BT Usage Monitoring

Hi, been having a little trouble with exceeding usage caps lately. I have BT Option 2 - the 40GB one - and have found our household's burning through the bandwidth faster than I expected. 32GB by the 15th of this month to be exact.

I was just wondering - are there any reported cases of BT overestimating usage? I don't think we're using quite that much. It had crossed my mind that our wireless network was being accessed from outside (we live in an area of many student multi-lets so lots of computers within range) but I'm using the recommended security settings (WPA-PSK I believe) so not sure if that's likely.

Also, we have no games consoles or smartphones that might be using bandwidth without our knowledge.

If anyone has any thoughts please let me know!

Maybe it is just us. I'm in the process of installing bandwith monitors on all our PCs so I'll be keeping a close eye on it next month.

WPA2-PSK is better!

Actually I just checked and it seems I am using WPA2. So, does it seem likely it could have been hacked?...

Remember, BT include uploads in their quota. Are you running anything like an online photo album or whatever?

Your obviously using something that your monitor isn't picking up on. Traffic includes all uploads and downloads, all times of the day.

Not running anything that uploads an unusual amount. And yeah, I'm aware that BT count down and uploads together and have no "off peak" time.

In order to save and enjoy £7.99 p.m. for the first 3 months, I joined BT Total Broadband Option 1 in mid November. The 1st week I got an email to say I had used 7GB of my 10GB allowance. The 2nd month I upgraded to Option 2 with 40GB allowance.

I was then presented with a bill for £166 to be paid the week of Xmas. This included £60 for the Vision Box. I asked if this could be spread out over a few months and an agreement was made to collect £54 p.m. from 28 Dec. This was never collected and a lady phoned me in the first week of Jan to say there was another £120 to add to that bill and could I pay £88 there and then on the phone and then about £60 p.m.

So, in 2 months I owe £282. A lot different to my imagined as advertised £7.99 p.m.for the first 3 months!!!!

I have since discovered that 10GB and 40GB is useage FULL STOP. I thought it was downloads, which we don't hardly do. BT's advert is very misleading though, for Option 2 it reads:

40GB monthly usage, enough to download 10,240 music files, 40,960 photos, 59 movies, 10 HD movies or 117 hours of iPlayer every month. If you exceed your usage allowance, we won't just cut you off. You'll simply be charged a little extra (£5 per 5GB)

I surf the web and emails only. My son however, plays XBox Live and World of Warcraft on pc, although no downloading going on, I understand this is where the useage is!!!!

I should have stayed with AOL, unlimited, for £19.99 p.m

That's pretty awful ArmstrongAbbot! It puts my problems into the shade. You have my sympathies.

My story was similar: We joined BT on Option 1 and exceeded the 10GB by a bit, second month we blew it right to hell and went 20GB over then we upgraded to Option 2 (40GB) and figured we'd be fine. Not so it seems!

I've dealt with the much maligned AOL in the past and even they were better than BT seems to be...

I play World of Warcraft and its usage is not that great - maybe the Xbox is the culprit - game demos etc.

In reply to a post by ArmstrongAbbott:

I surf the web and emails only. My son however, plays XBox Live and World of Warcraft on pc, although no downloading going on, I understand this is where the useage is!!!

I can't see these uploading much. You must be downliading! Or you have a bot/virus.

I was playing WoW on 3G last week and it was clocking I think about 20MB an hour at most.

However, 7th December was the Cataclysm release which downloaded anywhere up to 10GB of updates - if that was part of it then that would have wiped out the months usage in one foul swoop.

Wow when playing may not be high usage, but updates to the software can be hefty in size.

Also wow tends to be played for hours on end, so even 48kbps mounts up over time.

I agree with the WOW comments which is one of the games my son plays on laptop. He has had to instal a separate hard drive to put the whole game on to ease up on the laptop's resources.

However, I am perturbed that BT cannot offer any breakdown of individuals' useage.
You've gone over your useage, whack, here's another £50 on your bill

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Wow when playing may not be high usage, but updates to the software can be hefty in size.

Also wow tends to be played for hours on end, so even 48kbps mounts up over time.

Think I said all that hours before with solid examples... I sometimes get the feeling that all my posts are ignored so I'm off to get some counselling

In reply to a post by ArmstrongAbbott:

I agree with the WOW comments which is one of the games my son plays on laptop. He has had to instal a separate hard drive to put the whole game on to ease up on the laptop's resources.

However, I am perturbed that BT cannot offer any breakdown of individuals' useage.
You've gone over your useage, whack, here's another £50 on your bill

Move to the "unlimited" option. It appears you need to.

Move to the "unlimited" option. It appears you need to.

Am trying to, have learned the hard way, have a huge bill to pay, getting nowhere fast..........

Well, found the source of my problems and it's all at my end. No problem with BT, no hackers or anything else exciting. Basically my flatmate was using bittorrent and - god bless her - didn't realise that after a download finishes the file continues to upload so long as you leave it listed in the client (like a good bittorrenter should...).

Had a little chat and convinced her that if she REALLY must download things using bittorrent then she should shut the client down when it's finished. Been keeping a beady eye on the BT usage monitor and sure enough, usage for the last week has been pretty minimal. We'll probably still exceed 40GB this month but we'll be well within the initial £5/5GB excess. Annoying we have to pay any excess but I think this'll be the end of it.

That said, I'm still installing TBB bandwidth monitor on all our PCs before next month and keeping an eye on usage from individual PCs. If hers use all the bandwidth again she can pay the excess alone.

So thanks for all posts and sorry to have wasted your time! OP signing off.

I have a problem with the usage monitor and have posted a thread here -
http://community.bt.com/t5/BB-in-Home/BT-usage-monit...

Also world of warcraft uses p2p to distribute patches in the background and the cataclysm one was huge.

You could have been uploading it several times over while playing and not notice.