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Bandwidth Monitor for Computers-Suggestions?

Mod Note: Will Comcast provide a bandwidth meter? jlivingood says "yes." Here ---> »Re: Bandwidth Limits - Meter

December 2, 2008 update: »Comcast To Offer Bandwidth Use Tracker In January

»Exclusive Screens Of Comcast's New Bandwidth Meter

I'm using NetLimiter 2 Monitor (Free), it has lots of great features. You can view your bandwidth within any time frame. You also can see how much bandwidth each application uses.

Or you can flash your router with a 3rd party firmware like Tomato (better for bandwidth monitoring) and DD-WRT (compatible with more routers). This way you can monitor all devices connected to the router including consoles.

If comcast does not provide their own built into their website, people will just say "Screw the cap"

reply to Unit649
I've been trying out this freeware called PRTG traffic grapher, it monitors my whole network by looking at the SNMP on the router. so far seems pretty good, because I have about 7 computers hooked up to the router.

reply to Unit649
Excellent, excellent, excellent thread. You beat me to it by a tiny bit honestly!

A lot of these posts have focused on client-side monitoring, but this isn't robust enough.

Client-Side:
• Linux - vnstat »humdi.net/vnstat/ (very basic, linux based bandwidth reporting and monitoring)
• Windows - DuMeter »www.dumeter.com/ (very popular, excellent set of tools and reporting, but also only for individual clients. Nice prediction features)
• Windows - BandwidthMonitor »www.bwmonitor.com/ (haven't used it, but seems robust and similar to DuMeter)
• Windows - BW Meter »www.softpedia.com/get/Network-To···er.shtml (seems pretty good, similar to the last two)

Router-Side:
• WRT54G/GS/GL/e.t.c. - Tomato »www.polarcloud.com/tomato (Excellent real-time, last 24 hours, daily, weekly, and monthly bandwidth reporting for every interface. This is what I use and recommend the most since it works so well and represents all traffic passing the WAN)
• Server - MRTG »www.mrtg.com/ (Basic, seems depreciated by cacti, but still works, doesn't give an actual bit-statistic of use though)
• Server - Cacti »www.cacti.net/ (very comprehensive tool for bandwidth monitoring via SNMP, evolved from MRTG)
• DDWRT?
• PfSense/m0n0wall
• Others I don't know about?

No problem

The only reason I'm asking is because I have more than myself to support also. Flashing the router, though something I may eventually do myself, will probably not be something that some of the friends I have would want me to do

Part of the reason that I was asking out here. I know we're all a bit more on the advanced side, but for "Joe Schmoe" I'd rather just have an easy software solution that can sit in the tray and be easily checked.

Thanks for the tips so far everyone, I'll be checking back and checking out whats been presented so far. I think this is a good idea-I'm sure the publicity created by this happening will probably be drawing people to this site, and invaribly, here.

reply to Unit649
Another vote for Tomato firmware. I've been using it since.. forever.. and besides the fact that it's fast and has so many extra features that I use, the bandwidth monitoring section is superb.

DD-WRT is also an excellent firmware (with the ability to have different SSID/VLANS), but the bandwidth monitoring section of Tomato out performs DD-WRT IMO.
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reply to inferno

said by inferno:

If comcast does not provide their own built into their website, people will just say "Screw the cap"

reply to Nerdtalker
I think that some routers also have UPNP interfaces that might report back these statistics. I haven't looked for UPNP tools in a couple of years -- anyone have any favorites?

reply to Nerdtalker

reply to Unit649
another vote for du meter . works well free updates . lots of good features

reply to Unit649
This was the first question on my mind as well. But why wouldn't Comcast just add it to subscriber's account information? It seems pretty unfair to people who may be on the high side not to give them a chance to know when to back off. My wife and I both use up bandwidth well beyond the average user but I have no idea whether its close to 250 gigs. I use an apple base station. If anyone knows a good compatible mac or pc application please share any recommendations. At the very least they could email customers if or when they were past 200 gigs so people could reduce use or just accept the over-cap fees. This probably doesn't apply to business accounts right?

reply to Unit649
The best I have used is built into Kaspersky Internet Security 2009. It has a Network Monitor that keeps track of application bandwidth usage per day/week both incoming and outgoing. So you can check out which of your programs use the most.

Note though, if you enable it to report feedback...you should know that just participating will use up a bit more traffic...not too much but it makes the internet use by Kaspersky notable in the bandwidth meter. If you enable extended statistics it will make Kaspersky the top bandwidth user of all your applications for every single day, no matter what other programs you are using. This has the potential to drive up your internet traffic a great deal...so I would recommend not enabling extended statistics. Example: Over the few days I've been using it I had one day that stood out. I used up 3.5 GB on the download side...of that 2.3 GB was from Kaspersky...the next closest application was iTunes at 764MB.

Aside from the bandwidth monitoring I find it to be a very good internet security package. For me it replaced BitDefender (previously my favorite) after I had some incompatibilities between BitDefender's firewall and Vista Ultimate 64 Bit. The only problem I have with Kaspersky is that the active scans (not the normal background monitoring it does) don't pop up any type of window when they run...so they can sneak up on you and slow down your computer if you're in the middle of using it when they run. I highly recommend it as an internet security package.

I think I'm going to pick up a WRT54GL sometime Saturday and try out some of the firmwares available to it (starting with Tomato I think). I haven't been able to find anything for the router I have, a Linksys BEFSR41 4 port wired broadband router. Kaspersky is great...but only covers 2 computers that I have it loaded on. We have 6 other internet enabled devices (computers, DVR, cellphones on Wifi) that need to be tracked as well...a router based monitor is pretty much the only way to go. I'll keep the old one just as a backup though, in case something goes wrong with the firmware.

I'm still going to be paying attention to Kaspersky though as I find it's application-based bandwidth statistics interesting.

I think the most reliable bandwidth meters are always tied to your router....so it catches everything going through. Software based firewalls are less accurate since you can have network traffic that doesn't use up internet traffic. On single computer connections that's not a huge deal...it's more of a problem with connections connected to routers that have a network behind them...such as my situation.

reply to Unit649
WallWatcher can track your bandwidth if you have a router that is on there supported list. »www.wallwatcher.com/

reply to Unit649

reply to inferno

said by inferno:

If comcast does not provide their own built into their website, people will just say "Screw the cap"

reply to Unit649
i use rrdtool/mrtg

reply to CT3

said by CT3 :

said by inferno:

If comcast does not provide their own built into their website, people will just say "Screw the cap"

And if they do people will say its wrong and they need to fix it... Some people just like to whine, can't get around that.

reply to Ripper

reply to bondo