# Are you being overcharged for Internet usage?



## Master Dan (Nov 22, 2011)

We are hostage here with only one choice of internet supplier charging $75 a month that allows usage of 5 MB Email and 2 Gigabites down loads. They are currently in the last 6 months sending people bills from $300 to $800 extra claiming down loading overages. They have been hitting me $30 dollars monthly at $20 a gig but this month $300 for 11,000 MB over. we do not do any video streaming or large down loads all email is normal I replaced an unsecure wireless router with a new Linksys E2500 secure with password ect several months ago and can't find anything to document the usage. Cable company can only say what the daily usage is? I am going to keep a log and turn internet off when not in use, pull up the Linksys software and go to the software tools to monitor usage and try to find if anyone is tapping in to our internet?

My feeling is the cable company is getting by with overbillng people? are any of you out there having similar problems with your bills and usage? If I can prove the usage or mistakes in billing I will file a formal complaint with the FCC.


----------



## Carol (Nov 22, 2011)

Damn. That's CABLE?  We have wireless plans down this way that don't get that pricey.

Is your wireless connection secured?  Lock it down with a strong password and a strong encryption program such as WPA2...but I'll give you a word of caution.  Some sites (Facebook for example) chew up data very quickly


----------



## Master Dan (Nov 22, 2011)

Carol said:


> Damn. That's CABLE?  We have wireless plans down this way that don't get that pricey.
> 
> Is your wireless connection secured?  Lock it down with a strong password and a strong encryption program such as WPA2...but I'll give you a word of caution.  Some sites (Facebook for example) chew up data very quickly


 later today I will see what i can find out we do not use face book at all may be get email to confirm friend or linked connection but rare, good password going to have cable company give me my monthly usage for the last 24 months if no answers after the Linksys software tools check then it test and hunt down any unauthorized users if possible.
by the way that was just my internet cable is another $75 a month seperate bill


----------



## ballen0351 (Nov 22, 2011)

Do you have a smart phone? Mine automatically logs on to my home wifi and will start to update facebook, emails, other apps like weather, news, and sports. Im not sure how much data that actually uses since I pay a flat fee of $35 a month for unlimited interent thru my cable company.
Also my kids PS3 and Wii does that too.


----------



## Carol (Nov 22, 2011)

You don't even need a phone to consume bandwidth.  Just having a computer up sitting idle on a live internet connection doing "nothing" consumes many KB per minute. 

Going online typically uses a lot more bandwidth than people think.  

2GB downloads typically means 2GB downstream....that is ANY data going towards the consumer, not just a specific download, connected to their WiFi system, and made a couple of posts on MT one post on FB while waiting for someone to show up.  When my friend arrived, I showed him a portfolio of my photos...all done from the local computer (no internet bandwidth required) but I did not shut off my WiFi.  Now that I am about to leave, my stats show I have pulled nearly 8MB down, nearly 3MB up.  That's in less than one hour's time.  I didn't even check my mail, or do anything that required serious "downloading".


----------



## Carol (Nov 22, 2011)

Carol said:


> 2GB downloads typically means 2GB downstream....that is ANY data going towards the consumer, not just a specific download, connected to their WiFi system, and made a couple of posts on MT one post on FB while waiting for someone to show up.  When my friend arrived, I showed him a portfolio of my photos...all done from the local computer (no internet bandwidth required) but I did not shut off my WiFi.  Now that I am about to leave, my stats show I have pulled nearly 8MB down, nearly 3MB up.  That's in less than one hour's time.  I didn't even check my mail, or do anything that required serious "downloading".



This makes no sense.  I meant to type:

2GB downloads typically means 2GB downstream....that is ANY data going  towards the consumer, not just a specific download.  I am currently at an internet cafe.  I connected to their  WiFi system, and made a couple of posts on MT one post on FB while  waiting for someone to show up.  When my friend arrived, I showed him a  portfolio of my photos...all done from the local computer (no internet  bandwidth required) but I did not shut off my WiFi.  Now that I am about  to leave, my stats show I have pulled nearly 8MB down, nearly 3MB up.   That's in less than one hour's time.  I didn't even check my mail, or do  anything that required serious "downloading"


----------



## Master Dan (Nov 25, 2011)

WEll here is the latest of what i do know. I finally figured out how to find my MAC addresses for my computers to have the Linksys manually only recognize thoses addresses and the linlsys website link would not let me talk to my Linksys no matter what or do anything. I go to tech support and i am so sick of getting routed to some India sweat shop doing tech support on everything these days you cannot understand a word they are say and two hours later on the phone they screw up everything remove all security from my system and can only say well you bought the router 10 days ago?? no it was 4 months ago and its defective send it back? screw it i hung up. I had my IT guy come over reset access and down load the software and we reset user name and password we also removed any access as guest wifi even though they would need a password. true a hacker may get in but not likely at least everything works including my I phone and wireless printer. 

We looked at the resource permormance on my computer with windows 7 and even at idel other than windows updates which are very small there is nothing to show major bandwith usage even when on webrowsers like Yahoo or when I am on MA Talk. 

I went through and removed all the tool bar web browsers Youtube face book and anything else that was not esential to be on tool bar 

I am going to require the cable company to give me a daily usage current and historic for the last two years.

There is supposed to be a microsoft program that can also give me real time usage reports i am going to investigate that next.

The cable company will give no proof of your usage other than a bill but cannot say where it comes from?

The bottome line for me and all of you is I am one of the people who helped launch cable nationwide as a contractor and installed the first city owned system in the US back then cabel was treated like a utility which meant very serious regulation on the raising of rates which had to be approved by a board and capitol improvements were not a justification related to get all the money from the rate payers in advance and the build.

Our cable company raised rates in June by 4 times on band width usage all the while they are building a huge fiber optic link below us and saying they have the cash sure they are taking the money from current rate payers? I am going to file a complaint with the FCC and other state and federal agencies as well as formal complaints to both our Senators to review and audit the justification for the increase in rates as well as the undocumented proof of usage in billing.

In the old days in only paper billing it was called double billing and anyone lazy or large enough company not to catch it paid and the billing company increased profits. Now its just called deregulation so the poor corporations can trickle down more jobs????????

All of you should consider weather you are being over billed because while very severe here I believe it is a national patern based on capture of market share. 


For now I am going to turn off the cable internedt modem evertime we are not using it.


----------



## Master Dan (Dec 2, 2011)

I logged on and set up a usage monitor but it is supplied by the cable company. It give a chart showing total download and up load totals for the current billing month I also pulled up my usage for the last 12 months and I have looked at my daily for November.

I am turning my Broad Band modem off as much as possible during non use of the computer which is just limited to only email and some web browsing but all tool bar webrowsers have been deleted. I have random days of just a few Megabytes 12 to 33 a day then all of sudden 1.3 Gigabyte or 300 to 700 Megabytes?? Untill the cable company raised overage rates 400% 4 months ago there was never any large usage by thier records. It is too suspect they are bragging about paying cash for major fiber optic expansion in other areas of the state and we are all getting billed $30 to $800 in overages especially since we do now music or video at all?? 

I brought in a IT person to go through my desk tops and lap top and can find no data to justify the down loads or even operating profiles that show large usage or files? We use a RCA Model DCM425 digital Broad Band cable modem.

I am wondering if there is a software program or hardware I can use to either prove who or what is using my network or give me my own daily usage records so I can possible prove the cable company is making fals billiing claim and if so file a class action suite on behalf of customers in Alaska. Things are hard hear unless you own your own home you can only aquire internet and cable from one company only.


----------



## Master Dan (Dec 2, 2011)

One other thing the specifications for the RCA modem say it has web pages for getting detail information like usage but so far i have found that any ideas?


----------



## oftheherd1 (Jan 17, 2012)

You might want to explore if either of these will help you.  I have never used them, but I have used many other programs listed on Snapfiles.

http://snapfiles.com/get/stgcache.html 

http://snapfiles.com/get/notipage.html


----------

