My ISP and Bandwidth Usage - I Think I'm Getting Screwed

[-zero-]

So this month I've been getting hassled by my ISP for going over my allowed bandwidth. I'm allowed 60GB to upload/download a month and apparently I've used 100GB. I know that it's impossible that I've used this much since aside from standard web browsing and pokering I've only downloaded/uploaded about 20GB of data. And as a reference, they are reporting that last month I used a combined bandwidth of 25GB.

After having my service disconnected as a warning, I was left with 1GB to use for the rest of this month. To make sure I stayed under this limit and didn't get disconnected again, I've been running a bandwidth monitor on my two computers. This monitor records everything uploaded/downloaded from the internet as well as everything that goes between my two computers on my local network.

Using the data from my monitor along with the bandwidth usage data that my ISP has available for me to view online, I've found that they are not only counting what goes between my modem and the internet, but they are also counting the data that is being transferred between my two computers through the router on my home network.

This would definitely explain the excessive usage since this month I've been using one computer to watch tv shows and movies that are on the second computer. This would account for about 40-45GB of transferred data.

Someone please tell me that this is completely wrong and that I can call my ISP and bitch at them. I'm not overly computer literate, but it makes no sense that they could count data going through my home network as bandwidth usage when I could be doing it without being connected to the internet at all.

Thanks to anyone who helps me out with this.

[-zero-]

Also, I just read their relevant terms and conditions and they define uploading and downloading only as traffic between the computer and the internet. It doesn't say anything about data transferred over a home network.

[a nonymous]

I think this is completely wrong and you can call your ISP and bitch at them.

[Josem]

1) it sounds like your ISP has a bizarre bandwidth monitor. it's certainly not normal.

2) you're not using anything funky to transfer data between your two PCs, are you? that data is not going via the internet, is it?

[Nemesis69]

Omg! Bitch at them ASAP!

[Our House]

OP is my girlfriend. We have her computer and my computer wired on a standard windows network with everyone's favorite Linksys WRT54G router. There's also a laptop in the other room that she uses only for her school work. The laptop is connected via encrypted wireless, but is never used for anything online except the daily anti-virus updates. All three computers are completely virus-free.

The ISP website updates bandwidth statistics every hour or so. Our usage has been going up at a rate of ~11MB/hour (give or take) when all computers are connected, but idle. The bandwidth monitor our computers have on them is showing a usage of 1600bites/hour for each desktop when idle, and higher when using the net.

We're not using anything strange to transfer data between PCs. As a matter of fact, we haven't even transferred any files; we've only used my desktop to watch Sopranos episodes that are on zero's PC...and that's been done through the Microsoft Home Network. The last time we watched an episode, the monitor on our computers showed that bandwidth usage shot up drastically. My computer "downloaded" ~300MB and her computer "uploaded" ~300MB. The episode was just above 300MB in size. Zero's not around right now, so we haven't checked the ISP's report since her last post (or since watching that 300MB episode).

What I think is happening is the ISP is somehow monitoring packet usage instead of bandwidth usage. Is it possible that they're using a local "cookie" on each PC to measure? Also, does anyone know if there is a way to check bandwidth stats at either the router or modem level instead of on each PC?

Thanks for the help. We need to straighten those bastards out.

[Our House]

[ QUOTE ]
The ISP website updates bandwidth statistics every hour or so. Our usage has been going up at a rate of ~11MB/hour (give or take) when all computers are connected, but idle.

[/ QUOTE ]
In all fairness, the above statement is based on the very small sample size of two hourly updates. We purposefully left the two desktops connected, with nothing running. The first update (1 hour) showed 10MB used. The second update (1 hour, 10 minutes) showed 15MB used. Those figures include upload & download from both PCs.

We only started checking usage around 6 hours before that. We made sure not to upload or download anything significant (music, videos, etc.) and used both PCs for standard web browsing and poker playing. Over those previous 6 hours, the ISP's website reflected a total of 190MB used. Our PCs' bandwidth monitors showed roughly the same amount (INCLUDING local network bandwidth) of combined usage.

[mustmuck]

[ QUOTE ]
Using the data from my monitor along with the bandwidth usage data that my ISP has available for me to view online, I've found that they are not only counting what goes between my modem and the internet, but they are also counting the data that is being transferred between my two computers through the router on my home network.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's the router? Your router would have to report this traffic to your ISP, which seems very unlikely. Most of these systems measure your bandwidth on the ISP's offsite hardware.

[mustmuck]

Okay, I read a little further. What is the WRT54G connected to(towards the ISP side)? Is it connected using the WAN port? Your WRT54G or DSL/cable modem should be able to give you statistics on what's going in/out to your ISP, use these instead of the monitor on the PCs.

[Our House]

The usual.

Outside line connects to the modem via coaxial cable. Modem goes into the WAN port of the router using ethernet cable. Router connects to the individual computers using ethernet cables. The laptop connects wirelessly, but we disconnected that over 14 hours ago.

We've both tried looking for stats from the router's control panel and came up blank.