Broadband usage

[osmosis]

We received an email from our home broadband carrier that, unusually, 80% of our allocation had been reached and I immediately put it down to two causes:
1. an Iphone 4 is part of the home network and is constantly used
2. we had been downloading many work related videos (often youtube) lately, compling them, then emailing them off.

But it also occurred to me that over the last two weeks SWMBO had been using her windows (:yuk:) laptop to remotely access her desktop at work where she continued to upload/download as if she was right there in her office. Both her systems have IT Dept installed remote access & firewalls and I'm now wondering if all day connections have had a significant impact on the allocated data at home. Can anyone advise?

The aforementioned geeks are the most uncooperative & uncommunicative individuals and are generally untrusted as work colleagues, so their counsel is never sought.

[hellsbrink]

Does your ISP have a bit called something like "Telemeter", an area where you can see your usage broken down into what was used on what days?

Would be a good place to start....

An "all day connection" shouldn't have a significant effect itself, but up and downloading stuff to/from work all day will.

[crewmeal]

Many of them have this 'fair usage' kopout, but no one can define it. No one will dare quote a number until you have used xxx gb!

I've looked at this chart and played around with it. You might get an idea of your usage, then call your provider to see if it makes sense.

Broadband Download Usage / Bandwidth Limit Calculator (http://www.broadband.org/usage_calculator.html)

By the way I'm on O2 and am always downloading movies, songs, chatting ob Skype, watching TV catch up sending large files and don't seem to have any problems. yet!

[Saab Dastard]

But it also occurred to me that over the last two weeks SWMBO had been using her windows () laptop to remotely access her desktop at work where she continued to upload/download as if she was right there in her office. Both her systems have IT Dept installed remote access & firewalls and I'm now wondering if all day connections have had a significant impact on the allocated data at home. Can anyone advise?

Remote control software passes KVM (keyboard, screen delta, mouse) information only, which is far less than the uploads / downloads that are occurring on the work PC (i.e. none of that is going to your home PC).

If the connection is "up" all day but not in use, then usually only some "keep-alives" are sent - some systems may even drop a remote connection if it has been idle for a set period.

So I don't think that the remote session is consuming a huge amount of bandwidth.

SD

[mixture]

2. we had been downloading many work related videos (often youtube) lately, compling them, then emailing them off.


You've answered your own question.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Always-on RDP connections, with the default settings, including a small amount of printing to the local site, eat a maximum of approx 2Gb a month. i.e. not a lot.

[Ancient Observer]

I'm On a BT contract in the UK. Some time ago, BT warned me about my usage. I rang to ask what the usage was. Their answer was that anything video eats up the allowance. Kids watching catch-up tv was (and still is) the big user in the Ancient household.

Being "always -on" with my then employer was, as M form B says, not the big issue.

[mixture]

AO,

I'm On a BT contract in the UK. Some time ago, BT warned me about my usage. I rang to ask what the usage was. Their answer was that anything video eats up the allowance. Kids watching catch-up tv was (and still is) the big user in the Ancient household.

What you'll find happens is that they will traffic shape you whilst you're under your contract limit, and then rate limit you once you hit it.

Their traffic shaping pulls out stuff like video, and depending on what time of day it is, will de-prioritise it over other traffic.

On top of that, you've got good old contention to further throttle you down.

DSL is a numbers game. The goal is to stuff as many punters onto the same pipe as possible, especially those on residential (home-user) contracts.

[hellsbrink]

You've answered your own question.

As well as the bit that says

remotely access her desktop at work where she continued to upload/download as if she was right there in her office.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Hellsbrink, uploads and downloads when remotely-controlling a machine in the office do not occur on your local network.

[Daysleeper]

I'm on a 50GB a month contract, and occasionally use 26-28 GB. That's with the kids constantly watching the iPlayer and me streaming Planet Rock plus endless emails, facewhatsit etc.

We get an email when we go over 50%, so long as it's in the back half of the month I don't worry about it. Interestingly, until April our allowance was only 25GB/month, then I was getting a bit twitchy!

[osmosis]

Thanks posters, I assisted SWMBO in her work related matter and we both heavily used our home connection for a few days, it's not something we regularly do. We were midway through our contract month and I have long forgotten what the monthly limit is; the more I read on here the more shifty this whole data measurement appears. Reply #10 addressed my biggest query as I wondered if we were getting double dipped.

[hellsbrink]

Hellsbrink, uploads and downloads when remotely-controlling a machine in the office do not occur on your local network.

They do if you up/download to the machine you are working on, not only the one you are remotely connected to.

For example. She accesses her work PC and downloads a document/whatever to work on at home. That is downloading to her "local network".

I don't know the full scenario regarding what osmosis was up to to crunch his bandwidth limit so quickly (he also has to bear in mind that the data limit generally includes uploaded data too, not just how much stuff is downloaded) but it is possible that there was a sharp increase in data use due to the missus' "remote" work not being as "remote" as it seems.

[Fareastdriver]

Obvious question. It your wireless modem secure? I have five modems within range and two of them are unsecured. When mine went down with a transformer problem I locked on to one of theirs until I got a new one. If I wanted to I could download all my movies off their broadband allowance.

[BOAC]

It might help here if we knew what 125% of the 80% was? The whole thing could be as simple as -

1. an Iphone 4 is part of the home network and is constantly used
2. we had been downloading many work related videos (often youtube) lately, compling them, then emailing them off. - there could indeed be the answer.

What is the Iphone 'doing' all day?

How big are the videos? You are 'handling' them twice.

Never mind SWMBO - where we are all confused!

[osmosis]

I didn't think this sleuthing would take on such global momentum. Reviewing our last couple of weeks downloading videos, me downloading numerous programs trying to conveniently convert video files, emailing large files, and SWMBO on skype to London (I thought it was once only) we can draw our own conclusions.

I have been a long term user of Tooble until recently. It appears medieval copyright policies have stopped it also and for the above job I used
Free Online YouTube to MP3, MP4, 3GP, FLV, AVI Converter (http://ixconverter.com/)
It's not ideal and is effectively done online but it worked for me. I never know what to do with the file in the activity window on my mac; I need to find out.