Usage Problem

Hi. Haven't posted in a while but I'm looking for help. I'm on Broadband Your Way with a 15GB monthly allowance. For the third month in succession I've had a usage warning. When I go onto the broadband usage page it says something like Web 21%, Email 1%, Streaming 1%, Other 62%. I contacted PlusNet to ask what the "other" could be and got the reply that they couldn't give me any more information than that. As far as I know most of what we do is on the web; we used Spotify for a while but knocked it on the head because of this problem and we don't use iPlayer at all or YouTube very much. The other half uses Windows Live Messenger a bit but usually for no more than an hour per day.

My only real idea at the moment is that I work from home a lot and work uses Novell Groupwise for email, which is a bit like Outlook/Exchange but even worse. I also have work's antivirus package, Sophos, which updates from a server there. I wonder whether one or both of these could be passing stuff back and forth. I also wonder whether we could have acquired a bot - we are currently running two machines but only one has active anti-virus because it cripples the other one to the point where it cannot be used.

So, has anyone had this problem or have any idea where my bandwidth could be going?

Thanks in anticipation.

L

Are you sure you have completely paralysed/removed Spotify?

As I understand it, though with little knowledge, it is a P2P program and could very well be uploading huge amounts when requested by other Spotify users.

Plusnets usage checker on the website is pretty good. You could do some checking by periodically checking the usage and doing some tests - turn off all machines overnight and check the following morning what usage has clocked up, then each night just leave one machine on. You might be able to track down which of your machines could be causing the usage (going by what you have said it would seem unlikely you are knowingly using that amount of bandwidth).

If nothing is using it overnight then it suggests it is something initiated by you or your family.

Also worth changing any wireless network passwords on the router in case someone is "borrowing" your connection. Make sure wireless security is set to WPA or WPA2 not WEP.

You could monitor your usage using http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

It can collate information from several machines (without uploading to an external server - it communicates with other instances on the LAN) and correctly ignores all LAN traffic.

In reply to a post by jelv:

You could monitor your usage using http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

It can collate information from several machines (without uploading to an external server - it communicates with other instances on the LAN) and correctly ignores all LAN traffic.

Thanks for the link to Networx ~ very useful, especially as they have a Portable version. I have been using DU Meter for a long while but Networx based on a quick look/test is better IMO

In reply to a post by Routefinder:

I have been using DU Meter for a long while but Networx based on a quick look/test is better IMO

I'd been using DU Meter for a long time as well - until Bob Pullen posted the link to Networx on the Community forums. It is far, far better.

please ignore

Edited by deleted (Sat 30-Jan-10 18:20:47)

Post deleted by Sadoldman