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Home internet data usage spike when I'm not home? (1 Viewer)

WDIK2

WDIK2

Footballguy
I left home in the early AM to catch my flight to Oregon on 8/18.  Yesterday I received an email notification from my cable internet company that I had used 75% of my data plan (484 GB).  My monthly plan is 600 GB per month.  Today I received another notification that I've used 545 GB of data so I thought it was odd that I used 61 GB when I wasn't at home.

Logged into my account and see this chart.  60+ GB per day while I'm not home.  You can see my usage from earlier in the month when I was home.  What's going on here?  I have a very good wifi password and it seems odd that someone would just happen to hack it on the day I left for a work trip.  I'm picturing one of my devices decided to turn itself on and is just streaming something while I'm not there. 

I won't be home for 5-6 days.  I'm thinking of having my dad stop by my place but he is technology illiterate and wouldn't know what to do if something was running.  I guess I could have him just unplug the cable modem.

Odd.

 
Some good information here.  Definitely have your Dad unplug the cable modem until you figure out what’s going on.

 
Called Amazon, they weren't showing my Echo or Dot streaming music.  Called the cable company to have them reboot my modem and to make note that I wasn't home.  My dad is going to physically unplug the cable tomorrow morning.  Weird.  Time to change the wifi password I guess.  :shrug:  

 
WDIK2 said:
I left home in the early AM to catch my flight to Oregon on 8/18.  Yesterday I received an email notification from my cable internet company that I had used 75% of my data plan (484 GB).  My monthly plan is 600 GB per month. 
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I didn't know there was a limit :confused:  for home internet?   I pay FIOS 79.99 for a Gigabit connection, I don't see anything that says there a monthly limit. 

 
Is your cellphone or laptop/tablet connected to your internet account? Is it possible that you signed up for some kind of roaming thing?

 
Had this happen a while back (suspicious usage amounts). Got the internet provider to re-set the modem password.  That did the trick.

 
brianj74 said:
Had this happen a while back (suspicious usage amounts). Got the internet provider to re-set the modem password.  That did the trick.
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:goodposting:

I'd look at router password too, if they are separate peripherals.  Your wifi network password won't mean much if your router password is "admin" (or whatever your brand comes with as a default).

 
Psychopav said:
:goodposting:

I'd look at router password too, if they are separate peripherals.  Your wifi network password won't mean much if your router password is "admin" (or whatever your brand comes with as a default).
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All passwords are non-standard and pretty tough.

 
My dad did unplug the modem at around 8 am this morning.  Will see if there is any usage with the modem unplugged.  :lmao:

 
I unplug my internet every day before I go to work. I don't think I'm on any data plan but I do it to save electricity... I have to tv and other things in the same power strip.

 
Walking Boot said:
Pretty much all the ISPs have caps, some just won't tell you until you're near hitting them. In general the cap is extremely high for the average user. Like, you could stream Netflix for four hours a night for a month and not hit it. Typically the only customers that would hit them are either downloading all the pirate video in the world, or, running a competitor to Amazon out of their home office.
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We have Cox internet. I think I'm one tier from the the highest tier. (used to be the highest).  Their cap is 1tb. If you go over, they charge you $10 for 50gbs. I've come close a few times. My son plays online video games for at least 6 hours each day. We don't have cable. So, all four of us stream Netflix, Philo, Amazon Prime or You tube for 4-6 hours each, each day. 

It's not just pirated movies. High Def streaming can eat bandwidth. 

 
KCitons said:
We have Cox internet. I think I'm one tier from the the highest tier. (used to be the highest).  Their cap is 1tb. If you go over, they charge you $10 for 50gbs. I've come close a few times. My son plays online video games for at least 6 hours each day. We don't have cable. So, all four of us stream Netflix, Philo, Amazon Prime or You tube for 4-6 hours each, each day. 

It's not just pirated movies. High Def streaming can eat bandwidth. 
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I will get charged $10 for each 100 GB over.  At the rate it's going, that would be every-other day.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
It doesn’t help when you are away, but you should be able to get into  your router and look for any devices you don’t recognize on the list of what has joined your WiFi.

Maybe your router had old firmware/default password and got botnetted, or maybe the cable company is making the whole thing up and just looking to jack up your bill?

 
Rustoleum said:
It doesn’t help when you are away, but you should be able to get into  your router and look for any devices you don’t recognize on the list of what has joined your WiFi.

Maybe your router had old firmware/default password and got botnetted, or maybe the cable company is making the whole thing up and just looking to jack up your bill?
Click to expand...
For Sure.  This is going to be the first thing I look at.

 
I had no idea on the caps. My old DSL provider had none and Spectrum wasn’t allowed to as part of the merger agreement. Looks like I’ll have to start paying attention in 2023. It was a 7 year agreement and it looked like all the cable companies were the ones listed with caps. 

 
Reset the wireless password before I plugged the modem back in (separate devices).  I have only connected  my phone, Chromebook and 1 FireTV with the new password.  Will see what my data usage is overnight.

 
WDIK2 said:
Reset the wireless password before I plugged the modem back in (separate devices).  I have only connected  my phone, Chromebook and 1 FireTV with the new password.  Will see what my data usage is overnight.
Click to expand...
maybe there is some kind of paranormal activity happening at your house 

 
I didn't really find out anything when talking to the cable company when I got home.  The best we could figure is that one of my devices had a glitch and was continuously streaming something.  It was consistently using between 60 and 62 GB per day while I was gone.  The person I talked to said they had seen it happen before  I have my own cable modem and wireless router so they couldn't log in to see what was causing the activity. 

I should have checked the DHCP lease table before I changed the wifi password but just wanted to get necessary stuff setup again..  I was streaming almost all day Saturday and Sunday and used 23 and 30 GB.  :shrug:   Leaving again tomorrow until Friday so will unplug the modem if I remember.  I haven't re-setup all wifi devices yet.

 
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