No one at home but still usage?

[#1]

We are away at present and there are no computers or anything else hooked up to the Internet.  However checking my usage shows that I am using 218kb a day which adds up to 6Mb over a month.  Although it is very insignificant I am wondering why I am showing some usage although the router is not connected into anything?

[#2]

There is still a small amount of usage between the router / Plusnet as it will check to make sure it is still connected. You may also find that outside sources are "pinging" your connection and then you have the obligatory hackers who try and find a way in.

[#3]

Quote from: DomS

There is still a small amount of usage between the router / Plusnet as it will check to make sure it is still connected. You may also find that outside sources are "pinging" your connection and then you have the obligatory hackers who try and find a way in.

Surely as it is coming from the other side of the router it should be allocated to whoever is trying to access your router.  I think the next time we go away, I will switch off the router.  My concern is that I may get close to my 10GB allowance and the 6mb is just enough to push me over resulting in a £5 charge of 6mb!

[#4]

If a remote computer says hello to your modem, it will be classes as a small amount of download bandwidth. If the modem then replies then that is classed as upload bandwidth.
PN *may* not include this within your usage but hopefully someone will be along to clarify this.

[#5]

It is included.
One way to minimise the amount of background traffic is to set the Plusnet firewall to a higher level (providing it doesn't upset anything you use).

[#6]

Quote from: Surfer

My concern is that I may get close to my 10GB allowance and the 6mb is just enough to push me over resulting in a £5 charge of 6mb!

You shouldn't have to worry about this this month as you've got a £5 discount to cover this due to the issue you encountered earlier this month where you went over your limit without receiving a warning email about this.
The reason that there is still some usage on days when you're not at home is, as Dom S has stated, there's still communication happening from your router to tell us that you're still connected. You could opt to disconnect your router when you go away and this should then result in no usage being used.

[#7]

Do you happen to have a http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping graph active?  As that will account for some of if.

Quote

Will this use up my usage allowance? We only send very small ping packets every second. These are 28 bytes in size, so the total usage from our system would be 2.42MB (megabytes) per day, or on average around 73.63MB (megabytes) per month