubts that Charter was overcounting (and 800GB seems excessive even considering the following concern), but my household crossed 300GB regularly with only two users, and habits similar to those described by OP. If his logs are showing only 150GB with more users, then I have a hard time trusting those logs.
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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
Why don't you just hit them with consumer complaint and technical literate lawyer? 800 GB per month is a lot. I mean a lot... I've been downloading torrents for since 2007 and I've downloaded a lot... Really a lot. From the same tracker... My bandwidth with the tracker is almost 4 TB. That is for 8 years... Your family/users can be 5-10 people at the same router but 800 gigabytes is really a lot of info to be streamed/downloaded/pulled or whatever.
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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
Maybe they're using your data for you by making WiFi available to their other customers through your router? An example article about the issue: Comcast Was Sued For Quietly Turning Customers' Home WiFi Into "Public" Hotspots[^]. As I recall from when this broke, they're not supposed to be tagging that data usage onto your bill, but maybe they are. If you can get daily data usage results, unplug everything from their line for a day and see if they're still claiming data usage on your line. If so, then fight, fight, fight, or switch.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
When you DVR something, it's actually being recorded "in the cloud", not on your local box.
Is that really true? If so, that's yet another reason to shy away from cloud services. I do NOT want anyone, neither the cable company nor authorities, to have the facilities to monitor which movies I am watching, when I watch them, and how many times I watch them. (It is bad enough with the facilites for tracing which movies I am buying! I prefer to pay for DVDs in cash, over the counter...) I do NOT want to risk that my movies (or music or photos) suddenly becomes inaccessible because someone in the Establishment points out, say, that one of the actors has declared himself as a communist. (I do have a collection of Chaplin movies...) Or that "for the protection of the children", a photo of my baby daughter at the changing table must be removed within 48 hours, or my account will be closed down. I DO want to have full access to my movies, music and photos even if my cable connection experiences an 'excavator error', or the switching center experiences a power down, or if the cloud server is overloaded. If I go on vacation, bringing my portable, I want to have access to music and other entertainment on the trip, even when visiting places where 'cable' is something that carries AC only and the only wireless is the AM radio. Nowadays, the disk costs for storing a movie is in the range of ten US cents - even less if you buy an internal disk for your desktop (rather than an external disk for your portable). That gives you privacy, reliability, independence of the network, stable quality, no risk of loss due to the contents of the movies or photos. No monthly fee - those 10cents/movie is a one-time fee. Is there any real reason for using the cloud storage for anything? I can see a single one: I handle that by keeping a duplicate of my disk(s) at the office, in case my house burns down. So: No cloud service for me!
Might be too late for that... data is collected so universally. Cash might work. I have a recommendation for a Voyager Air. Looks pretty slick.
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
Probably totally unrelated but I had a similar occurrence about a year ago and it turned out to be OneDrive. It had got itself into some sort of updating loop and started eating data voraciously. It chewed a month's limit in a day. It was also a little hard to track down as Windows seemed to hide the data use. None of this explains your router figures but, if you are using OneDrive, try turning sync off and see if things improve.
Paul Hooper If you spend your whole life looking over your shoulder, they will get you from the front instead.
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One way to get attention is to say you will begin legal action. I developed software for a call center here in Canada. As soon as legal action was mentioned, the issue was immediately moved up the chain to people who would listen. Who knows, it might really be a case for legal action.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
Well, so far it's a matter of whose data do you believe? I don't have enough yet in my arsenal to nuke them. But I'm working on it. Besides, it's a good exercise in technical skill development.
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