19Gb in One Day......12Gb In One Hour?????

[#1]

I had a "warning" email from Plusnet saying that I was approaching my broadband usage limit.  When I queried this, I was told that on Saturday 22nd October 2011, I downloaded over 19Gb of data of which over 12Gb was downloaded between 5pm and 6pm.
Now, I don't know about anyone else but whereas theoretically it is possible to download this amount of data (just), two things have to happen:
1.  I have to consciously download something very big, which I didn't.
2.  My broadband speed has downloaded faster than I've ever known it before.
I've checked all the computers in the house for large folders where stuff might have been downloaded and can find nothing.
Could it be that someone has been "stealing" my data, because I certainly didn't use that much, especially on a Saturday when I was watching TV!!!
If anyone has any ideas, I'd be most appreciative.
Regards

[#2]

Quote from: Glendower

Could it be that someone has been "stealing" my data

I wouldn't say this was likely unless your router has no security.

[#3]

Unless my arithmetic is all wrong (quite possible  ) that works out at a download speed of 26.7Mbit per sec - are you on fibre

[#4]

Hi Glendower,
I've checked over your usage and it appears there was a large volume of data passing over your connection on 22/10/11 between 17:00 and 18:00.  Our systems show 12117MB of data in that hour alone.  That works out at an average speed of 3.37MB per second which is entirely possible via our fibre connections.  Can you think of anything on that day at that time that could have been downloading?  Do you have anything that was due an update?  Have you configured your Netgear wireless router to be secure by adding a form of encryption such as WEP or WPA?

[#5]

'Oldjim' I get the same answer as you  
Even if the OP was on fibre, if this was being 'stolen' wirelessly then that would be on the limits could be achieved with wireless 'G', but doable with wireless 'N'

[#6]

To add to Alex's response, I've had a couple of other people looking over the usage from your account and also checking whatever we could think of. We can't see any errors or issues with the usage aggregation on your account.
On the Netgear there is an option to turn on Traffic Monitoring from the left hand menu. This will show the inbound and outbound usage over your connection should you need to check again in future.

[#7]

When this sort of thing has happened before, it turned out to be that the Plusnet customer had given/lent/sold their previous router without clearing the login details, therefore the new user of the old router was clocking up data usage on the Plusnet customers account.
Because it was possible to have more than one router with the same login details connected and authenticated at the same time, the solution was for the customer to access their account and change their password, then change the authentication password within their router.  At this point both routers can still be logged in, as the old router could still be logged in until it is reset and has to re-authenticate.
Next the customer had to ask Plusnet to 'kill' all the sessions associated with the account, so from then on only the Plusnet customers router with the new password would be able to login.

[#8]

That's a very interesting reply.

[#9]

Did 'Glendower' solve this mystery or is it still ongoing ? 

[#10]

they dont seem to want to know
Name: Glendower
Posts: 1 (0.333 per day)
Position: Member
Date Registered: 26/10/2011, 14:13
Last Active: 26/10/2011, 14:28