Unusually high data usage megathread

So, like many others in this thread, we've been averaging about 800G since pandemic started with two adults working from home and two kids required to be on zoom video class all day.

last night we get email notification at 12am saying we are at 75% usage.  Then at 3am, we get another message saying we are at 90%. Then another message at 6am that we are over 100%...  so how in the world does one use up over 300G overnight when everybody is asleep?  And now, as of noon were 100G already over the 1.2Tb cap.

how does one use up 400G in less than 12 hours!?

called Comcast and all they say is we used up one one courtesy over limit waiver, one day before the billing cycle ends.  and no explanation how one use up 300G in 6 hours and another 100G in 6 additional hours!  This is just ridiculous.  We don't have 4K (just plain ol 1080p).  Great way to treat a customer of over 15yrs.

AT&T just sent us mail we now can get fiber to the home.  We are definitely going to look into switching to them.

How do you monitor and throttle/alarm if you have excess network activity?

if it's caused by something like handshake error, how do you stop it before it gets out of hand? Most of our stuff is Mac or iOS.  Is there a software we can load on the laptop and iOS that will warn you if you go over some reasonable limit?

Welp.  That's roughly 29 Mbps if you pulled 300G in 6 hours.  Pretty much do able with 100Mbps service.  You can do it faster with better service.

I had an iPhone go insane while trying to download an update that failed from IOS 14.2 to 14.3.  That burned 90G speaking gibberish to Apple before I caught it, but my firewall emails me when excessive load is going on, and also daily status.  Software you install also likes to "phone home for updates", and that can hang too. 

Been there, done that with centrylink.  Wasn't a big fan of DSL speeds.  StarLink is $499 up front for hardware and $100/month.  Maybe that will come down at some point. 

I'm not using Xfinity gear, well...for a lot of reasons.  If you are, you are spending $14/month or $168/year.  In 5 years you will have spent $840.  You'll spend $30/month or $360 just the first year on unlimited.  What's an overage cost?  Maybe $200 max out of pocket cap?

You have budget to work with.

Buy a compatable gateway, run pfSense or opnSence (free) for a firewall on a dedicated x64 box or even an old laptop.  You can also buy a firewall appliance for less than $200 that will work fine.  Then buy a decent WiFi router and run all of your devices through the firewall.  Then you'll see everything.  The firewall is BSD based, so write any scipt you wish or use bsd tools like vnstat systat, even ifconfig  and toss it on a cron job if you want something else.  There are also addon graphing packages like ntopng and bandwidthd (free).

<- xfinity gateway ->< -firewall -><- internal wifi router -><- All Clients 

I also split the internal network too, for things I don't trust all that much, that don't have to talk to anything else like streaming devices/smart TV's.

We have our own modem, so we don't use the Xfinity modem and always had our own routers. We pay for TV/Internet combo (and the X1 box "DVR rental" for the TV), but haven't paid rent for their modem in years.

we just found some app that can monitor network activity both on the router as well as individual computers.  so hopefully we can see what is going on.   if this resumes again, hopefully we can see it happening (instead of getting after-the-fact useless 24hr delayed info) we can locate the offending equipment and shut it off.

It would not surprise me at all if an X1 box could pull streams and blow your data cap.  Others have reported high usage watching the peacock network for example.

Most, but not all apps on other devices like RoKu or Amazon allow you to set a 'soft' bandwidth limit, but commercials tend to ignore the control.  Major updates will reset your bandwidth settings though.  With a pfSense firewall, you can also throttle traffic to a max throughput on devices as a group, or individual devices.

Added benefit?  The stream doesn't buffer as much trying to test delivering content at the next higher bandwidth so overall playback is smoother.

For the last year my internet data usage has been around 500-600gb a month. This month my usage has skyrocketed to almost 2TB!? Nothing has changed at home and I dont understand where this extra data is coming from? Ive changed my wifi password, turned off my hot spot, and tracked all connected devices and nothing seems out of the ordinary? Now I am being charged a massive data overage fee with no explaination!? Has this happened to anybody else before?

Hi @Cody111, I would be happy to help and look into your usage concern. send me a private message with your full name (and the account holder's name if different from you) and the numbers associated with your service address. To send me a private message, click on my name, "ComcastAshley," and then click send a message

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@flatlander3 wrote:

It would not surprise me at all if an X1 box could pull streams and blow your data cap.  Others have reported high usage watching the peacock network for example.

 

It is my understanding that the cableTV is separate from the ISP bandwidth limit.  On the accounts page, the BW only shows up on internet portion while not when you go snoopong around the TV portion of account info?

do people with TV-only subscription also have BW limitation? I kind of think that is not true... TV has its own price structure and BW use is more self-limiting... you oay per Cable box (how many TV/DVR) and TV resolution (std vs HD 1080p, in our case)., and i would think the cost structure would keep BW measurements separate between internet and TV accounts, since you can subscribe to the separately (TV only, internet onlu, etc).  So im very skeptical of TV using up the "metered" internet BW claim...

Some apps will count as internet data.

Here's the list from Xfinity:

https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/x1-internet-data-usage-details

I might also add that if you look at the manuals for some of the approved gateways, they have frightening default settings.  I have little confidence in the security of anything I can't see or control directly.

No..  we don't use any apps through the X1 (didn't even know it had apps).  We just watch the DVR recorded shows, plus any we watch through the guide/on-demand/PPV stuff...  we are very boring DVR users.

all other stuff (prime video, etc) does not go through the Comcast box.. so no stealth BW use that bypasses the modem...

we started monitoring what is actually going through the router to the modem...  and installed network activity logging apps on all mobile and computers.  so if we start seeing a spike, at least (hopefully) we will be able to find out what is eating up the bandwidth...

According to Xfinity, my data usage was 1230 Gb.  That's 1 Gb over the current data cap limit of 1229 Gb.  I'm fine with going over for the free month in a 12 month period, if I really go over.  However, my modem shows a different number than Xfinity.  One of the main reasons I prefer to use my own equipment.  I've attached a pic showing my actual usage which is the data listed next to Last Month aka February (total of 1187 Gb).  

Customer service will be a hassle to deal with.  If there's a comcast employee able to rectify this situation through this forum please let me know!

@xsandos Over the years, I've seen multiple complaints (here and on router support forums) about the meters in various modem/routers reading either lower or higher than their ISP's.  Your modem looks very close!  So close in fact, that I suspect that the fact that Xfinty's data is not fully real-time makes it hard to precisely compare. Bottom line though is that whether your device is different by 50% or just a few percent, I think Xfinity continues to bill based on theirs.