Checking data usage with UPC

El Guapo!

Hi,
I had a look around the UPC website but couldn't find anything. I'm trying to track my data usage with UPC. Is there a way of doing this?
I recently signed up to Netflix and I'm not sure how much I can watch without going over the 500gb that's allowed on my package.

Random

* i have emailed aup@upc.ie before and they have told me
* they have also told me to use my own monitoring software because they dont any
* they have also told me that they will warn you before they start to charge you over the limit

El Guapo!

Random wrote: »

* i have emailed aup@upc.ie before and they have told me
* they have also told me to use my own monitoring software because they dont any
* they have also told me that they will warn you before they start to charge you over the limit

Ah ok, that's a relief. I judt dodn't want to be suddenly landed with a big bill or have my contract terminated.
It's a bit stupid the way they don't have a facility to monitor your own usage though.
Thanks for the reply.

Fighting Irish

I've downloaded way over the 500gb allowance many times, without warnings or consequences

El Guapo!

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I've downloaded way over the 500gb allowance many times, without warnings or consequences

What monitoring software do you use to keep track of it?

Fighting Irish

Dean09 wrote: »

What monitoring software do you use to keep track of it?

BWmeter

There's plenty around though

vibe666

they don't have any monitoring of your usage for you to look at, but they are monitoring customer usage for everyone on their side down to the kb.

it would only take a few lines of code to incorporate that system with a web interface for users to be able to check their own usage themselves, but the simple fact of the matter is that they don't want to, because it takes away some of their control.

if people know they have 500gb to use a month without penalty, they are more likely to try and use it. if they have to guess and there's no visible target to reach, they will be a lot more cautious.

i've had the 100mbps with a 500gb cap since it was launched and i've only ever come close to the cap a couple of times right at the start, whereas i always used to get very close to the old 250gb cap with the 30mbps and even went over it a couple of times.

the funny thing is though, if you look at my usage now, it's normally still within 250gb and is usually less, so i was obviously subconsciously (or consciously:D) trying to hit the old 250gb 'target' every month.

i have my own router to monitor my usage accurately as there are several devices in my house that use the internet and it wouldn't be possible to monitor individual usage otherwise.

moonboy52

For those that are technically minded or are willing to read about it, then buying a DD-WRT or a Tomato firmware capable router and installing said software / firmware on it is the best way to monitor usage for the whole home.

vibe666

moonboy52 wrote: »

For those that are technically minded or are willing to read about it, then buying a DD-WRT or a Tomato firmware capable router and installing said software / firmware on it is the best way to monitor usage for the whole home.

yup, done and done.

but it doesn't change the fact that people shouldn't have to go and find their own technical solutions to a problem that exists because of limits set by the ISP who are perfectly capable of providing a simple bandwidth monitoring service as part of their broadband packages, but choose not to.

dub45

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I've downloaded way over the 500gb allowance many times, without warnings or consequences

That is basically irrelevant - just because you have got away with it doesnt mean that others will.

There are many examples here of customers being charged by UPC (through being upgraded to a more expensive product).

At this stage there really is no excuse for UPC not to provide customers with a way to measure their usage.

Fighting Irish

dub45 wrote: »

That is basically irrelevant - just because you have got away with it doesnt mean that others will.

There are many examples here of customers being charged by UPC (through being upgraded to a more expensive product).

At this stage there really is no excuse for UPC not to provide customers with a way to measure their usage.

I understand that, i was just telling people my situation, which proves UPC aren't that strict

I'm on the 50mb UPC, maybe that makes a diff

vibe666

doesn't seem to matter, people have had letters on the 50mbps and 100mbps too. the only thing that seems to make a difference is (seemingly) if you are in an area with low overall usage, going by anecdotal evidence here.

Arcto

Just a heads up: The first month I got 100mb UPC me and the house mate used up 697GB

2 weeks later we got a letter telling us if we went over again they would drop us back to a 30mb line with no cap @ €80 a month.

We both use bitmeter 2, with ISP restrictions set up. I was in contact with UPC just after xmas and they said the ability to log into the website and check your bandwidth usage 'is coming soon'. But I work for a large IT company and anyone familiar with 'feature requests' knows what this means :rolleyes:

vibe666

Arcto wrote: »

I was in contact with UPC just after xmas and they said the ability to log into the website and check your bandwidth usage 'is coming soon'. But I work for a large IT company and anyone familiar with 'feature requests' knows what this means :rolleyes:

they've been saying that since at least 2008 when i first signed up, so i wouldn't go holding my breath if i were you!

the only accurate way to do it if you have multiple devices is to put a decent router in front of your UPC router and use that for your home network and just use the UPC router as a modem.

there's no bridging option on the UPC router(s) unfortunately, but you can put your own router in the DMZ on the UPC router which is *almost* as good.

I use a Linksys E3000 with a modified version of the TomatoUSB custom firmware and it does an awesome job. The router itself is dual band dual radio 300mbps 802.11N with gigabit ethernet ports all round, a 480 MHz CPU & 64MB RAM. It's great hardware and tomato is a great firmware and I can keep an ongoing log of my monthly usage down to the nearest MB (or KB for the current month).

zg3409

vibe666 wrote: »

I use a Linksys E3000 with a modified version of the TomatoUSB custom firmware and it does an awesome job.

I have the exact same E3000 on UPC and the special toastman firmware also shows you how much each individual IP (user/machine) has downloaded, so in the case of a house with a few people you can check who is taking the piss.

I turned off the wireless on the UPC cable modem and use the wireless on the E3000. I also gave a different name to the 2.4Ghz wireless and the 5.8Ghz wireless and use 5.8Ghz all the time as it is more reliable than 2.4 (if your computer supports it)

For heavy users I recommend a cable, which connects to the router at 1Gbps.

It also has traffic management firmware so you can prioritise for example Skype calls or web browsing over torrenting.

The one catch is the logs are lost when the router is turned off or rebooted. There may be an option to store the logs to a USB drive or remote PC but I have not checked.

vibe666

exactly the same as mine.

there are options for backing up your bandwidth logs either internally via jffs2 or externally, via ftp or samba every hour or day or whatever you like.

i was originally backing up to a samba share on my nas from my old linksys wrt54gs with tomato, but after more than a year, the logs were still only a few kb in size, so when i got the e3000 rather than rely on logging externally i changed to logging internally on the router to jffs2 and it's been fine for months now.

armitage_skanks

If you have a 500GB limit, do they send out a warning only when you go over that?

Or do they send caution letters out if you hit say 450 in a month?

vibe666

its only when you go over 500gb (from my experience only after 10gb over) in a calendar month, although i've been told in previous threads that they have the ability to monitor both calendar and a rolling 30 day month, so you may well get a letter for instance if you downloaded 300gb in the last week of one month and then another 300gb in the first week of the new month, although i can't say for sure as i've never tried.

armitage_skanks

On eircom I used to always use the limit as a target/goal so i'd feel like I was getting value for money :pac:

vibe666

i used to do the same, even when i moved from BT to UPC 20mbps with 250gb cap (and then 30mbps before the 100mbps upgrades), but since it's been 500gb it's kind of out of my reach unless i really push it and i just can't be ar$ed to use that much on a regular basis, so now that i've stopped counting or trying to get as much as possible out of it, my usage is actually below 250gb per month most of the time now.

CelticTiger69

I wouldnt worry about it.. I have been with UPC for 4 years and have never went over the limit.. I download a lot of music and movies and have never went over.. Your average movie to download is about 700mb so unless you plan on watching 10+ movies per day/ every day, you should be fine...

mrbrown69

Thinkbroadband monitor is the best usage monitor from my experience, just set your montly DL and leave it to work....nice little graph displayed on your desktop

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/tbbmeter.html

ronkmonster

CelticTiger69 wrote: »

I wouldnt worry about it.. I have been with UPC for 4 years and have never went over the limit.. I download a lot of music and movies and have never went over.. Your average movie to download is about 700mb so unless you plan on watching 10+ movies per day/ every day, you should be fine...

My average movie size is 4gb. I've gone over plenty of times and even bumped down for a month. A new game can be 10GB+ these days.

I monitor my usage with a dd-wrt router. Down to 20gb left this month
Only used 320gb last month.

vibe666

that's the thing, if you want to watch stuff in HD, you'e talking anything between 4-10gb per movie, so it's not that hard if you really want to push it.

add HD TV shows and games and regular online media like youtube HD and the like and it's not that hard to reck up a few hundred gb if there's a few people in the house using it.

my usage has actually dropped quite a bit in the last few months, but i'm fairly certain if i hadn't just become a father, i'd still be using another hundred gb per month or more.