| [Internet] Internet usage up 200% since upgrade to Fibe 25? I recently called up Bell Fibe support to complain about being charged $80 per mo. for over-usage fees. It seems since I upgraded to Fibe 25 (as a result of them offering us a deal to keep me from switching providers) my Internet usage has gone up almost 200%.
What's weird is everyone in the household has confirmed there's been no unusual activity to explain the jump in usage and it was extremely frustrating to try to explain that we've never exceeded the cap before (when we were on Fibe 16) yet now our bandwidth usage is WAY over the average before the upgrade. We don't have Fibe TV or anything and use the Internet mostly for Netflix and other streaming. I've checked that our Netflix setting is not on HD setting.
I'm hoping someone else has encountered this before or can possibly provide some insight on why the significant jump in usage at Fibe 25.
Thanks,
Pat and Judy |
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Reviews:
 ·WIND Mobile
 ·Bell Sympatico
| It's hard for other people to say. Everybody has different usage habits. Maybe somebody there began uploading more stuff because its faster and they don't even notice it. You can try watching less Netflix to see if it makes a difference.
If you use your own router with dd-wrt or tomato OS installed you can see day-by-day, month-by-month usage statistics.
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Fiber Optics are the future of high-speed internet access. Stop by the BBR »Fiber Optic Forum. |
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julienvf
join:2008-12-30
Verdun, QC
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Acanac
| reply to patandjudy
If you're using p2p networks, you had 1mb upload before, now you should have 10 causing way more upload data. I'd switch to an unlimited provider if I were you to just stop stressing out about paying 80$/month extra. Remember that average cost per gb is about 0,2 cent... |
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RickStepPremium
join:2002-11-25
Hamilton, ON
kudos:1 | reply to patandjudy
Some things to take a look at.
1. You probably got a Sagemcom modem to replace the modem that you had due to the higher speed. Make sure that the wireless is turned off if you have no wireless devices, laptops etc. If you have wireless devices, make sure that you have a strong password in place, otherwise someone in your neighbourhood could be getting free Internet that you are paying for.
2. Setup an online account with Bell if you don't already have one. With a Bell online account, you can monitor your daily usage. Once you login, click on Internet, and then under Billing & usage click on Check my Internet usage.
3. On the Internet usage page, it will show how much usage you have purchased in the first block. In the second block it will give you the amount used in current billing period. You can also see you usage for the previous 11 months.
4. In the second block is a link to daily usage. If you click that link you will have a list of usage for each day in the current billing period. You can also see daily usage for the previous 11 months.
A caveat!
The usage that Bell shows in these tables is what Bell is billing you. There are many complaints here (at dslreports) that Bell's usage meter is very inaccurate. The numbers however should give you some sort of pattern.
Keep a couple of things in mind. When you ask family members if anything has changed getting a response of no may take some research.
We are retired here in Hamilton but now have 2 university grand kids living here. Over a 2 day period the usage jumped by 7 GB (GigaBytes). 1.1GB was a copy of Microfoft Visual Studio Express, which I knew about and the other 6GB was a game. My grandson clicked a link to install a game that had been downloaded previously, but due to hard drive space issues was deleted to allow the cleanup of the drive. Clicking install re-downloaded the game.
Good luck
Rick |
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| reply to patandjudy
Well Pat and Judy I have bad news for you. You think bell gives 2 (you know whats) about your usage? The more you use the more they like it. That extra $80 is pure profit to them. Call it a cash cow, call it whatever you want. Its despicable they set these caps on such high speeds. If you haven't learn't your lesson by now I'm not sure how to help you.
I know your asking for insight into what might be wrong. You gotta be the bandwidth police, not rely on bell. read up on google how to monitor your bandwidth. There are many different ways.
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| Netflix can eat up alot bandwith close 1gb/hour at a low setting
Netflix (HD): 3600MB for a 2 hour HD movie.
Netflix (SD): around 500-700MB each |
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bt
join:2009-02-26
canada
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Start Communicat..
| said by The Doctor:Netflix can eat up alot bandwith close 1gb/hour at a low setting
Netflix (HD): 3600MB for a 2 hour HD movie.
Netflix (SD): around 500-700MB each
Assuming the amount of NetFlix they watch hasn't gone up though, they wouldn't be using any more of their cap for it now than they were on a 16Mbps connection. |
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| reply to patandjudy
Some guy earlier got duped out of ten gigabytes and wanted them back. He tracked his usage with a router. If nothing has changed someone you don't know is using your wireless and/or you're sustaining substantial packet loss. |
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1 edit | reply to bt
If we assume only one user logged into netflix this would not cause much of dent but multiple users using netflix would increase usage.
The faster the connection the more one uses without noticing we do more because it's done faster.
Youtube/netflix/hulu so many sites to eat up our bandwith.
It's possible that the wifi connection is being used by someone else as bell wifi key/password are very weak first thing i changed when the tech left when i had fibe 25/7 installed few months ago. |
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bt
join:2009-02-26
canada
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Start Communicat..
| said by The Doctor:If we assume only one user logged into netflix this would not cause much of dent but multiple users using netflix would increase usage.
It would have taken quite a few concurrent SD streams to bottle-neck a 16Mbps connection. And even if they were somehow saturating the 16Mbps connection with SD quality Netflix, a 56% increase in speed wouldn't translate to a 200%+ increase in usage. The math just doesn't work that way.
So again, if they haven't changed how much they watch Netflix, it's very unlikely to be the cause of the drastic increase in monthly internet usage. |
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1 edit | I am still trying to figure out how 3-4 people could use up so much bandwith during a month if none of their habits changed.
If bitorrent & netflix was used would drive usage but not 200% either |
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kovy
join:2009-03-26
kudos:8 | depends if you upload at 10mbps vs 800kbps. |
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Reviews:
 ·TekSavvy Cable
| said by kovy:depends if you upload at 10mbps vs 800kbps.
That would also be my first suspect. Torrents seeding at 10x the speed it used to do before. Or any other P2P technology where you are suddenly uploading 10x faster than you used to do, and didn't took the time to cap the upload speed in your P2P client. |
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RickStepPremium
join:2002-11-25
Hamilton, ON
kudos:1 | reply to patandjudy
A reply from the original poster would be nice.
Talking to one's self is not what I thought his board was all about.
If you post; interact.
If that is too difficult; don't post
Rick |
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| reply to patandjudy
Modem on Fibe 25 has WPA2 as default for security, however has a guest network with no security (disabled by default). Netflix also adapts the bit rate to the speed of your connection.
Also the modem lets you see the amount of packets sent and received in the firmware. |
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| reply to patandjudy
I think patandjudy are what they call hit n runners  |
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Reviews:
·TekSavvy Cable
| reply to RickStep
said by RickStep:A reply from the original poster would be nice.
Talking to one's self is not what I thought his board was all about.
If you post; interact.
If that is too difficult; don't post
Sadly, people often use forums just as a mean to vent their frustration. That's why you see more people complaining than being overjoyed by their service  |
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| reply to patandjudy
We ran into the same problem. Last month we had an overcharge of 80$. We immediately checked the Internet usage on the bell site and were shocked to see that we were exceeding our monthly usage even for the next billing cycle. So we bought extra 50Gb in addition to our 60 Gb. But they burnt up so fast and we are at 150Gb now. We installed net meters on all our computers and turned off the wifi. We changed all of the modem passwords. No change. Our net meters showed max 1Gb a day and yet Bell would count up to sometimes even 10 Gb a day. We then refrained from using the Internet for 24hours. But still the Bell tracker counted 3.5Gb. Bell tried to pin it down on Netflix, p2p....even though we told them we were not online. We then turned off our modem completely and disconnected all our wires for 24h starting at midnight. It is the most reliable way to check if the Bell Internet usage on their site is fraudulent. Bell showed a usage of 3 Gb that day. After our third complaint they launched an investigation and apparently found that our br1 ID had been assigned to another Bell user at the same time, which resulted in their Internetusage being added on to ours. I still have numerous questions for them and will be asking for compensation tomorrow. |
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Reviews:
·WIND Mobile
·Bell Sympatico
| They assigned the same b1 and password to another user at the same time?? I wonder how that's possible... the password is "supposed" to be randomly generated with each new account.
It's also possible someone got in your router / house and copied the login, or someone from your family got phished into giving it away not knowing the consequences...
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Fiber Optics are the future of high-speed internet access. Stop by the BBR »Fiber Optic Forum. |
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| I wonder how careful Bell is to wipe clean the b1 username from returned equipment. I assume they are...
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MNSi Internet - »www.mnsi.net |
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