Broadband usage shot up

Hi I read the other query re broadband usage suddenly exceeding limit. before xmas i rarely went over 7gb of my 10gb limit. december i went to 12 gb but daughters got net book and ipod so expected that, however on 4th January i recieved email to say i had gone over 7gb in 4 days. we didn't touch computers for 2 days but still it continued to spiral by at least 2 gb per day.
Any help advice gratefully recieved.
I have changed to unlimited but am concerned my usage appears today appears to be telling me i have used over 9 gb in one day?????

HodsoJ wrote:
Hi I read the other query re broadband usage suddenly exceeding limit. before xmas i rarely went over 7gb of my 10gb limit. december i went to 12 gb but daughters got net book and ipod so expected that, however on 4th January i recieved email to say i had gone over 7gb in 4 days. we didn't touch computers for 2 days but still it continued to spiral by at least 2 gb per day.
Any help advice gratefully recieved.
I have changed to unlimited but am concerned my usage appears today appears to be telling me i have used over 9 gb in one day?????
Hi. Welcome to the forums.
Are you using the online usage monitor or something else to keep an eye on the usage ?
When you say you received the email on 4th January, did it actually give the dates for the usage ? It would be strange for it to have said for 4 days, seeing as the usage is reset at the beginning of each month.
Things to check, are that you are up to date with all the operating systems, as well as all the anti-virus and security packages.
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Similar Messages

Broadband usage monitor - do you believe what it's...

Back in June I submitted a post because my broadband usage had shot up (http://community.bt.com/t5/Bills-Packages/BT-Broadband-why-has-my-usage-rocketed/m-p/894000#M25664). Although some of the increased usage could be explained by the use of Skype (now uninstalled and no longer a factor), the high usage continued beyond the removal of Skype.
There was no obvious explanation for this, but changing the hub security key to more secure one seemed to stop the problem for a while.
Then last week I got the usual BT email warning me I was likely to go over the limit again! After a long conversation with one of the BT tech support people I reluctantly changed the key back to the default one, but got another email warning this morning to say I'm likely to break my limit.
If I was a heavy user I'd accept this, but I'm not. The other thing that puzzles me is that the bulk of usage is upload. I might occasionally upload a few photos to Ebay, and maybe a few to Photobucket occasionally, but they are few and far between. This morning the monitor shows Download of 1.25 and upload of 7.59 - just crazy, there is absolutely no way in which I am uploading that volume of data intentionally.
BT say 'Well or monitor is very accurate', but if that's the case why can't they tell me what I'm being billed for uploading? If it was a gas or electricity bill we'd certainly want a decent explanation if the usage had doubled.
It's tempting to upgrade - but why should I pay BT more when my monthly usage prior to this problem was between 4 and 5gb a month?
Does anyone else have this problem?

Thanks for your reply. No, not using Cloud yet (though I have registered for it). Also, and I may be wrong here, but I thought that usage of Cloud did not count towards your BB usage.
BT even suggested that perhaps someone might have entered the house and reset the hub key to its default setting without our knowledge. Pretty unlikely, besides which I think our inability to log on following such a change might make us suspect something. It's also virtually impossible that a neighbour may be using our hub, as quite apart from the security issue the nearest house is about 40 yards away.
Most of our online usage is email and general browsing from a single laptop, with antivirus and antispyware software updated at least daily. The laptop gets put into hibernation when not in active use.
As a retired IT bloke who has spent more years than I care to think of building and using networked devices it's the fact that neither I nor BT can account for this that bugs me. What bugs me even more is the fact that seemingly I have to just accept BT's word regarding the alleged usage; there is no redress.

Broadband Usage Massive Surge

Hi All,
It looks to me like our usage monitor is on the fritz again.
We're on Option 1, 10Gig package,
1 PC hard wired Running Lubuntu from HD instal, not been on since Thursday night.
1 Ipad2 on wifi (been away since Friday morning)
1 Laptop running Ubuntu from CD. Never connects to router address, only ever logs in when using it via BT WIFI or Fon.
1 Original style Vision box, hardwired with powerline adaptors
No nasty windows updates to worry about, no skype this weekend, no streaming audio, V little youtube, as trying to get everything on the old vision box watched before it is switched off at the end of June and what Youtube there was came in via the Fon or BTWIFI connection. Warnings and details below
1st warning
18/06/2014
Total usage is now over 6GB
2nd warning
20/06/2014
Total usage is now over 8GB
As of today 22/06/2014 it says I'm 1.19gig over my usage allowance
For a couple in their 40's with no online addictions something has got to have gone wrong again, we usually sit around 6-8 Gig, from this it looks like it thinks we've used over 5gb in 4 days??
Could it be something to do with BT prepairing to switch off our Vision box?
Have they started counting & charging for Fon usage?
Totally at a loss, after my complaints the last time everything has been fine for a good while & now it's all starting again.
:-( Thought about renewing & getting a new vision box before end of month, & trying to negotiate a more competetive package price, not so sure now this has happened again.
I've seen one other thread complaingn of a sudden surge in the past 4 days here:- https://community.bt.com/t5/Bills-Packages/Broadband-usage-surge/td-p/1293165
Anyone else?

Hi Peter,
Not getting anywhere at all, :-(
We're currently showing a use of 1.1 gig over the past 5 days, now that would be fine if we were using it as we used to but we're not!!!
I' ve changed the router wifi password so the mobiles, laptop & IPad only connect through the BT app via the free to use Wi-Fi/Fon connection & am only turning on the desk top PC for 5 mins in the morning to grab the router stats & broadband usage screen shot from the MY BT website.
SO...
The only other things that can possibly be using the allowance now are
1) Our old BT vision box, connected to the router through powerline adaptors
2) Someone has hacked my new router WIFI password & is using it. (remember I've already changed it once recently)
I've just re contracted today so will get a new youview box sent to me on Wednesday, if that doesnt fix it then I'll change out the router to a third party model I have standing by. Got a 14 day cooling off period if it doesn't get sorted so can always still bail out & run.
If only I could access someone nearby's fon/WIFI connection I'd turn wireless off all together on my router to see if that fixed it & it would stop my router recording any fon/WiFi access I'm doing as well.
We've had these problems before back in Jan 2013 & I've shouted on about the pathetic BT online "useless monitor" so many times & tried to get people behind me to appeal for the more advanced Plusnet version.
In the past the mod's have got involved & miraculously it has just stopped, I hope "DavidM" notices this post & can get involved soon as I've got a problem using his contact us link in his profile, it doesn't show on I-Pad or Linux ATM.
DavidM please help.
Regards
Garry

Snow Leopard's High Level of Broadband Usage

Has anyone else experienced and/or resolved the issues of a high level of ISP-metered broadband usage using a Mac running Snow Leopard? Not only have I seen this with my own eyes, this has been widely reported and discussed in the Apple Forums and other sites. As recommended, I have installed Surplus Meter and Little Snitch, un-sync'd everything I can find and changed IMAP e-mail accounts to POPs (except for AOL, because I cant find the settings anywhere). SL still uses a great amount of broadband because it is constantly using mDNSResponder to broadcast the Mac's presence, apparently as part of a virtual network. Apple Support was initially helpful then would not get back to me on this issue.
Metering is going to spread beyond broadband cards and isolated ISPs. SL and related Apple products apparently create more broadband use. That's what the recent AT&T trial balloon, re iPhone limitations was about.
SL's Bonjour use appears to add usage and Safari refreshes constantly, creating more usage. Apple would be well served by addressing this issue by providing the user with a software switch that would shut off the high usage apps when attached to a metered broadband.
Has anyone found such an app? Has anyone found a Mac broadband log/meter that saves to a file to compare against the ISP's calculations of usage? Has anyone set up an AOL POP account? Thank you.

Hello and Welcome,
NJEsq wrote: "Has anyone set up an AOL POP account?"
AOL is... "not well regarded" here or anyplace where there are people knowledgeable in matters of personal computer and internet use. I believe others responding to your questions have already questioned whether your ISP (i.e., AOL) is playing straight with you IF as indicated by your statements, AOL is telling you that your Mac and OS 10.6.x are exceeding their limit on usage.
You evidently don't know that AOL has, from its earliest days, played this game wherein they sell what is claimed to be "complete" Internet access but then put limits on your access and use. You should know that they "for your protection" put you behind their firewall and that's how they keep such close track of your usage.
Including myself, I've known a lot of people who start out going through what might be called the "AOL Phase" but soon learn there are far better choices among ISPs. To put it politely, when these folks discover this they FLEE to the better ISPs.
So, despite your impression, such limits are not likely to spread beyond ISPs like AOL, regardless of what they have told you or what you may have heard. Macs and OS X are NOT (suddenly!) some abnormal broadband gobbling phenomenon.
Your mention of the supposed effect of iPhones on broadband brings up another thing: what you say is ONE way of perceiving what's going on. The actual truth is that iPhones did become part of a trend which puts greater demand on ISP / telecom providers. - But so do a lot of devices and that includes automobiles with the "On Star" type crash detection and crash response systems. But the iPhone (and its competitors) did NOT "start" this trend - not by a long shot.
Basically, what you've been told is just... BS!

BT Broadband usage meter

Has anyone else had unusual results from the BT usage meter?
My monthly usage average is under 30GB and that is mostly (75% or more) download. This month, for various reasons, my computer has been used a lot less than normal and today my total download for May is below 7GB. However, sometime in the last couple of weeks, my upload has shot up to over 30GB for no apparent reason. I supected some kind of nefarious activity even though I am well protected by Kaspersky and regular use of malware-seeking programs. To further add to the mystery, the meter on my Home Hub shows that I have transmitted only 3.6 GB in the last 9 days (presumably since it was last switched off a;though I do not recall doing so as I have been trying to keep it on permanently following a tip I saw on this forum about improving exchange to house speed).
Any suggestions would be welcome.

Most versions of Home Hub reset the transmitted and received data values to 0 when they reach 4.3Gb withhout resetting the connection time.
If you contact BT Helpdesk they will be able to give you the data transmitted and received values for the last 31 days which will confirm whether the Home Hub values have been reset. ( If they say they cannot do it ask for a supervisor)
It is advisable to record the Data values from the Home Hub on at least a daily basis in order to check the online Broadband Usage meter.

Monthly broadband usage -- BT knows, how do I find...

ok, so I've been forced back to BT's website again. It took 30 seconds for my blood to boil -- why is it such a poor site? The core issue I have is that I always want to communicate with BT via email, NOT via phone. That way I'm on equal terms and I can ponder the response. But finding somewhere to email is extremely difficult -- I always have to complain, when I just want to ask a question.
Anyway...
I want to know what my broadband usage is. I used to be able to log on and see. But some muppet has decided that I can no longer do this:
"Why can't I check my broadband usage any more?
We don't want our customers wasting time monitoring usage when there's no need to. Having unlimited broadband means you don't need to worry about your internet usage: you won't pay any usage charges no matter how much you use."
Well I DO want to know what my usage is. I am seriously thinking of moving away from BT. If I know what I am using I know what sort of package I can purchase from a competitor. I also don't want to 'renew' a contract so I'm stuck with BT for another 12 months. As long as BT are in the background they are ok. I've had no problem with the service, but they seem to be getting dearer and dearer. (Line rental saver went up by 13.5% -- Inflation was less that 2% so why the huge hike?)
Their scheming, conniving business team who are looking at ways to stop me moving away while still screwing me are finally forcing me to do something.
So can someone please tell me where I can now find my monthly usage? The above response from BT is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Now to find a cold shower and calm myself down again...
grrrrr
Solved!
Go to Solution.

here is the link https://community.bt.com/t5/Bills-Packages/Unable-to-see-broadband-usage-if-on-unlimited/td-p/136871...
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Very high broadband usage

The first month we got BT broadband was option 1 the 10GB package, I left my house for 2 weeks and the monitor was at around 6/7GB and with no one in the house and no one with access to it i came back to find it was now at 12GB, thought this was a bit odd...
Last month we upgraded to option 2 the 40GB package. Ended up watching lots of videos and things and by the end of the month it was at 45GB.
This month, it's 7 days in and the usage monitor is showing 12.87GB used, I haven't been doing anything other than browsing, no games, no videos, no downloads, nothing...
This surely cannot be correct and I'm still concerned about the first month when it hadn't been used by any one and it was still racking up the data.
One phone call said there was nothing BT could do to check, I think it's a bit odd that I have to pay for usage I haven't even used and for this month that it's so high already and I haven't even done anything!
Forgot to say I had a 20GB package a few years back and I practically used to live on my laptop, used to play xbox live for hours each day, watch a lot of videos, and download a hell of a lot of music and videos and I didn't exceed my limit once in 18 months..
Seems a bit odd to me...

If this is the first month you have gone over, the £5 for an extra unit of 5GB might be waived.
For more information visit www.bt.com/broadbandusagepolicy
The broadband usage monitor is accurate and is updated at 23:59 every night.
Uploads are also counted towards your 10GB allowance.
1) Make sure that you don't have any malware or virus on the computer.
2) Make sure your private Wifi network is encrypted otherwise other people might be suing it.
3) Make sure that there isn't a device in that is using the home that you didn't know was using the internet - Smart phones/portible devices can automatically connet to your wifi (if known) and can update software in the background without you knowing. Some devices will allow phone calls and texts to be recieved over wifi.
4) there are free usage meters that can be downloaded to see when and what is using the 10GB usage on your computer.
cheers
jac_95 | BT.com Help Site | BT Service Status
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Broadband usage not showing on my account for the ...

For the last 2-3 months my Broadband usage has not been showing on my account website. I am on unlimited broadband but would still like to know what I have used. This has happened, for short periods, several times before but usually rectifies itself within a few days.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hi pixmate
Please use the 'contact the mods' link in my forum profile under the 'about me' section to send in your details. You can find the link by clicking on my username.
Thanks
Neil
BTCare Community Mod
If we have asked you to email us with your details, please make sure you are logged in to the forum, otherwise you will not be able to see our ‘Contact Us’ link within our profiles.
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Wifi at home/Broadband usage allowance

Can anyone tell me if when using a wifi device AT HOME does the usage come off your allocated broadband usage allowance?

johnfraser wrote:
Thanks for that but I am still not entirely clear. I have registered for bt wifi so does this mean unlimited usage even at home?
There is a fair usage policy here
http://www.btwifi.com/terms-and-conditions/fair-use-policy.jsp
You have to actually connect to your BT wifi SSID, and not the normal home hub one, to take advantage of this.
You can tell if you are connected to BT wifi, as it will ask you to login using your primary e-mail details.
There is a general info page here.
BT wifi help (was BTOpenzone)
There are some useful help pages here, for BT Broadband customers only, on my personal website.
BT Broadband customers - help with broadband, WiFi, networking, e-mail and phones.

Increase in broadband usage

I have been using BT Infinity 1 since July last year with no problems.
For the last two months I have been warned that I am using more than my allowance of 40G incurring extra charges.
I have no explanation for this.
Is it possible to retrieve my usage stats (as a graph) for the last twelve months from the BT billing platform.
Kathy

This link may help.
Why is my broadband usage so high?
I don`t think BT keep your usage stats for that long. Its best to check it on a daily basis, using the usage monitor on MyBT.
There are some useful help pages here, for BT Broadband customers only, on my personal website.
BT Broadband customers - help with broadband, WiFi, networking, e-mail and phones.

Broadband usage monitor

I have also experienced the excessive BT broadband usage. I opted for option 1 because I have no interest in downloading Video's/music, apart from reading both BBC and Sky news the only other use is my wife using the online facebook game.
I received an email from BT last month saying i had reached 7GB of my 10 GB usage and just cant figure out why
I have downloaded a usage monitor which greatly differs from BT's own monitor,
What I would like to ask is, does the monitor I downloaded only monitor what is open on my desktop, 2 whould there be a differnce between High Speed Broadband and those who's broadband is connected via telephone line.
if this is the case as i suspect, then someone downloading a file on high speed whould use less bandwidth than someone downloading on slow speed. look at it as sending a fax, it may cost 10p to send a fax on a cheap machine but to send the same sheet on a quality machine may cost 6p, I dont no?

Deke wrote:
I have also experienced the excessive BT broadband usage. I opted for option 1 because I have no interest in downloading Video's/music, apart from reading both BBC and Sky news the only other use is my wife using the online facebook game.
I received an email from BT last month saying i had reached 7GB of my 10 GB usage and just cant figure out why
I have downloaded a usage monitor which greatly differs from BT's own monitor,
What I would like to ask is, does the monitor I downloaded only monitor what is open on my desktop, 2 whould there be a differnce between High Speed Broadband and those who's broadband is connected via telephone line.
if this is the case as i suspect, then someone downloading a file on high speed whould use less bandwidth than someone downloading on slow speed. look at it as sending a fax, it may cost 10p to send a fax on a cheap machine but to send the same sheet on a quality machine may cost 6p, I dont no?
Hi. Welcome to the forums.
You say you received an email last month for reaching 7GB - that was for April.
May I ask what usage monitor you are using, and how does it compare with your current May usage online meter from BT ?
The downloaded monitor will only record what that particular computer is using (won't include other computers, games consoles, mobiles and TVs etc). And then there are various settings in different programs to cater for usage within a home network etc.
What Facebook game is being used may I ask? Some of these applications can use many 100s of MB per day, so this alone could account for a lot of the usage.
There should be no difference between any "high speed" user and standard ADSL in terms of usage. In your example of downloading a file. The high speed (e.g. fibre) user will use exactly the same data content as a person on a slower connection. The speed is irrelevant with regard to how much is being used.
You can't compare with a fax machine, because typically these used normal phone lines which are charged on a timed usage - so the longer the call, the dearer the cost. In your example it could actually be dearer to use a quality fax machine, because it may take longer to send a higher quality copy.
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Broadband Usage

I have just had infinity installed for BT TV. My broadband usage averages 28gb a month but in 2 days since installation my usage has rocketed to 18gb. We have not watched any films or used our pcs any differently. I got through to India and was told it was uploads and i would be put through to billing. By the time i had waited on the phone it had gone flat so I am none the wiser. It must be a mistake, can someone help?

Hi Cheryl111,
Welcome to the forum, I can check your usage here if you use the 'contact the mods' link in my forum profile under the 'about me' section to send in your details. You can find the link by clicking on my username.
Thanks
Neil
BTCare Community Mod
If we have asked you to email us with your details, please make sure you are logged in to the forum, otherwise you will not be able to see our ‘Contact Us’ link within our profiles.
We are sorry but we are unable to deal with service/account queries via the private message(PM) function so please don't PM your account info, we need to deal with this via our email account :-)
If someone answers your question correctly please let other members know by clicking on ’Mark as Accepted Solution’.

Broadband Usage Meter unavailable

The broadband usage meter on the BT website refuses to show my usage, on the basis that, as I have unlimited broadband, I don't need to know.
Is there any way I can find out my usage? Just because I'm on an unlimited contract does not mean I am not interested in my usage.

Follow the instructions in message 47 in this thread , you will only be given total usage with no analysis https://community.bt.com/t5/Bills-Packages/Unable-to-see-broadband-usage-if-on-unlimited/m-p/1400811...

Broadband usage surge

My average monthly broadband usage is 6MB. In the the last 24 hours I have apparently used 2MB. No iplayer, no films, no skype, no downloading - just an hour or two on on the web checking emails etc. How can I get an explanation? Many thanks for any advice.

There have been many threads about sudden increased usage for no apparent reason - BT tell you to change the wireless password as standard.
I myself had this problem recently https://community.bt.com/t5/Bills-Packages/High-Broadband-usage/td-p/1284701
You will need to keep a daily record of usage per the monitor and what the hub shows as well.
Ring 0800 111 4567 to say you dispute the usage and hopefully they will say that they will monitor it for a few days - whether they actually do is another matter.
If your upload has jumped then this is indicative of a virus/malware running which would have to be removed from your system.

Broadband Usage - "unusual" spikes in our usage

In May we received a "warning" email from BT about our usage - and being fairly new to BT broadband I started to investigate the usage meter. As far as I can tell the ONLY way for me to see daily usage is for ME to log on daily and manually record the previous days total.
I called BT and they told me that due to data protection law they are unable to provide me with any detail about our usage, apart from the running total.
Not happy about this I made a complaint, and got put through to a chap who was able to tell me that in the previous week we had 1 days usage of 12GB and another of 5GB. Our totals for the previous 2 monthly were 19GB and 21GB respectively.
Our total for May was about 41GB (i.e. about 1 GB over our contract)
We do not watch TV on line
We do not stream music
We do not "game" on line
We do email, internet searches and download podcasts (and have done this for years).
So the question is why are BT unable to provide ANY detaild data about broadband usage. They are able to record daily usage but why can't I see it?
Has anyone any ideas or suggestions about how to deal with this thorny issue with BT. You wouldn't go to a petrol station and pay for a full tank without knowing how much fuel you'd out it!!
Thanks.

The data protection reference is cobblers. If there was anything in it how would Plusnet (owned by BT!) be able to provide all the detail you need in their usage monitor? Your question should not be why are BT unable to provide more detail, but why are they failing to.
If this is the first time you've exceeded your limit you won't be charged. Quite a few people have questioned alleged increeases in their usage lately and there have been reports of successful challenges to BT. Best thing is to keep an eye on it and report back here if further problems seem to be in the offing.
You can click the white star next to this message if you think it was helpful.

Broadband usage shot up

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