Why has my download usage shot up since I improved my broadband speed?

[kee]

I used to be on Karoo 500, and averaged 18GB download a month give or take a bit, this was consistent over years. I decided to change to karoo mid, because even though I would be over my limit the penalty charge would still be less than paying £30 a month for pro. Since I've switched my download per month has shot up to 30-45 GB a month even though my internet usage is the same. I am totally perplexed by this, does anyone have a possible explanation? I use Thomson Speedtouch 585 Wireless router now as supplied as opposed to my old modem.

[mrX]

Do you have constant amount of stuff lined up for download? Only thing I could think of is that, say you were downloading at around 60KB/s before, if you are now for example on a 5 meg line, you'll now be downloading at around 500-600 KB/s, which means in theory you could get 10x the amount of data as before, but in the same amount of time, I know the usage hasn't increased by 10x the amount, but I used that as an example, if you see were I'm coming from. Might be worth downloading some kind of usage meter for your computer, like the one from think broadband. http://www.thinkbroadband.com/tbbmeter.html

[kee]

Do you have constant amount of stuff lined up for download?

No, I'm not downloading anything, certainly in terms of music or video etc (whereas I was on my previous package), god knows what my usage would be if I was!
I'm not spending any more time on the net, I don't think I'm doing more (although it seems I must be),  not enough to justify a doubling in usage anyway.  It couldn't be something leaking could it, I don't know! I wondered if anyone else had experienced a similar increase.
I'll try the download you suggested anyway, thanks.

[marko]

Have you secured your wireless router? Is it possible neighbours are tapping in to your internet connection?

marko...

[bashdabish]

TG585's are secured by default. Your wireless light would we red if it was unsecured.

All I can advise is that you query it with customer services. They can investigate a bit further to make sure it is accurate.

[kee]

Is what the previous poster said correct, that Thomson TG585's are secured by default and the wireless box light shows red if unsecured? (they get quite hot don't they?)

Since my original post I switched to Pro 1 which has a 100GB limit and didn't monitor it since as I thought there was no way I'd go anyway near that, but I overshot it last month and had to pay a £30 pound penalty.

I was going to post back a question about how to check if my wireless was secure, but seemingly it is. I thought you'd have to download industrial amounts to get to that figure.

[chriscoates81]

Is what the previous poster said correct, that Thomson TG585's are secured by default and the wireless box light shows red if unsecured? (they get quite hot don't they?)

Since my original post I switched to Pro 1 which has a 100GB limit and didn't monitor it since as I thought there was no way I'd go anyway near that, but I overshot it last month and had to pay a £30 pound penalty.

I was going to post back a question about how to check if my wireless was secure, but seemingly it is. I thought you'd have to download industrial amounts to get to that figure.

100 gig is quite alot of downloading, are you downloading lots of videos and/or games?

[TJ]

Are you streaming a lot of videos...youtube, iplayer etc.

Maybe now your connection is faster you are watching these in HD and hence "downloading" more.

[gamesmaster]

Easyest way to make sure you dont go over your usage cap is to keep an eye on it yourself..

https://controlpanel.karoo.kcom.com/CGIControl/control.pl

[Mardoxx]

If you watch iPlayer a lot, that'll do it. On your old connection it probably used the lower bitrate streams, on the new one it'll probably be using the higher ones (assuming your new connection fast enough).
Interested to find out what rate the data's being sent to you? Just right click and it tells you.

Not sure if youtube automatically chooses the highest possible bitrate video to send you, but the same may be happening.

Could also be windows update! Or Adobe updater, the patches for CS5.0->CS5.5 for the master suite are several GB!