Problems with Bandwidth Usage Report emails: zilchlicates, duplicates, triplicates...

[SupaMonkey]

Heya,
I was just wondering if anyone else has had strange bandwidth usage reports?

On the 24th I had 756.42MB still to go - by this time I already had stopped any downloads I might of had running - etc. The next day (25th) I got my report again and it stated that I had 157.32MB left. Strange thing is- like I said, I had no downloads going - and Im pretty sure I would have recognised about 600mb of e-Mails.
Today (26th) I got my bandwidth usage report again and it is once again 157.32MB. However, I am pretty sure there has been at least 10MB transfer in the last 24 hours.

Are we getting robbed of our bandwidth due to unreliable bandwidth monitoring?

 

[LandyMan]

Do you disconnect from iBurst regularly? These figures only get updated when you connect ... otherwise it just shows the same usage for days on end, happens to me as well

 

[slimothy]

even so I am not 100% sure the bandwith monitor is accurate I myself have noticed a gap between what DU Meter says and the one at WBS especially when downloading large files (I connect, check the bandwith manager then download the file add the file size to the figure i saw when i connected at the bandwith manager, compare to DU Meter and notice a 200MB gap)

 

[nocilah]

i use bwmeter and compare reports according to wbs reports and have noticed on my side up to 70Mb discrepencies... but then not sure who is wrong... wbs or bwmeter.

 

[slimothy]

well no offence to WBS but I'm gonna say they are inaccurate because the DU Meter people have had thousands of users and been around for alot longer

 

[Makedon]

Who knows they can steal from us much they want...!it is the most hiden and real criminal i ever seen.

 

[slimothy]

the thing is though that we can't tell for sure untill the bandwith usage monitor is more dynamic and shows real time statistics, I havent actually tracked my usage for the whole way, just download by download, sometimes it looks like it doesn't update sometimes it looks like it updates but takes too much.

After seeing other people might have the same problem I think i'm gonna keep a close eye on it from the 1st of June.

Not to be paranoid or anything but lets assume they were off by 10%, on purpose or not, and they had 4000 users on the 3Gb package, thats 300MB they save per user per month, thats 1.171 terrabytes saved per month overall! I'm not saying I think thats whats going on but if it was off the figure would benifit them not us....

 

[regardtv]

Hi All,

I too have noticed that on "larger" file transfers I discrepancy seems to be creeping into the bw monitor....



On a personal note my primary bugbear with the cap is that since my now sudden disgusting radio service (on northcliff) I tend to have to refetch files again and again due to dropped connections ... quick way to eat up a cap if you ask me ....

 

[SupaMonkey]

I agree with slimothy - its like the theory of stealing 0.001 cent from every bank user in south africa for every transaction - you can imagine what that would come to at the end of the month ~

Its pretty crappy since every MB counts - hell - we're so whipped every byte counts.

 

[ic]

Don't forget all the traffic that hits your firewall when bean-counting where has all my bandwidth gone...

Methinks I should spend some time on the SW forum & find out how to quantify this from logs, or if there are any lekker SWE2 addons to graph it...

 

[slimothy]

yeah but you can't blame WBS for that traffic, they count all traffic whether you requested it or not, if you get DDoS'd then you get DDoS'd and all that traffic counts

 

[Kei]

I've also seen discrepancies in my bandwidth reports, it is taking days to update now, due to the fact that I have connected the modem permanently. However the discrepancies are not much, just it's taking days for the bandwidth monitor to reflect my actual usage.

Oh, and I've found my IP address remained the same for 2 days this week. Some power failures at home put paid to that unfortunately.

 

[ic]

...
Oh, and I've found my IP address remained the same for 2 days this week. Some power failures at home put paid to that unfortunately.

Yeah, I think the only way WBS are going to "possibly" get customers to pay R200/month for a static IP address, is if the frequent disconnections problem is reintroduced...otherwise SWE2 does my no-ip.com DynDNS updating just perfecto .

 

[Kei]

otherwise SWE2 does my no-ip.com DynDNS updating just perfecto

cool. My router does that for me so I don't even have to run an app on my box

 

[seburn]

Just a thought -- sounds Like someone could be stealing your bandwidth!
If you haven't already done this go change your password
https://helpdesk.wbs.co.za click edit my account
A long combination of letters numbers and symbols makes a good password btw

 

[w1z4rd]

couple of things to remember.

a) is your computer infected with a worm? does it have the latest virus update patches and does it have a firewall up?

b) also, if you are using p2p, and the down site of the file is say. 300mb, dont forget ure sharing that file as well, so you most probly serve like 400mb of it.

 

[native]

Just a thought -- sounds Like someone could be stealing your bandwidth!

1. If my memory serves me right, usernames are assigned to UT's, even if they try to log on with your username and password using their UT it will not be possible.

2. Once tried to change my username but had no luck.

 

[slimothy]

well i am extremly into security and on my pc i can confirm there was no worm (well actually they're called zombie bots) because i netstat'd and the only connection created was to the site i downloaded from.

And yes you can take a users username and password but it won't help because the authentication is based on username + password + UTID, so they'd need to steal your UTC/UTD and username and password. native is correct.

 

[seburn]

Slim that bull**** I know they can do this but they don't.
Ask them yourself.
I have personally seen another user name and password being used on my utd when I got the interprise guys round to check my setup.

They can track which UTDid was used with which user/password so if you think there was an incident or two phone and ask.

I think its good that they don't, coz you can setup one at home and one at work and not have to hassle unplugging arial and moving utd.

 

[slimothy]

OK well i had 2 accounts for my UTD, one is the one I use all the time and the other was a temp one for last month only (after I got suspended), when the first of may came I attempted to log into it to rape a GB or two, it worked, I was chuffed, the next day it stopped working, so I went to the bandwith monitor used the same username/password and I could get in, I tried the username and password in the mail and again i could get in, to this day the username and password work.... but I cannot connect with that account explain that. And as for "ask them" I have, I asked Dylan Winik in a conversation a while agao and he confirmed this, and we had numerous discussions in prelaunch under the context of 'now that they will cap us what happens if some kid steals my username/password'

so no, its not bull****, kthxforplaying