*ALL* Speed Upgrade Discussion In Here Please (Part 2)

Easy way to test your setup, run a net monitor (analogx, dumeter etc.) run it for an hour on your machine without accessing web etc also ensure no auto update progs are running and then after an hour check the totals, multiply by 12, then 7, then 4 and this will give the monthly idle total for 12 hours a day.
I think the calculation is correct but you try it and see.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by tony

Re the proposed 3 gb cap on 1mb, after testing throughput with net monitor i find that just having modem connected and computer running 12 hours daily without any surfing or downloading etc. approx 6oomb is used on a monthly basis.
So the cap is in reality 2.5 gb for my setup, if you are running 24/7 well then you can kiss goodbye to 1 gb.
One big con if you ask me.

Looking at my daily stats, the lowest daily usage I have had this year is 6.78 Mb combined upload and download and that is with the computer running and online 24 hours a day. That 6.78 Mb day I checked my email several times and came on Cableforum for a few hours. My total January usage, combined upload and download, was 1.034 Gb. This was with 24/7 computer uptime and online connection and over 12 hours a day using the net.

[Paul K]

Originally Posted by tony

Easy way to test your setup, run a net monitor (analogx, dumeter etc.) run it for an hour on your machine without accessing web etc also ensure no auto update progs are running and then after an hour check the totals, multiply by 12, then 7, then 4 and this will give the monthly idle total for 12 hours a day.
I think the calculation is correct but you try it and see.

The calculation may be correct but if your figures are right then you have a serious problem with your setup because it shouldn't be moving 600Mb of data each month while idle
At home there are 2 pcs on a router, we montiored both pc's over a 2 day period and even with browsing, downloading emails etc we were still within the limits for our connection speed.

[Nemesis]

.... and remeber it's only the download traffic that *you* do, not any background noise ...

just run netstat for an hour with machine idle and the only prog that would access the net is autoupdate for avast, as that is up to date there would not be a lot of traffic there, got 2.3mb of traffic in that hour. I have little process running and no spyware etc, disabled icmp in firewall, this is just incoming traffic,constant, average of 700bytes.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by scastle

I agree.

I personally would consider myself a Power User (play about with new software, linux included, games etc), and I doubt I have ever gone over the current limit.

The only time I even came close was recently when I was trying out various Linux distros (to see which I liked).

Also with Game demos, whilst it's true that game demos increasingly going over 1 gig, I don't download that many in a day (apart from anything else, it's not practical due to download speeds, and I like to spend some time enjoying what I download).

The point still remains that it is possible to go over the cap legally, and not everyone is a pirate granted a lot of people are doing this but some of us genuinely are not. I would go on a business line without a seconds thought but at a 2 year contract needs some thinking about.

[Paul K]

Originally Posted by tony

just run netstat for an hour with machine idle and the only prog that would access the net is autoupdate for avast, as that is up to date there would not be a lot of traffic there, got 2.3mb of traffic in that hour. I have little process running and no spyware etc, disabled icmp in firewall, this is just incoming traffic,constant, average of 700bytes.

Have you tried a different monitoring tool? There must be something accessing the connection. What gets listed if you do a
netstat /a
in a cmd box??

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by tony

just run netstat for an hour with machine idle and the only prog that would access the net is autoupdate for avast, as that is up to date there would not be a lot of traffic there, got 2.3mb of traffic in that hour. I have little process running and no spyware etc, disabled icmp in firewall, this is just incoming traffic,constant, average of 700bytes.

Just did the same for 65 minutes and had total traffic, upload and download combined, of 136.8KB. Probably the difference is because I don't use p2p.

Originally Posted by Paul

Have you tried a different monitoring tool? There must be something accessing the connection. What gets listed if you do a
netstat /a
in a cmd box??

netstat/a:

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP home:epmap home:0 LISTENING
TCP home:microsoft-ds home:0 LISTENING
TCP home:1026 home:0 LISTENING
TCP home:1338 localhost:1337 TIME_WAIT
UDP home:microsoft-ds *:*
UDP home:1025 *:*
UDP home:1072 *:*
UDP home:1073 *:*
UDP home:1074 *:*
UDP home:ntp *:*
UDP home:ntp *:*

Tried dumeter and another freeby net monitor all give same results.

[savman]

Just wanted to post a quick note getting this back on the speed rather than cap topic somewhat.

I have the 750K package through a Pace STB and realising I would not be upgraded to 2Mb without an upgrade to the STB I rang CS yesterday. The happily booked me in for a STB swap for the 10th March which was the earliest slot they had. I am in the Leeds area but would suspect these lead times are mirrored throught the country.

So the suggestion is to ring up CS now and book that PACE-> Samsung upgrade if you want 2Mb as soon as it is available.

[rdhw]

Originally Posted by tony

just run netstat for an hour with machine idle and the only prog that would access the net is autoupdate for avast, as that is up to date there would not be a lot of traffic there, got 2.3mb of traffic in that hour. I have little process running and no spyware etc, disabled icmp in firewall, this is just incoming traffic,constant, average of 700bytes.

Either: your PC has been compromised with some malware (or has P2P running);
Or: your network traffic recording application is incorrectly counting incoming broadcast traffic (e.g. ARPs, DHCP discovery) in its totals.

You should not count ARPs and DHCP broadcasts in your traffic totals if you are trying to emulate or predict an ISP's volume-related capping or charging.

[Hans Gruber]

Originally Posted by tony

TCP home:1338 localhost:1337 TIME_WAIT

Unless you know what that is, it might be worth worrying a little.

Originally Posted by rdhw

Either: your PC has been compromised with some malware (or has P2P running);
Or: your network traffic recording application is incorrectly counting incoming broadcast traffic (e.g. ARPs, DHCP discovery) in its totals.

You should not count ARPs and DHCP broadcasts in your traffic totals if you are trying to emulate or predict an ISP's volume-related capping or charging.

no p2p or malware but after further investigation using ethereal i find that all the traffic is ARP which apparently comes from local UBR looking for loads of addresses none of which are mine, incidently I believe ARP is counted as download traffic and continues even when pc is switched off.

[looselipsuk]

If anybody is interested I am using a programme called CS Fire Monitor which gives details about your computer set up plus logs bandwidth activity which is saved to a file on a daily basis.
It is spyware free and also free for home use.
Either do a google search for it or I can supply the url address.

[IanGuy]

Well my bandwidth recorder program shows 10kB every 5 seconds being downloaded when not active, zonealarm doesn't show any activity so there is no problem with pc. I say the program is counting the unnecassary download from the DHCP