Does your ISP have a bandwidth meter? Is it accurate?

A few months back, i got an email from my cable provider that they had introduced a data usage monitor for their cable internet customers. This is essentially a monitor that allows you to see how much bandwidth you use on a daily and a monthly basis, so you know if you’re approaching your limit.

Now, while i’m a reasonably heavy internet user, and we have a TV/BluRay combination that allows us to stream Netflix direct to our HD television, we’ve never used more than our allowance. We still get Netflix discs delivered as well, so we watch quite a lot of movies that way, rather than streaming over the internet. There’s just my wife and me, and i think the most bandwidth we’ve used in a month is about 150-160 GB; most months we use less than that.

Anyway, in the period since the ISP’s usage monitor went online, i’ve noticed that it quite significantly underestimates our bandwidth usage. I have third-party firmware (Tomato) installed on my router that also tracks bandwidth, and the numbers reported by my ISP are considerably lower than those reported by the router. I also know, just from my own understanding of what we use, that the router is more accurate.

For example, last month, according to my ISP, i used around 85-90 GB, yet according to my router, the number was closer to 130. And i’m virtually positive that the router is correct. This month’s usage shows a similar difference.

As i suggested, we don’t go over our limit anyway, even using the router’s figures. I just thought that the discrepancy was interesting. Anyone else have a usage monitor serviced by their ISP? How accurate is it? Do you think the conservative numbers i’ve noted are done on purpose, in order to focus only on real bandwidth gluttons and avoid causing trouble for borderline users?

It depends on what they are counting. I use AT&T and it’s grossly overestimating my usage compared to my router.

Our IT person where I work says AT&T also counts packets overhead so like when you stream you are not only getting the data against your account but packets.

Also some ISPs, as I’ve been told, will count minimum packets instead of actual usage.

So if your data could have downloaded 100 units in a packet but only downloaded 50, it’s the same charge.

This normally isn’t a huge deal, but if you cut things close, it can add up to as many as 5 extra gb a month, depending on what or how your downloads are sent to you.

At least that is what my IT guy says about AT&T. Maybe he’s wrong, or I understood it wrong.

Bottom line is the way the ISP and router measure will not be the same as they aren’t measuring the same thing

Interesting, although if your IT guy is right, it seems that the ISP’s calculation should generally be higher than my router’s calculation, not lower.

What ISP do you have that limits your data usage? :eek:

I’ve heard of this for mobile phones but for home internet connections… that’s scary.

Where have you been for the last (roughly) five years?

Quite a few of the largest and most popular DSL and cable ISPs have hard, official data caps, including AT&T, Comcast, and Cox.

And many of the others, including Time-Warner and Verizon, have “acceptable use” policies (sometimes called “soft caps”) that they use to control the downloading habits of the most prolific users. Internet reports over the past few years suggest that these policies tend to get enforced at somewhere around the 250GB per month range, which is in line with the limits set by the hard cap ISPs.

These caps work, in many cases, without people even knowing about them. I didn’t even know what my official cap was until my ISP sent me the email letting me know about the online bandwidth monitor. And the reason people don’t know is that the vast majority of households, even in this increasingly online world, don’t reach the limits. At most ISPs, the top 1-2% of customers are responsible for about 15-25% of downloads.

We’ve had many threads about data caps over the past few years. Here are three from this year alone:

How do I watch my bandwidth usage.

Fucking COMCAST.

How will data caps affect the digital economy?

Huh, that’s shocking. I have AT&T U-verse now (before I moved it was Time Warner) and I’ve never heard anything about a data cap.

Check your terms of service or the AT&T website. I believe the U-verse cap is 250GB per month.

One thing about AT&T is that, unlike some other ISPs, they don’t cut you off when you reach your limit; instead, they charge you for it. I think it’s 10 bucks per extra 50GB. It’s actually one of the more generous cap penalty systems.

I’ve been checking and there’s nothing on their website anywhere about it that I can find. Nor is there any such tool as a data monitor in my account management area. I use a lot of bandwidth for streaming and whatnot and I’ve never been charged for an overage; that much I know. I have the “super max”-whatever plan that has the highest speed - maybe/hopefully that one is unlimited?

I just went to AT&T’s offer details page, where they list the conditions of their services.

They also have a whole page about data usage, and their Broadband Usage FAQs says:

Cox has thrown in with a 200 GB cap for my tier. Their policy is interesting, though; they’ve said they won’t charge for overage (no mention is made of throttling), and if you’re habitually going over they’ll work with you on either limiting it or going to the next tier of service which presumably has a higher cap. As policies go, that’s downright friendly.

May well be cacheing. For example, Windows updates may be cached in a proxy on the ISP side and as this doesn’t hit the greater internet they give you a pass with the bandwidth.

Maybe.

I just tried logging in to the “View my usage” link (they keep that page well hidden since it isn’t anywhere in the regular account management area) and got this message:

“Note: Your usage is not yet available for display. You should not be concerned about your usage for billing purposes. AT&T will keep you informed about your data usage via email.”

What bullshit.

Yeah, i have the same ISP, and the same tier.

It sounds pretty crappy, but AT&T apparently has quite a good system for informing you of any problems. Even if you go over, the first time you won’t be charged or cut off; they’ll just send you a message letting you know, and warning you to watch your usage. You don’t et penalized at all until you exceed your cap three times, i think.

Yes, it sucks that you can’t monitor your usage, but if you haven’t heard from them about it, you can rest pretty easy that you’re not on their radar for excessive use.

I know this is an old thread, but you guys have no idea how good you have it! I live in the Yukon and we only have one service provider. My internet is capped at 60GB and they charge you 10$ per Gig you go over. It is, quite literally, the most expensive internet in the world.