Usage reported by Netmeter is too low?

Hello all

From reading other posts on here I've seen that Netmeter will report too high a usage for various reasons, but I've got the opposite problem - I've just found out that the usage figures compiled by my ISP are much higher (about 2.5x) than the ones reported by Netmeter.

Eg

July 07, ISP 2.1G, Netmeter 650M
June 07, ISP 3.1G, Netmeter 1.2G

Anyone had a similar experience? My ISP is the Phone Co-op who are reselling Telecomplete's broadband. And they charge

Can your router supply throughput figures?

I was going to say no (it's a Netgear DG632) but I've remembered it does have a Show Statistics page which gives bytes transferred for the current session. That'll give me something to compare against. Thanks!

Does this also count uoload/ack packets, fiar enough you wouldn't get >1GB of acks of 650M, but it wouldcertainy add

I suppose you're using the total figure (up + down). Still seems a large discrepancy though.

Download a file of a given size and note the Netmeter reading before and after. The Speedtester on this site is as good as any for this test.

Have you considered that Netmeter is right and that the problem lays elsewhere? Maybe the ISP is double or miscounting or someone is leeching on your connection - do you have wireless access? Trying turning wireless off for an extended period and see if the discrepancy goes away - check the router logs for signs of rogue computer(s) connecting.

Edited by gomezz (Sun 29-Jul-07 10:07:42)

In case anyone struggling with the same problem finds this thread -

The explanation of the statistics display in the DG632 router manual is wrong, eg it says two figures are percentages when they appear to be byte totals.

If they are byte totals then Netmeter is actually over-reporting by about 1.15x.

However, if I work out a byte total from the total packets transmitted and received (assuming a packet size of 1458) I get a figure which closely approaches the one my ISP is claiming.

Perhaps the router is dealing with a lot of pings and general [censored] which Netmeter wouldn't see? 1.5 gig in a month is a lot of pings, though.

Quite possible someone else is using your connection.. surely netmeter is only picking up traffic from the machine it is installed on?

Nothing else on your network? Wireless disabled?

Secondly, does the ISP count both uploaded and downloaded bandwidth? - Is netmeter only counting downloaded bandwidth?

It's a one-port wired router connected to one PC.

Netmeter's figures, the router's figures and the ISP's figures do all include UL and DL. One odd thing though, the ratio of UL:DL packets reported by the router is about 1:1.3, which seems very low. Netmeter's ratio is about 1:5.5 .

So just to clarify. The ISP figures you are quoting are those reported by the modem itself at your end of the connection? Does the ISP not have a status page where you can check what is being counted at their end?