Does anyone have any idea how i can monitor my actual NET traffic?

Ive just had a "nice" email from BT slapping me with a bill for 70 quid for downloading over 120gb in two consecutive months...

BT themselfs dont have a monitoring app... and because we have a NAS at home, using a clientside monitor would be pointless

Why not switch ADSL providers? plus.net, for intsance, provide generous "limits" and a decent bandwidth monitor on their webpage showing a breakdown of on- and off-peakl usage each day for the past x months.

In answer to the question ... I don't know of anything that sophisticated. You're probably looking at a computer, possibly a small one, running something like m0n0wall ( www.m0n0.ch ).

Just run this app on each of your machines.

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/nsl.htm

My main PC clocked up 85gb last month

Edit - just read the bit about the NAS.

In that case , I *think* some of the Draytek routers will monitor data usage

Doesn't BT offer a bandwidth-monitoring website once you log into your account? My old man's on plusnet and he can see exactly what's happened on his connection.

Alternatively, go ntl, colin, no caps and 10mb :P

Problem is: we are stuck on ooo about 10 months contract left with BT and i think its a bit poor that they dont offer anyway to see useage.

I guess the way to go will be drop a proxy in front of the router.. before we actually got a router, we used to use smoothwall with the usb frog modem.

to BT

Fair Usage Policy

Dear Customer' date=' [/font']

We wrote to you last month reminding you about our Fair Usage Policy, and to make you aware of your usage for the previous month. We also said we'd contact you again, if necessary, and confirm any usage over the guideline for your product and related charges to your bill.

As a reminder, your monthly usage guidelines refer to how much data you download (receive emails, web pages and files) or upload (send emails and files), up to the GB guideline that you chose.

More about Fair Usage Policy

Your usage

In our terms and conditions, which you accepted when you signed up for BT Total Broadband Option 3, you agreed to an inclusive usage guideline of 40 GB per month.

However, we've noticed that you have exceeded your usage guideline for a second consecutive month . Your usage last month was 111.05 GB and your previous month's usage was 125.22 GB.

What happens next

This email is to confirm a charge of

Using e-mail to confirm something, eh? That's a bit dodgy...would delete the e-mail and deny all knowledge (they'll have no way of knowing if you received it or not). When it then appears on the bill, complain about the charge and not being notified, and how crap their system is if they can't even get an e-mail to you.

Then use this as leverage to show they've breached terms of their contract, and demand it be cancelled immediately without financial impediment. Then move to a decent ISP.

I would also wager any amount of money that you have to put your cancellation in writing and that an e-mail won't suffice...

Rob.

Using e-mail to confirm something' date=' eh? That's a bit dodgy...would delete the e-mail and deny all knowledge (they'll have no way of knowing if you received it or not). When it then appears on the bill, complain about the charge and not being notified, and how crap their system is if they can't even get an e-mail to you.

Then use this as leverage to show they've breached terms of their contract, and demand it be cancelled immediately without financial impediment. Then move to a decent ISP.

I would also wager any amount of money that you have to put your cancellation in writing and that an e-mail won't suffice...

Rob.[/quote']

thats the thing... my bro gets all the "main account" emails and says he never had a previous one.. but did mention something about a system fault saying we may not have been notified.

will investigate

Use something SNMP capable then stick PTRG on a box somewhere.

Also, I'd argue it's hard to enforce bandwidth when you don't provide the tools to monitor usage!

edit: As an analogy, say your electricity bill has shot up threefold because you've tripled your electricity requirements over the last month. But you had no idea that you're usage had increased, because.... the leccy company don't provide you with a meter!

Also, I'd argue it's hard to enforce bandwidth when you don't provide the tools to monitor usage!

Thats a good point. Surely bt should provideyou with a way of seeing how much you have used so that you can stay under the limit.

It's like fitting a car without a speedo you have no idea how fast your going.

Does that mean you would get a refund of £1 per GB below the 40gb "fair usage figure?

They are a law unto themselves. Like the VOIP service they offered and said was free. They didn't factor in the bandwidth requirements so billed alot of customers LOL. IIRC they got hammered on that one.

update...

found out that a few hours before they sent a email saying " in a small number of cases, customers were not notified about going over their limit.. therefore july excess bandwith charges will be waived"

to55ers!

Alternatively, go ntl, colin, no caps and 10mb :P

I'm in the process of switching back to ADSL from NTL. NTL are a complete disaster, the service is unreliable, they charge their own phone subscribers more per/min than they charge BT customers if you call their helpline and their prices arn't competitive either IMO. It's such a shame because I found them great for years and cable has so much more bandwidth potential than ADSL. NTL/Telewest just don't make the effort IMO.