usage monitoring

[#1]

Thanks for this information and apologies for not replying sooner but daughter has been hit by car whilst on holiday and that has rather taken over.  I have email/contacted the BBC about using lower band width.  Those arrogant ***** at the BBC just assured me that this gives me good tv viewing!!!!!!!!!   even though I asked about radio.  If any other business was run the way the BBC is it wouldn't have any  customers because they would go somewhere else unfortunately for the listening/viewing public that isn't an option.  They really are an organisation that doesn't care;  they 'know best'.    Sorry rant over.
thank you everyone for trying to help.

[#2]

Or alternatively they simply mis-understood the question?
The 'pop out' version of the radio player has a Bandwidth Hi/Lo option at the bottom right hand corner of the programme image btw
Hope your daughter is OK?

[#3]

Could I suggest if you're only using iPlayer via PC/Laptop to listen to the radio, trying tunein.com instead as an alternative, nearly all radio stations are available there and there are various stream rates available, lowest being 48kb which could save you some bandwidth in the future. Nice and simple to use you just click on the rate you want to stream at from the link.

[#4]

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere in the thread, apologies if it was, but why not try the following tests:
1. Disconnect all PCs from your router (or turn them off) for 1 day and disable the wireless.  Then see what usage is like for that day. There will be some as outside sources randomly ping the router, but it shouldn't be higher than about 10Mb.  If it is significantly higher, then I'd consider raising it with PN.
2. Keep PCs disconnected, but re-enable wireless.  If you see usage then someone could be latching onto your wifi and leeching off your connection.
3. Leave PCs on and logged in, but don't go on the internet for 1 day.  If usage is non-zero then it's likely something on your PC (or PCs if you have more than one) using bandwidth. Are there any legitimate applications that do regular upgrades?  Do you have an up-to-date anti-virus and/or malware checker?
I know it's difficult to be without internet access for a couple of days, but it is possible.  Your concern about going over your allowance is completely ruining your internet experience anyway, so a couple of days inconvenience could be worth it, and may end up with you resolving the problem.
You don't have to do the above 3 steps consecutively, since you have to go back online the day after to check the previous day's usage anyway.  You could do the first test tomorrow, then the next Thursday, and the third one the week after.  Pick work days when you're not around for most of the time anyway.

[#5]

Point 1 is bad advice. Even with all devices disconnected and wireless off there will still be residual background internet usage recorded due to botnets etc. trying to probe the IP address.

[#6]

Quote from: Oldjim

Try installing NetWorx and see what that shows as the usage http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

Does NetWorx monitor usage on all devices connected to the router?

[#7]

Quote from: jelv

Point 1 is bad advice. Even with all devices disconnected and wireless off there will still be residual background internet usage recorded due to botnets etc. trying to probe the IP address.

This is true, and if usage is non-zero then it proves the usage doesn't originate from any PCs inside the LAN.  At present the OP doesn't know where the usage is coming from. It could be 3 places - PCs, wireless-leecher, or external to the router (which includes IP and port probing).
This test eliminates the first two.  If it proves the last one then surely the OP has to refer it to PN because he has no control over what happens beyond the router?
Why is any of the above bad advice if it helps pinpoint where the usage is or isn't coming from?  As far as I can see all the advice on here (good as it is) hasn't gone much further than "Are you sure you aren't streaming?  Are you really REALLY sure?"

EDIT : "last two" should have been "last one". Doh.

[#8]

The rest is all good advice - what was wrong was you saying with everything disconnected and wireless off it should be zero - I've never seen anyone report zero usage except when the router is completely off/disconnected.

[#9]

Quote from: weareharris

Does NetWorx monitor usage on all devices connected to the router?

If you install it on a windows machine, keep this machine running, enable SNMP on the router (if available) and configure NetWorx to monitor the router traffic.

[#10]

Worth pointing out that a lot of routers don't support SNMP!

[#11]

Good point...post edited.

[#12]

Quote from: jelv

The rest is all good advice - what was wrong was you saying with everything disconnected and wireless off it should be zero - I've never seen anyone report zero usage except when the router is completely off/disconnected.

I didn't say it should be zero. I said:
"Then see if usage is zero for that day. If it isn't, then the usage is originating from outside your router and you need to raise it with PN." (my italics)
Which is correct.  What I perhaps should have clarified was how much not zero it was.  Even if we're away for a couple of days my connection does a couple of meg of traffic, but a lot of that is down to the ThinkBroadband monitor.  If the OP is getting close to his 6GB a month limit, then I make that about 190MB a day.  If he switches off all his PCs and his wifi and he's still pulling down in excess of 10-20MB a day then I'd say there's something wrong.
The only way to eliminate your own generated traffic is to not use the internet.  If you just check "a few web pages" through the day then how do you know you haven't got a browser hi-jack? If you leave the PC on but don't use it, how do you know you haven't got 20+ pieces of hidden adware all reporting home?  How do you know you're not part of a botnet?
Last year we had a PC in the Uni that had been compromised and was part of a botnet.  It had been reported by the user as being slow, but our anti-virus reported nothing, and even Malwarebytes came up goose-eggs.
It was Janet's external monitoring that noticed traffic from one of our IP addresses to a known C&C address that alerted us.  Otherwise we wouldn't have known, trusting as we did to our current AV.

[#13]

Quote from: weareharris

Does NetWorx monitor usage on all devices connected to the router?

No.  Only the traffic through the network card of the machine it is installed on.
If you have several machines on the network, with it installed on them all, it does let you see just it's own or the total on each.
Games consoles, mobile phones etc. it has no idea how much they are using.

[#14]

People won't quantify zero. Unfortunately the way your post reads if the recorded usage was 1KB per day you are suggesting they should contact Plusnet.
I'd suggest you should edit your post to replace zero with something like 10MB per day.

[#15]

Quote from: Estragon

Quote from: weareharris Does NetWorx monitor usage on all devices connected to the router? No.  Only the traffic through the network card of the machine it is installed on.

Quote from: Networx

The Monitor my router rather than this computer option makes it possible to monitor traffic flow through a router between your network and the Internet. In order for this feature to work your router must support SNMP. You will also need to choose an appropriate router's interface that is connected to the Internet. The Ignore local traffic within the LAN option enables NetWorx to take into account only your Internet traffic, excluding all local communications.