Need to track network data usage by device

Jimmie

Jimmie

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
122
Location
Rocky Point
I've been getting very close to the Xfinity monthly data caps (~1.3TB) for past 6 months. What's interesting is we had a monthly download data usage average of ~400GB when we were Spectrum internet customers prior to moving 9 months ago. It's just me and DW with about the same number of connected devices and we don't own any 4K TVs and haven't really changed our online behaviours. I'd like to think that Xfinity is not intentionally inflating our monthly data usage, but I sure get lots of emails to upgrade my internet service to unlimited data. Unfortunately, Xfinity internet is the only broadband service where we live.

My router does not offer a report to tell me how much data each connected device consumes on a monthly basis. Does anyone know of a product that I can get that will provide this data? I've looked at pfSense but that seems overkill to me and still not sure it offers the report I need. I am very technical and not afraid to use an open source product if one can provide the report I need.
 
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Maybe Wireshark or some other packet sniffer?
 
Buy your own cable modem?
 
Does anyone know of a product that I can get that will provide this data? I've looked at pfSense but that seems overkill to me and still not sure it offers the report I need. I am very technical and not afraid to use an open source product if one can provide the report I need.
Click to expand...

What cloud storage service, if any, do you use?

I ask because I just went through this "data cap reached" scenario. The culprit was Google Drive. I would delete files from Google Drive (using my PC) and would free up 5 GB of space, only to see a couple hours later the Google Drive was full again. Well, I kept trying to delete these files and they kept coming back.

I have my own router and modem, and my router has a Traffic Reporter function, so I logged onto my router and was able to see that it was my PC that was using tons of data. I deduced the high data usage must be tied to Google Drive, and sure enough, when I clicked on the Google Drive icon in my system tray there were at least a dozen files of these previously deleted files queued up and were uploading! I quickly disconnected my Google Drive from syncing to my PC.
 
I think you can use a mesh router system like Nest Wi-Fi or Eero, which offers an app to check bandwidth consumption per device
 
Windows will use your computer to assist other computers in your area with Windows Updates.
 
shanehus said:
I think you can use a mesh router system like Nest Wi-Fi or Eero, which offers an app to check bandwidth consumption per device
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had Eero as my prev router and it provided the data usage reports by device that I need. When we sold our home, I left the 2 Eeros for the buyers. I planned to buy 2 new Eeros for my new home, but discovered it would be a huge pain to run cat6 cable to the 2nd Eero.

I found a product called Gargoyle that will provide what I want, but it involves reflashing my router with a new OS. Still thinking about that risky move. I may just end up biting the bullet and buy the Eeros and deal with the pain of installing the cat 6 run to the 2nd Eero. Thanks!
 
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AudiDudi said:
It appears to be a fairly common and ongoing issue for quite a while. Here's a link to one forum thread. There are likely others.



https://forums.xfinity.com/conversa...-spike-in-data-usage/622e94176c4cd02237d45cc0
Click to expand...

This thread doesn't answer my question. But it sure shows there's lots of xfinity customers with sudden spikes in data usage. Kinda makes one thing that xfinity is doing something underhanded (which I have my suspicions for my situation). If any of these people have purchased 4K TVs and stream 4K video for 8 hrs per day, that could easily be the source of the data spike. With the ability to see how much each connected device I have is consuming, then I can validate (or not) the reported monthly data usage xfinity claims I'm downloading.
 
I haven't had an issue of getting anywhere near my 1.2 TB cap with Comcast. I think the absolute highest I've ever seen it is around 400 GB, and it's usually 250 GB or less. I only stream in HD (not 4K) and only one one TV at a time, and I don't do a lot of streaming because I use an antenna. I can see that if you're doing a lot of 4K streaming on multiple TVs, the data usage can really ramp up.

I don't check it often. The Xfinity website is always so slow and gives errors. One of the worse. Just now while using it, it gave messages "we are having trouble accessing your account" even though it showed I was logged in, and then a little while later it was back at the login page. It's my only decent option, so I suffer on with Comcast despite their tactics, overpriced service, poor customer service, and poor website.

My Netgear cable modem doesn't show bandwidth usage.

My TP-Link router does show traffic to different devices connected. I have a Chromecast that connected with power, that I haven't actualy used in over a year that shows 5 GB usage. lol I reset all my data counters - they must reset on their own with a reboot because the total usage was more inline with the last reboot of the router.

Edit: I did confirm the device traffic reset to 0 when rebooting the router, which my router allows you to do on regular schedule.
 
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PRTG is what you're looking for. https://www.paessler.com/howto-free-network-monitoring Free for up to 100 sensors. It's easy to setup on a computer and add sensors for monitoring traffic on devices using SNMP protocol. It has great instructions, so be sure to read them.

I don't know about Xfinity but some cable television providers switch traffic to IP video if/when their coax systems experience any trouble. That will increase the amount of traffic used by your internet service, assuming you use the same provider. Doesn't sound fair to me, they shouldn't include that traffic in bandwidth caps.
 
jim584672 said:
Windows will use your computer to assist other computers in your area with Windows Updates.
Click to expand...

This is correct only for computers where that option has been enabled in Settings > Windows Update in Windows 10/11. By default it is not enabled.
 
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Qs Laptop said:
What cloud storage service, if any, do you use?

I ask because I just went through this "data cap reached" scenario. The culprit was Google Drive. I would delete files from Google Drive (using my PC) and would free up 5 GB of space, only to see a couple hours later the Google Drive was full again. Well, I kept trying to delete these files and they kept coming back.

I have my own router and modem, and my router has a Traffic Reporter function, so I logged onto my router and was able to see that it was my PC that was using tons of data. I deduced the high data usage must be tied to Google Drive, and sure enough, when I clicked on the Google Drive icon in my system tray there were at least a dozen files of these previously deleted files queued up and were uploading! I quickly disconnected my Google Drive from syncing to my PC.
Click to expand...


The correct way to delete files from Google Drive as well as your local PC's Google Drive share is to:
  1. Pause Google Drive syncing on your computer
  2. Delete the files from your computer
  3. Login to Google Drive in a browser
  4. Delete the files in Google Drive (it should ask if you want them permanently deleted; say yes)
  5. Empty your Google Drive trash
  6. Unpause Google Drive on your computer
 
After reading this thread a few times there are some good suggestions. From a practical standpoint it is probably easiest to get a router that can break down traffic statistics by connections.

A reddit thread recommends Asus but there are probably others that do the same thing.

Check out the Asus traffic manager here.

Click on the "Traffic Analyzer" sidebar entry and then pull down the "All Clients" icon and you can click on the individual MAC addresses on the network and see how the traffic has been consumed.


To figure out which client is on each MAC address you click on the top Genera/Network Map/View Clients button and you can see each client ID'ed on the network.

I know that is a lot of tech mumbo jumbo jargon but it does answer the original question. I work on this sort of stuff for my profession so it is not so cryptic for me, sorry for the complication.
 
I am running into the same issue. I went over in December, barely. TYPICALLY we use about 20gb of data a day. BUT, if DW and I are on heavy video conference for many of the days in the month, kids tablets are running non-stop and sometimes on loop through the night, streaming HD to multiple devices throughout the day.

I thought about signing up for T mobile internet along with the Xfinity, and separating our work computers from personal... but I haven't gone over the data limit a second time...yet. I figure I will take a sandbag with the overage charge for the first month I go over, if its near the end of the month. Otherwise If I am facing a second offending month I will consider t mobile + comcast.

To combat this, I have set all the kids tablets YouTube streams to 480p. I have also set the same for my laptop and the TVs, as well as the Roku.

Then, I put the kids tablets and laptops on my 2ghz channel on the router...so that sort of throttles some of the pace that the data is getting sent...in a sense.

I set my TVs to the 5ghz as well as my personal laptop. Work laptops get throttled down onto the "busier" 2ghz channel.

Then, I disable my co-workers video feeds so I don't use unnecessary data, I could care less what they look like at any particular moment.

Finally, I check where my usage is half way through the month. If it's above 50% for the month I start to tether to my phone.

My phone is only connected to my LAN (off mobile network) when I want to run home automation. Otherwise, I use the t mobile networks data to save on xfinity LAN data.


I've used 29.8% of our available monthly cap and we are over 45% through the month so we are looking good this month.

One other alternative solution I had considered was pausing all the PC updates and doing those while tethered to my phone. An easy way to do this is just take down the LAN, open up the Mobile Hotspot and 1 by 1 run the updates on each computer. This is the MOST intrusive.

Another backup option I had was to hookup a smart outlet to my cable modem, so that it just goes offline at 11pm and comes back online at 5am.

I figure if I shut it down 1/4 of the month I surely would save some data usage with errant traffic running all night.

My problem is I download SUPER HD movies from time to time...I'm talking sometimes 50 to 70gb a pop. I believe the Oppenheimer movie was close to 60, transformers was close to 70. The movie quality continues to increase and therefore the throughput increases per movie.

This used to not be of concern because my pipe wasn't big enough. Now that Xfinity aka Comcrooks gave me a higher bandwidth of 400mb/s I can consume a LOT more content quicker. So the data usage just went up.

The thing is some of the streaming services recognize you have a high bandwidth so they send the best quality (highest amount of data) automatically unless you mess with the settings.

I say, if they keep upping the size of the pipe...they should also up the amount of data we can use since they are delivering more of it with a bigger pipe.

The months I need to worry about are December and March, and the Summer months a little since the kids are "home" and consuming more data. I suppose I could be a better parent and limit screen time more but they are good kids and don't need that level of supervision as they are great human beings and try hard and get good grades.
 
YouTube is the biggest data usage culprit in our house followed by Netflix, and then streaming conference calls. All of this is...streaming.

Sometimes I've noticed my Roku will autoplay the next video, and so will the kids laptops. IF they run off and the laptop is running autoplay...sometimes even all night it eats up some data. You could have 18hrs of HD video autoplaying while you sleep. I know because it's happened.

So now, when I shut off the roku, I click the home button so it exits whatever streaming app is playing and THEN I turn the TV off. Otherwise that sucker be streaming while the TV is off. WHY? Not sure.
 
threeonesix said:
This is correct only for computers where that option has been enabled in Settings > Windows Update in Windows 10/11. By default it is not enabled.
Click to expand...

Yes, and even when you turn it on it defaults to just your local network. You would have to switch it to "Devices on the internet and my local network" to effect your internet provider cap. Highly unlikely this is the culprit.
 
Here is my data usage from my household from yesterday, with the detail of data usage from my Roku Ultra, which is connected to my TV. Total data usage for the day was 19.8GB; the Roku Ultra took 14.63GB.

I watched 2 1/2 hours of Hulu TV in HD--1 hour was 4K, 1 1/2 hours in HD. I watched a bit over 1/2 hour of MLB.TV in HD. I did not watch any YouTube so I'm curious as to why it shows 430MB of usage there.

My router is an ASUS RT-AC68U


Data-Usage-031424.jpg
 
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