cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

JonoH
Hero
Posts: 4,346
Thanks: 1,596
Fixes: 157
Registered: ‎29-09-2011

Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

Over the coming weeks, Plusnet will be removing the VMBU pages on our member centre for all customers that are not on a metered product, that includes customers on the following packages

  • Plusnet Unlimited
  • Plusnet Unlimited Fibre
  • Plusnet Unlimited Fibre Extra

For customers on legacy metered products, the VMBU pages will remain available. 

Here is the place to discuss this change and alternative methods for tracking broadband usage for those who might still be interested in monitoring their usage.

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): Typo corrected.

 

 Jono H
 Plusnet Community Manager
34 REPLIES 34
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

@JonoH  In order to kick this discussion off we need to ask what the known alternative methods are?

Or is that something we provide?

JonoH
Hero
Posts: 4,346
Thanks: 1,596
Fixes: 157
Registered: ‎29-09-2011

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

There are so many options @Anonymous that I wouldn't know where to start, my thoughts were that whilst most people simply won't care, for some customers, this might be frustrating and this would be a nice place to try to help them and recommend programs that we've had experience with.

My Killer Network card in my PC monitors my usage but it's not practical for all because firstly I've had to pay for it and secondly it only monitors the traffic from that one device, not the whole network. 

 Jono H
 Plusnet Community Manager
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

Yes, I see, so ideally you would need something at or in the router to get a true idea of the I/O, and TBH it's something I've never really given consideration to as my router already tells me this, but unless you record it each day you could lose some of the data if there's an unexpected restart.

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,922
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

Sometimes sight of usage can be a helpful diagnostic tool. Does this change only reference the user’s ability to view usage, or will Plusnet also cease recording user’s unmetered usage as well?

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

dvorak
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 29,473
Thanks: 6,623
Fixes: 1,482
Registered: ‎11-01-2008

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

The Smarthub that I have got reports data up / down since last restart, not sure if the hub one does too?
Customer / Moderator
If it helped click the thumb
If it fixed it click 'This fixed my problem'
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

@Townman _ My guess is that the recording of it is going as well, maybe @JonoH can confirm this, as it makes no sense to record and not make it available.

JonoH
Hero
Posts: 4,346
Thanks: 1,596
Fixes: 157
Registered: ‎29-09-2011

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products


@Townman wrote:
Does this change only reference the user’s ability to view usage, or will Plusnet also cease recording user’s unmetered usage as well?

We will still have sight of it as we measure it through a tool called Capacity Based Charging (CBC) we're simply getting rid of VMBU and as such the customer's ability to see their own usage.

 Jono H
 Plusnet Community Manager
dvorak
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 29,473
Thanks: 6,623
Fixes: 1,482
Registered: ‎11-01-2008

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products


Moderators Note


This topic has been moved from My Account / Billing to Everything Else.

Customer / Moderator
If it helped click the thumb
If it fixed it click 'This fixed my problem'
Marksfish
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 1,078
Thanks: 281
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎22-11-2014

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

Viewing the usage is a big plus for me. When I noticed excessive usage on my connection, I was able to tackle the "offender"  and usage has dropped 20 fold over. Without being able to compare my weekly/ monthly usage I would never have known there was an issue. 

corringham
Seasoned Champion
Posts: 1,211
Thanks: 634
Fixes: 16
Registered: ‎25-09-2015

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

My router monitors usage, and there is a big discrepancy between the figure Plusnet report and the (much larger) figure that my router reports, so I'm not sure the Plusnet figures are really much use anyway. I believe usage such as streaming video isn't counted by Plusnet, but as I don't stream video over Plusnet I suspect that not all VPN traffic is counted either as most of my Plusnet usage is for work over a VPN.

jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

For those interested, I use a program called 'BitMeter2'. Not sure if it is still available, or if it works on anything after Windows 7, but I found it much more accurate than VMBU, even before the changes to the facility.

I'll check it out now, and report back.

John
dvorak
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 29,473
Thanks: 6,623
Fixes: 1,482
Registered: ‎11-01-2008

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products


@corringham wrote:

My router monitors usage, and there is a big discrepancy between the figure Plusnet report and the (much larger) figure that my router reports, so I'm not sure the Plusnet figures are really much use anyway. 


 

I believe for somethings that are within the platform CDN use (IPTV, maybe Youtube / Netflix etc.) they aren't reported in the VMBU figures

Customer / Moderator
If it helped click the thumb
If it fixed it click 'This fixed my problem'
dvorak
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 29,473
Thanks: 6,623
Fixes: 1,482
Registered: ‎11-01-2008

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products


@jab1 wrote:

For those interested, I use a program called 'BitMeter2'. Not sure if it is still available, or if it works on anything after Windows 7, but I found it much more accurate than VMBU, even before the changes to the facility.

I'll check it out now, and report back.


Seems to be a newer (?) multi platform version on github https://github.com/codebox/bitmeteros

Customer / Moderator
If it helped click the thumb
If it fixed it click 'This fixed my problem'
jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: Discussing the removal of 'View My Broadband Usage' for customers on un-metered products

Thanks, @dvorak . Must admit I've not looked for a replacement, as what I have works for me.

The help file says it works on anything from W2000, but has not been updated for a while, so whether it covers later OSes I can't say.

John