[TelstraClear] Constant 150kbps cable activity

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timmmay

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#13941 6-Jun-2007 15:19

My bandwidth seems to be being used up faster than usual. I took at the logs in my router (Linksys 54GL) and it shows 150kbps constant into the router. I'm wondering if this is counted in the traffic usage. I mentioned it before and someone said they'd looked at the traffic and it was low level network stuff, but a constant 150kbps seems like quite a bit. Any ideas?

cyril7

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#73650 6-Jun-2007 15:47

Not too sure what the exact traffic you are seeing is, but it may have something todo with this thread.

Cyril

timmmay

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#73678 6-Jun-2007 17:59

Sounds like it's related, yeah. Is there any way to block that at the modem level? Or maybe at the router level? I'm running the tomato firmware on my router.

michaeln

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#73722 6-Jun-2007 23:42

timmmay: Sounds like it's related, yeah. Is there any way to block that at the modem level? Or maybe at the router level? I'm running the tomato firmware on my router.

It's ARP traffic. Every 2-10 minutes, every Windows box times out its ARP cache and asks for the MAC address of the gateway. Different OS and hardware devices act differently, but we'll focus on the most common type. The ARP request is a broadcast. It goes to everyone else. Multiply 64B ARP request x 8 / 2 minutes x number of on-line modems and you get---about what you are seeing.

It can't be blocked at the modem level. The DOCSIS standard defines various filters that can be applied, but for non-IP protocols the only options are allow/deny. ARP is a non-IP protocol (despite being USED by IPv4).

By its nature though, it never gets through the router---you don't have to block it there, the router just ignores it.

You are not charged for it.