Unusually high data usage megathread

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@Nal64 wrote:
I ended up on this page while looking into why my WiFi hasn’t been working for the past 24 hrs and after reading here, I remembered that I received my 1 and only 90% warning in September. This was especially odd because all 4 people in my family are students or teachers who were home all summer together gaming, streaming, using a new nest cam, and browsing the internet all day long. How did we use MORE data after returning to school for half our day?

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Apologies for the issues and the experience that you described above.

In the interest of the customer experience, I have applied a credit to your account while our team researches your account further.

The credit will appear on your next printed statement and you can view the credit online via My Account.

Thanks for your patience.

For all - the link below has some general information on how to avoid overage charges and tips to conserve data usage:
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-avoid-overage-charges

In reviewing your account, I can see that you have not used 1 TB/month in the last 6 months.
Average monthly data usage on your account  over the past 6 months is 746 gb.  December usage to date also looks in line.  

I've asked a collegue to review your account and contact you directly. Thanks for your patience.

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@Rturner22131 wrote:
I don’t have a router....only the gateway. At this time, most forum responses and verbal responses via phone are putting the blame on customers instead of realizing there are way too many complaining of the same issue to be the customers fault

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Outside of the earlier Fall 2019 issue, there is no trend or consistency indicating an issue in metering, but rather these have all been unique issues per network requiring the subscriber to troubleshoot/review their network. That is based on each of the individual issues posted in this thread that I responded to and had our data team review and contact the customer with their findings.

The common trend topic is “there is no way I can use this much data”. While the number amount of data a customer can see on the meter is more than what they know to be using, doesn’t mean it isn’t being used.

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@Mudgrousers wrote:

Well heck, our internet usage "jumped" November 2019, (doubled overnight) and I was sure our antique router had been bot-hacked south of the DOCSIS modem....but no.  After upgrading my router to modern and monitoring all internal usage after the modem for 7 days, I find that Xfinity puts my "usage" at 10X what actually passed through my router, as documented by my router reports......So a little research followed and this thread is not an uncommon one.  Must be the modem is hacked?  Also performed external port checks on this cable modem and it's as secure as they get.  What does that leave?  There could be an error in the billing system, and in fact no other explanation makes sense. 

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@coles1 wrote:
Jessie helpfully locked the thread pertaining to this for being "off topic" after merging all relevant threads into the irrelevant terabyte thread.

I thought we should still have a place to discuss this ongoing problem. I took 20 pages of documentation into a store today and was told all they could do was charge me 70 dollars to send out a tech. Out of desperation I conceded.

Any thoughts? Anyone had any resolution yet? Some folks on Twitter seem to have made slight headway and had their accounts credited but aren't sure how to help since they seem to think they just got lucky.

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Apologies for the issues and the experience that you described above.

In the interest of the customer experience, I have applied a credit to your account while our team researches your account further.

The credit will appear on your next printed statement and you can view the credit online via My Account.

For all - the link below has some general information on how to avoid overage charges and tips to conserve data usage:
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-avoid-overage-charges

In reviewing your account, I can see an uptick in data usage from October (693 gb) to November (1201 gb), not quite double but certainly a lot of data being used. 

I've asked a colleague to review your account and contact you directly. Thanks for your patience.

Providing some additional information, background and tips below from our team that does the data overage reviews.

Customer owned devices
- One example are devices like Ubiquiti uNiFi, which our team most commonly sees as an issue with data usage. The device has an internal metering system along with a periodic speed test built into it. The speed test can accrue massive amounts of data usage without reporting to its own internal metering system because it’s part of its system functions, not a device using data even though it is using data. We report its usage because we monitor for all data traffic going to and from the modem/network, not per device connected to their network.

- The number and kinds of devices connected to your network matters. Suggestion is to log into your router to see and verify all the devices connected to your network" (very applicable with customer owned devices).

Metering System:
- Comcast does not have direct access into the metering system to the extent to be able to artificially input or output data usage results or information. Our metering system is regularly audited as well where information on it can be gathered from https://www.netforecast.com/.
It includes everything from the yearly audits to how the metering system works on a technical level. This is done third party outside of Comcast.

Comcast data metering accuracy reports at the link below:
https://www.netforecast.com/comcast-internet-usage-accuracy-reports/

- The metering system is delayed by up to 24 hours. "I watched my meter and it went up by 100GB in the last 3 hours and I just booted up my computer for 15 minutes!" is not accurate - the metering timeframe is not 1:1 - its delayed because it needs to validate data and remove any data that we do not count towards the metering system. This includes things like firmware updates we push out and any other possible data we may push to the network for normal operations.

- Greatest opportunity with Windows 10 devices. Windows 10 has a built in data usage meter for its own data tracking per application/software used on the device for 30 days(Settings -> Network & Internet -> Data Usage tab).

- Similarly could be done for other devices, ex: “Go into Netflix settings and make sure that it pauses after not watching it for a while”, etc.

Overall:
There is no trend or consistency indicating an issue in metering, but rather these have all been unique issues per network requiring the subscriber to troubleshoot/review their network.

The common trend topic is “there is no way I can use this much data”. While the number amount of data a customer can see on the meter is more than what they know to be using, doesn’t mean it isn’t being used.

Common data users:
- Streaming devices left on even when TVs are turned off – continuously streaming and/or misconfigured settings on streaming devices
- Data backups (including cloud backups)
- Large file downloads for entertainment (video games, updates, locally downloaded movies/videos from online services, etc.) or business purposes (files of information/data for business needs, Data backups downloaded from or uploaded to, etc.)

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@OZ_hamster wrote:

As one who had experienced an unprecedented surge in data usage in early October, and subsequently "normalized" mid-month after posting here on the forum (and receiving a $50 credit by Comcast), the most frequently-cited complaint here is a massive surge in data usage radically departing from a customer's historical  data-count pattern.  I can appreciate many of the comments by CC employees and others regarding causes apart from Comcast, such as "cloud synching", constantly running updating, etc., on i-Devices,  and anything else particular to the customer's own connected devices.  But, with few exceptions, these data surges occurred spontaneously, with no obvious change to customer's viewing or streaming habits.  Moreover, many affected customers can actually monitor data usage through their router options (as we did), and clearly demonstrate a huge disparity between daily data counts logged by CC v. the respective routers numbers.  It now seems inescapable that the Company must be more proactive in righting wrongs, and not place the onus on customers first, but concede that bugs and gremlins continue to plague their data-counting SW, and declare it a top priority to sort out this ongoing issue.

After our experiences in October, we now check our account religiously every few days to monitor data usage assigned v. household viewing/streaming online hours actually logged.  Thankfully, no deviations noted, but remain vigilant.

 

---

Outside of the earlier Fall 2019 issue, there is currently no trend or consistency indicating an issue in metering, but rather these have all been unique issues per network requiring the subscriber to troubleshoot/review their network. That is based on each of the individual issues posted in this thread that I responded to and had our data team review and contact the customer with their findings.

The common trend topic is “there is no way I can use this much data”. While the number amount of data a customer can see on the meter is more than what they know to be using, doesn’t mean it isn’t being used.

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@dfinifrock wrote:

Have been dealing with overages for data since June 2019. I don't do anything with my computer except occ. emails and some google inquiries (never any videos etc) I have had Comcast for 15yrs and have always had the limited 5gb of data and never went over more than a dollar or two in 15yrs.  When I called customer service in July with $200 in overages she gave me the new Xfinity one with new remotes,boxes utube,netflix etc plus extra data all at a lower price than I had been paying. She forwarded the complaint to the secutity dept also. Fast forward to today (12/8/19) and I have spent 10hrs of my time trying to solve the issues. My service was disconected last week and the only number the phone would let me talk to was an auto pay and had to pay double what I owed just to get my phone working again. I'm a senior with no cell phone so very dangerous position to put a person living alone in.  I have talked to many depts and even high level people and their supervisors during my 10 hr phone quest and no one can help me including the person I just talked to today from the # listed on this forum. The 3 people before her actually hung up on me. I think they get frustrated and hang up as they don't know what to  tell me.  My friends told me a call a TV investigative team as they sometimes are about the only ones that can help people after they've done all they can do. Guess that might be my next step as I don't want this to wreck the upcoming holidays wondering if I I will have a phone etc in an emergency.  

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Apologies for the issues and the experience that you described above.

In the interest of the customer experience, I have applied a credit to your account while our team researches your account further. I also reversed the recent late charges as a courtesy. 

The credit will appear on your next printed statement and you can view the credit online via My Account.

Thanks for your patience.

For all - the link below has some general information on how to avoid overage charges and tips to conserve data usage:
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-avoid-overage-charges

In reviewing your account, I don't see any high speed data overages on your high speed data account in all of 2019. The highest data month was November at 439 gb, well under  1 TB.  You may be talking about data overages on your Xfinity Mobile phone? 

I've asked a collegue to review your account and contact you directly. Thanks for your patience.

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@hqduong wrote:

Am I the only one who suddenly see a massive increase in data usage? I have consistenly used under a TB for the last year and startin November I can use over 100GB in one day!

 

I'm suspecting it's Disney+ and there needs to be a resolution on this. 1TB is completely unusable in the world of 4k and offering 500Mbps internet!! 

---

Apologies for the issues and the experiences that you described above.

In the interest of the customer experience, I have applied a credit to your account while our team researches your account further.

The credit will appear on your next printed statement and you can view the credit online via My Account.

For all - the link below has some general information on how to avoid overage charges and tips to conserve data usage:
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-avoid-overage-charges

I've asked a collegue to review your account and contact you directly. Thanks for your patience.

---

@mjohnson1760 wrote:

Over the past 2 months my data usage has doubled with no changing in my habits or new equipment. Xfinity has no answer except to tell me maybe I need to rent their router.

---

Apologies for the issues and the experience that you described above.

In the interest of the customer experience, I have applied a credit to your account while our team researches your account further.

The credit will appear on your next printed statement and you can view the credit online via My Account.

Thanks for your patience.

For all - the link below has some general information on how to avoid overage charges and tips to conserve data usage:
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-avoid-overage-charges

In reviewing your account, I can see steadily increasing data usage from August through December; 624 gb, 914 gb, 1118 gb and 1315 gb respectively.   

I've asked a collegue to review your account and contact you directly. Thanks for your patience.

Providing some additional information, background and tips below from our team that does the data overage reviews.

Customer owned devices
- One example are devices like Ubiquiti uNiFi, which our team most commonly sees as an issue with data usage. The device has an internal metering system along with a periodic speed test built into it. The speed test can accrue massive amounts of data usage without reporting to its own internal metering system because it’s part of its system functions, not a device using data even though it is using data. We report its usage because we monitor for all data traffic going to and from the modem/network, not per device connected to their network.

- The number and kinds of devices connected to your network matters. Suggestion is to log into your router to see and verify all the devices connected to your network" (very applicable with customer owned devices).

Metering System:
- Comcast does not have direct access into the metering system to the extent to be able to artificially input or output data usage results or information. Our metering system is regularly audited as well where information on it can be gathered from https://www.netforecast.com/.
It includes everything from the yearly audits to how the metering system works on a technical level. This is done third party outside of Comcast.

Comcast data metering accuracy reports at the link below:
https://www.netforecast.com/comcast-internet-usage-accuracy-reports/

- The metering system is delayed by up to 24 hours. "I watched my meter and it went up by 100GB in the last 3 hours and I just booted up my computer for 15 minutes!" is not accurate - the metering timeframe is not 1:1 - its delayed because it needs to validate data and remove any data that we do not count towards the metering system. This includes things like firmware updates we push out and any other possible data we may push to the network for normal operations.

- Greatest opportunity with Windows 10 devices. Windows 10 has a built in data usage meter for its own data tracking per application/software used on the device for 30 days(Settings -> Network & Internet -> Data Usage tab).

- Similarly could be done for other devices, ex: “Go into Netflix settings and make sure that it pauses after not watching it for a while”, etc.

Overall:
There is no trend or consistency indicating an issue in metering, but rather these have all been unique issues per network requiring the subscriber to troubleshoot/review their network.

The common trend topic is “there is no way I can use this much data”. While the number amount of data a customer can see on the meter is more than what they know to be using, doesn’t mean it isn’t being used.

Common data users:
- Streaming devices left on even when TVs are turned off – continuously streaming and/or misconfigured settings on streaming devices
- Data backups (including cloud backups)
- Large file downloads for entertainment (video games, updates, locally downloaded movies/videos from online services, etc.) or business purposes (files of information/data for business needs, Data backups downloaded from or uploaded to, etc.)

@ComcastTeds ComcastTeds (Official Employee)

We genuinely appreciate your assistance and intervention with this matter. However, and I want to be very clear and respecteful.

We understand that Comcast contends that by renting their equipment they have a better ability to monitor usage. A router is a router. A modem is a modem. No one piece of equipment is exclusive to functionality, unless it is modified with exclusive features.

With that said, you have said here, and the Comcast Tech support on the phone had the same conversation with us that by using Comcast requipment we would receive better service. However, you must know, and I want to make this public....we called once and was told they could not see the sources of usage. We called back two hours later and spoke to a different tech support who "slipped" and told us what devices were using power.

Now I am not a conspiracy therorist, and I do not wish to cast Comcast in a bad light, but that example merely justifies why so many people here do not trust your company.

Futhermore, we switched away from Comcast Xfinity Mobile which seems to have helped the problem a bit. However, we monitor our usage daily. We are following every single tidbit of direction offered by you and Over Overages of Data page on your website. With that said, we will see.

Please consider the fact that any customer should be able to use any modem or router and receive fine outstanding service. No one should feel held hostage by using equipment that they believe violates their privacy or usage. We are following your guidelines to a "T".  When my router says 300 KB of usage a month and yours shows 1400 GB a month, something is wrong.

And it's not on our end. Just saying . . .

Thank you again for the credit and prompt response.

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@midtenner wrote:

@ComcastTeds ComcastTeds (Official Employee)

 

We genuinely appreciate your assistance and intervention with this matter. However, and I want to be very clear and respecteful.

 

We understand that Comcast contends that by renting their equipment they have a better ability to monitor usage. A router is a router. A modem is a modem. No one piece of equipment is exclusive to functionality, unless it is modified with exclusive features.

 

With that said, you have said here, and the Comcast Tech support on the phone had the same conversation with us that by using Comcast requipment we would receive better service. However, you must know, and I want to make this public....we called once and was told they could not see the sources of usage. We called back two hours later and spoke to a different tech support who "slipped" and told us what devices were using power.

 

Now I am not a conspiracy therorist, and I do not wish to cast Comcast in a bad light, but that example merely justifies why so many people here do not trust your company.

 

Futhermore, we switched away from Comcast Xfinity Mobile which seems to have helped the problem a bit. However, we monitor our usage daily. We are following every single tidbit of direction offered by you and Over Overages of Data page on your website. With that said, we will see.

 

Please consider the fact that any customer should be able to use any modem or router and receive fine outstanding service. No one should feel held hostage by using equipment that they believe violates their privacy or usage. We are following your guidelines to a "T".  When my router says 300 KB of usage a month and yours shows 1400 GB a month, something is wrong.

And it's not on our end. Just saying . . .

 

Thank you again for the credit and prompt response.

---

Apologies for any confusion we may have caused. Customers are free to bring their own routers and modems, many of our customers do that.

We have reduced insight into customer-owned devices by design and on purpose.
They are not our devices, but they are devices on your/our network. We have enough information to activate them and a few other things.

We certainly have more insight into Comcast-owned devices and can support-troubleshoot them. Our XFi app also allows our customers to have additional insight into our owned devices.

Our advanced technicians are able to "see" (at a very high level) some of the types of devices connected to your network and also some very limited details about those devices.

Based on my review of your account, it looks like you have been talking directly with our Service Policy Assurance team. They are really our experts on this.

In looking at your December data usage to date, six days have been under 5 gb/day. I do see four days around 15 gb/day and one day (12/9) is just above 30 gb. Actual data usage is not real-time and may be delayed up to 24 hours.

From what I can see, a rough estimate for December to date is about 115 gb.   

I do want to reiterate that each of the cases I have responded to in this thread have been reviewed by our Service Policy Assurance team.  They have determined that there is currently no trend or consistency indicating an issue in metering, but rather these have all been unique issues per network requiring the subscriber to troubleshoot/review their network.

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@dfinifrock wrote:

I doin't think I can be getting overages from my mobile phone as I don't own one and never have. That was why I also posted that Comcast put me in a dangerous position by turning off my land line. I am a senior and would have no way to call anyone in case of an emergency.  To get my service back I had to pay over double what I owed and then found out in my conversation yesterday I was being charged a $50 charge to have my line reconnected. The person helping me said there was nothing he could do about that but he would transfer me to billing. Are you serious?!!! Now I have 11 hrs spent trying to fix my problem. Where should I send my bill for my time and unbelievable patience????

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Apologies, I had one our data overage specialists contact you as that was what your original post was about in this thread.

It appears that you have not exceeded or come close to 1 TB a month with your high speed Internet data.   

We have recently credited the reactivation fees, late fees and also provided an additional credit for the inconvenience. Those credits will appear on your next cable statement and you can also view the credit online or on our app via My Account.  Please let me know if  there is still an issue with your phone service and we can get that addressed. 

Apologies for any confusion and thanks for your patience.     

Alright I see I'm not alone, I'm seeing massive data usage, and we are an internet-active familiy, but our own tracking via monitoring of our TP-Link router is nowhere near what we are seeing in Comcast's tracking. Even when we were gone on vacation for a week it kept chugging along and somehow we used an additional 200gb (we do have a smart thermostat and sprinkler system, can't imagine it using anywhere near that data, and the router constantly shows these devices as using no data unless I'm logging in to change setting on them).

What, exactly, are we supposed to do about this? We cannot see any daily usage meters on xfinity, we've stopped streaming this month aside from evenings, no online gaming, our cameras are offline, no downloading of games (I moved to a Nintendo Switch with physical copies) and somehow we're still already at 500gb of usage for the month. We've been dinged for our 2 courtesty months already, I figured it may have been our Blink cameras or online gaming using the data but even with those all disconnected its running like crazy according to the website, we may have no choice but to find a competitor (and we don't want to, I prefer Xfinity's speed) if we literally can't even use our devices. 

@Phillipk86

For kicks and a sanity check, take a peek at your cable modem settings. 

* Disable ICMP (no pings to your external IP address)

* Disable UPnP (It was a bad idea when it came out.....it's still a bad idea)

* Disable remote modem access, last thing you want is an external facing web server on a cable modem

Should be a firewall on it.  Although I trust the built in modem firewall about as far as I can throw my truck, make sure it's on.   If you are "port forwarding" to any internal machines, disable that unless you have that protected by "other means".

In my case,  I thought "normal streaming" usage was around 600GB/month since that's what I ended up with when my service started.   Turns out with a decent firewall, and adaptive firewalling with a couple of traps set, my streaming usage is really only around 200GB/month.  I'm using my own gear, not Xfinity.

Track it for a couple days, see if your usage looks different if you had any of the above enabled.  It's also not a bad idea to portscan your external IP address with a utility like nmap.  See if there is any open port, or any port that responds at all.  The response should be "filtered" on all ports, not open or closed.  Filtered means no response at all -- which is what you want unless you are specifically running a service and know what you're doing.

For several months my data usage was under 200 GB but the last two months it's been over the limit and I have no idea why?  My XFi app shows my iMac using 95% of the network although that may or may not be related to the data usage issue.  We are not streaming anything or downloading huge amounts of photos.  Any clues would be appreciated.  I've already run malware software on the iMac.

@flatlander3 Thanks for the tips! I will double-check all those settings when I get home. I am currently using a Motorola Surfboard (I think 6850), gateway but disabled the router function since it was pretty terrible. It's been a fairly long time since I've logged into the modem itself so I'll check and see any settings that, good or bad, were on by default. 

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@Phillipk86 wrote:

Alright I see I'm not alone, I'm seeing massive data usage, and we are an internet-active familiy, but our own tracking via monitoring of our TP-Link router is nowhere near what we are seeing in Comcast's tracking. Even when we were gone on vacation for a week it kept chugging along and somehow we used an additional 200gb (we do have a smart thermostat and sprinkler system, can't imagine it using anywhere near that data, and the router constantly shows these devices as using no data unless I'm logging in to change setting on them).

 

What, exactly, are we supposed to do about this? We cannot see any daily usage meters on xfinity, we've stopped streaming this month aside from evenings, no online gaming, our cameras are offline, no downloading of games (I moved to a Nintendo Switch with physical copies) and somehow we're still already at 500gb of usage for the month. We've been dinged for our 2 courtesty months already, I figured it may have been our Blink cameras or online gaming using the data but even with those all disconnected its running like crazy according to the website, we may have no choice but to find a competitor (and we don't want to, I prefer Xfinity's speed) if we literally can't even use our devices. 

---

Apologies for the issues and the experience that you described above.

In the interest of the customer experience, I have applied a credit to your account while our team researches your account further.

The credit will appear on your next printed statement and you can view the credit online via My Account.

Thanks for your patience.

For all - the link below has some general information on how to avoid overage charges and tips to conserve data usage:
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-avoid-overage-charges

I've asked a colleague to review your account and contact you directly. Thanks for your patience.

Providing some additional information, background and tips below from our team that does the data overage reviews.

Customer owned devices
- One example are devices like Ubiquiti uNiFi, which our team most commonly sees as an issue with data usage. The device has an internal metering system along with a periodic speed test built into it. The speed test can accrue massive amounts of data usage without reporting to its own internal metering system because it’s part of its system functions, not a device using data even though it is using data. We report its usage because we monitor for all data traffic going to and from the modem/network, not per device connected to their network.

- The number and kinds of devices connected to your network matters. Suggestion is to log into your router to see and verify all the devices connected to your network" (very applicable with customer owned devices).

Metering System:
- Comcast does not have direct access into the metering system to the extent to be able to artificially input or output data usage results or information. Our metering system is regularly audited as well where information on it can be gathered from https://www.netforecast.com/.
It includes everything from the yearly audits to how the metering system works on a technical level. This is done third party outside of Comcast.

Comcast data metering accuracy reports at the link below:
https://www.netforecast.com/comcast-internet-usage-accuracy-reports/

- The metering system is delayed by up to 24 hours. "I watched my meter and it went up by 100GB in the last 3 hours and I just booted up my computer for 15 minutes!" is not accurate - the metering timeframe is not 1:1 - its delayed because it needs to validate data and remove any data that we do not count towards the metering system. This includes things like firmware updates we push out and any other possible data we may push to the network for normal operations.

- Greatest opportunity with Windows 10 devices. Windows 10 has a built in data usage meter for its own data tracking per application/software used on the device for 30 days(Settings -> Network & Internet -> Data Usage tab).

- Similarly could be done for other devices, ex: “Go into Netflix settings and make sure that it pauses after not watching it for a while”, etc.

Overall:
There is no trend or consistency indicating an issue in metering, but rather these have all been unique issues per network requiring the subscriber to troubleshoot/review their network.

The common trend topic is “there is no way I can use this much data”. While the number amount of data a customer can see on the meter is more than what they know to be using, doesn’t mean it isn’t being used.

Common data users:
- Streaming devices left on even when TVs are turned off – continuously streaming and/or misconfigured settings on streaming devices
- Data backups (including cloud backups)
- Large file downloads for entertainment (video games, updates, locally downloaded movies/videos from online services, etc.) or business purposes (files of information/data for business needs, Data backups downloaded from or uploaded to, etc.)