Getting a clue...

Ed was asking about bandwidth monitoring programs, and I figured I throw out a suggestion. The open-scource Untangle gateway can be used. We installed one of these at work, and while it's primarily intended to be a security appliance, it also keeps track of bandwidth useage. It can be configured to create and email you a detailed report of use too.

Pros

1.It's free, and open-scource.

2.It sits between the modem and the rest of your network, telling you exactly how much is used by everyone on the network. It also breaks down useage by network IP and time, so you can tell who's using what and when.

3.You might end up with a safer network along the way.

Cons

1.You'll need a spare machine with two NICs to install it on. As far as I can tell, the machine can not be used for anything else when setup to run Untangle. It looks like a customized, dedicate Linux install.This isn't something you're going to run in the background on your main rig.

Of course if you already have a security appliance of some sort, it will probably give you bandwidth tracking. For example, Sonicwall TZ firewall devices also track bandwidth use by IP.

There are probably other open scource security appliances out there that will do the same thing. Anyone else have any? Smoothwall gets mentioned a lot, does it do something similar?

I am about o check out Open DNS. Its also a for security, but a coworker showed me that you can also view your bandwidth usage. Its free and you do not need an extra box.

On a side note, my EDGE network usage on my iPhone shows over 200MB in usage for this year. Doesn’t sound like much till you figure in that I never use it. Only time I am not on a local WiFi is on the drive to work and home. That’s a lot of data for doing nothing.

My router shows me the amount I use. It splits traffic on the WAN and the LAN. Which it should.

For one day not doing anything really. Since I was busy doing other things besides the internet.
June 2008 (Incoming: 772 MB / Outgoing: 42 MB) Got to remember RR is saying both up and down are combined. So for this one 24 hour time slot. I used a measly 814 megs. Imagine if I watches some streaming news stories today...

This was some work relating to my shared hosting, Reading the news, milling about on mail(slow day). Then some youtube kitties and hamsters videos. Just for surfing and doing mail pretty much. I spent less than half what I normally would on the WAN side.
Normally I would eat up a little over 1.5gigs on the average, per day.

That IS NOT downloading torrents or other types of related content. It is normal daily use for me alone. Actually I did not even update my distro today or check for any.

My wife spent the day watching television. So for this one day. Her consumption is not included.

So who sets the line for what a pig is or is not? Since if I move over to netflix. The ondemand is going to chew up all my bandwidth fast. Or I am solely held to only subscribing to Time Warner services for video? Just to keep costs low. Since i will have to pay for the Netflix account and then overages. Heck even Hulu or other legal content is going to be null to me. I won't be able to afford free and legal content.

Do I have to upgrade my account further to not go over taking care of my websites... . Or sharing images and clips in mail? What if I am asked to remote a machine to fix a computer. I am one step below that biz tier.
I guess all this makes me a piggy?? I am not a P2P porker. I am on the top tier for the carrier. The only other option is to use a business line in my home for rich internet content. Or do I pay an additional $60 for another modem/account for my wife?

In my opinion. There is not heavy surfing. The internet is full of rich content for a reason. That is what folks want. I am not even considering file sharing. Since it has many flavors. What if Grandma wants that video you shot of Junior? Or the boat load of pictures you have, she is wanting really bad to see. Then you have the folks who grab the latest files of certain types of transfer protocols.

Heck lets toss in doing IM cam with far away family. Add some voice in there..

So at what line is normal use on a modern internet? What become a hobbled rich content user. The big issue. What of that family of four.. That has a computer for each member. Plus consoles which do eat network time for online play.

The meter is spinning all month for that modem. Least my power company only charges me 5.6 cents a Kw/h.

Just a fyi, I have been keeping track of my usage for a long time. I've used PRTG on my home servers, as well as my everyday PCs for a long time. I gave up keeping track of my bandwidth though after I took down my servers, and only recently started monitoring my bandwidth again. These are my records on this machine alone since I started using DU Meter.

http://www.jal2s.com/uploader/files/1/Monthly Totals.htm

You can see the biggest jump was in March of this year, when I started catching up on alot of episodes from various animes I watch. Mind you, this report is for this one single PC. My niece watches a number of animes herself, so I would guesstimate her monthly usage to be around 1/2 of (40-45GB) what my average monthly usage is. I also download game demos, and in this day and age, demos that can fit on a single floppy disk, or for that matter, a single CD-rom, are becoming less and less available. So one can see how quickly the bandwidth could be used up. The rest of that bandwidth is just pure web browsing and gaming. Funny how that can add up so quickly in just a months time.

Add onto that the fact that within a few years, there will be so much online content (speaking about TV shows, movies, etc), that what I use now (which to me seems like nothing) will appear like the grannies Enablingwolf refers to today. Bandwidth caps will do nothing for the customers, and everything for the (greedy) providers. While they stand to rake in the money hand over fist, they'll still continue to simply make excuses for not upgrading thier networks to handle the increased and forthcoming demands that a more online centered population will need, and simply continue to make thier current excuse about not having the bandwidth to handle all the customers thier motto.