Telecom mobile broadband usage issues...

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m00sie

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#61971 26-May-2010 20:56

We have an 8GB mobile internet connection and over the last couple of months have started to go over our usage.

We very rarely (maybe once a week) watch youtube vids or tv episodes etc online and we don't download anything, yet seem to be going through 8gb in about 20 days.

When we signed up for the contract we told the guy about the amount of time we spent on the net and what we did and he insisted that we probably wouldn't use more than 4GB a month.

On average we spend maybe 8-10 hours a day online between us. We only look at trademe, facebook occasionally and ebay - sometimes news websites or sites like 1-day.

Any suggestions as to why we would be going over?

I'm pretty sure we are on the biggest mobile broadband plan available...

freitasm

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#335246 26-May-2010 21:30

I would start by making sure uninstall anything that is not necessary. Then run a full av and antispyware scan. Even if you have an antivirus installed go to free.antivirus.com and get the scanner there to check if all is clean.

quickymart

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#335247 26-May-2010 21:30

8-10 hours a day is a long time to be online even if you aren't doing much. There will always be traffic going across your connection (even if you think it's just sitting there doing zero) in the likes of IP packets, pings, webpage refreshes...maybe even Windows/antivirus updates are running in the background, or possibly some malware or spyware?

quickymart

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#335248 26-May-2010 21:31

Mauricio beat me to it :)

nzbnw

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#335253 26-May-2010 21:38

Don't forget Windows / System updates that may be downloading in the background.

nzbnw

m00sie

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#335285 26-May-2010 22:20

Thanks for the tips.

Ran the scan and it was all clear.

When you mention uninstalling programs, which ones do you mean?

Thought about the updates but we have disabled them due to the interference with our lan connection (we share the internet connection via a network bridge).

We used to spend more than 10 hours a day online and still didn't crack the 8GB which is why we're surprised we're going over so quickly.

freitasm

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#335292 26-May-2010 22:28

Other day someone came here complaining - a lot about his ISP. We asked him if he had installed anything lately, he said no... After five pages he "found" the culprit was Freenet.

Freenet is a proxy that uses your computer to anonymise the traffic for other people - he installed "to test it" and forgot about it. And other people used his PC as a proxy to the tune of many GB a week.

So ANYTHING you don't need or don't use should be removed. Most of the times programs have processes that keep running now and then to check for updates and knowing how bad developers are I'd not be surprised if there are rogue apps downloading tons of data.

But this is one case. Of course could be other stuff. But the principle is the same... Don't install what you don't need, run scans frequently, make sure there are no auto updates running, etc...

Sure there's no Torrent program opening on startup for example?

Ragnor

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#335525 27-May-2010 14:46

To get a reasonably accurate measurement of data being used by each PC you can install Networx (a bandwidth monitor) on both PC's
http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

Couple of tips for Networx;
- Right click on the icon in the system tray and goto settings.
- On the main tab check ignore local traffic within the LAN.
- On the advanced tab change the start day to be the same as your billing period.