Rental Tenant Data Usage

[zerak]

Good Day all

I have tenants that are allowed to use the house's fiber network as part of their rental contract. However, it has recently come to my attention (on my ISP's data usage reports for the past 4 months) that these tenants download 200-300gb of data on some days. Before confrontation I would just like to confirm if it is indeed on their side where this massive amount of data is being transferred. I have a Zyxel EMG3525-T50B router that was installed by my ISP which does not have a lot of features.

The tenants have plugged their own router/Wi-Fi extender device into one of the LAN slots on the Zyxel router. Is there perhaps some software or other method I can use in order to monitor the amount of traffic that is passed through this specific LAN port for specific time periods. As mentioned, the router has very limited capabilities, (or I might be missing the function that can assist with this.)

I have also attached some usage graphs indicating spikes in use. This on days (for example 8/9/23 and 31 December) where I was out of the country therefor my suspicion that these large amounts of data are being downloaded by the tenants. I am also a bit concerned about what can possibly be using this much data....



I first just want to make sure it is indeed the tenants that are hogging the internet. Afterwords my plan is to remove their LAN cable and only allow them to join a "Guest" Hotspot with limited bandwidth and capabilities on the network as I am concerned about the risk, they are opening my entire network up to. Any suggestions in this regard will also be much appreciated.

I am not to clued up on the IT side but hope the above makes sense and any assistance would be much appreciated.

 

[UB40]

You should just throttle the pooh on that MAC address that they're connecting to via the LAN port.

 

[RedViking]

What does it matter? Internet is not capped and 300GB is nothing for streaming Netflix and YouTube. Flip, just games alone are between 80-150 GB.

What is it that bothers you?

There is nothing that should concern you. Not even if they use a 1000GB should you need to worry.

I honestly can't figure out what it is that is the problem and why your tenants needs to be punished for it?

 

[supersunbird]

Good Day all

I have tenants that are allowed to use the house's fiber network as part of their rental contract. However, it has recently come to my attention (on my ISP's data usage reports for the past 4 months) that these tenants download 200-300gb of data on some days. Before confrontation I would just like to confirm if it is indeed on their side where this massive amount of data is being transferred. I have a Zyxel EMG3525-T50B router that was installed by my ISP which does not have a lot of features.

The tenants have plugged their own router/Wi-Fi extender device into one of the LAN slots on the Zyxel router. Is there perhaps some software or other method I can use in order to monitor the amount of traffic that is passed through this specific LAN port for specific time periods. As mentioned, the router has very limited capabilities, (or I might be missing the function that can assist with this.)

I have also attached some usage graphs indicating spikes in use. This on days (for example 8/9/23 and 31 December) where I was out of the country therefor my suspicion that these large amounts of data are being downloaded by the tenants. I am also a bit concerned about what can possibly be using this much data....

View attachment 1642749

I first just want to make sure it is indeed the tenants that are hogging the internet. Afterwords my plan is to remove their LAN cable and only allow them to join a "Guest" Hotspot with limited bandwidth and capabilities on the network as I am concerned about the risk, they are opening my entire network up to. Any suggestions in this regard will also be much appreciated.

I am not to clued up on the IT side but hope the above makes sense and any assistance would be much appreciated.

Is your internet experience being affected negatively or are you just bothered by them using that much?

 

[R4ziel]

200-300GB a day is not really much if you do anything on the internet these days, if it is not affecting you in any way then it shouldn't bother you. Its not just "Big Downloads" that open your network to any sort of attack, that could be anything

 

[zerak]

Is your internet experience being affected negatively or are you just bothered by them using that much?

There are some days where my line is very slow at certain times. Not sure whether this overlaps with the heavy usage days but assume that is possible. I also want to reduce my internet speed to 50mb line, and I am concerned that 1 tenant will cause the other tenants also to experience connection issues if I do this. I simply just want to get confirmation that it is this specific port through which the large amounts of data goes.

 

[R4ziel]

Maybe look around to see if there is a quality of service setting per port on the router, see if you can give yourself priority over them so you don't have to deal with slow speeds when you need it

 

[Mzezman]

I understand where OP is coming from in terms of risk… and judging by their approach things such as VLANs etc are not setup / catered for. So the tenants do / might have access to the rest of the network

An option would be to create a separate for each tenant and then also throttle that speed to say 10mbs since you want to downgrade to 50mbps. You can do this relatively cheaply with a MikroTik main router but the learning curve is high.

As other have said downloading large amounts isn’t an issue generally on most ISPs

 

[WAslayer]

Honestly, just let the tenant get their own fibre line when their lease is up for renewal..

They can simply place an order from their chosen ISP using your address and appending b to the street number, so it's registered as a new address..

 

[Mzezman]

Honestly, just let the tenant get their own fibre line when their lease is up for renewal..

They can simply place an order from their chosen ISP using your address and appending b to the street number, so it's registered as a new address..

This is the cleanest option

 

[UB40]

This is the cleanest option

And the best legal way. People should not be sharing data with strangers, they may download kiddy porn and then you get bust by the ISP and FBI. Happened to a mate of mine years ago, huge kak

 

[chrisc]

I share my fibre with my neighbour. I reduced her speed from 200 mbps to 50 mpbs. She didn't notice at all

For her its on-line bridge. She is 77 anyway, so no porn

 

[zerak]

I understand where OP is coming from in terms of risk… and judging by their approach things such as VLANs etc are not setup / catered for. So the tenants do / might have access to the rest of the network

An option would be to create a separate for each tenant and then also throttle that speed to say 10mbs since you want to downgrade to 50mbps. You can do this relatively cheaply with a MikroTik main router but the learning curve is high.

As other have said downloading large amounts isn’t an issue generally on most ISPs

Thanks. The plan is to go this way.

 

[Paul Kemp]

WTF are you gents doing that uses 200-300GB a day?

 

[W@P]

I share my fibre with my neighbour. I reduced her speed from 200 mbps to 50 mpbs. She didn't notice at all

For her its on-line bridge. She is 77 anyway, so no porn

 

[zerak]

Thanks all for the replies.

I understand usage is not an issue. My concern is what it is used for to get to this amount of data. If it is for gaming or anything Legal I do not care. I am merely more concerned as to what they are opening my network up to if this data usage is for any dodgy stuff as have been mentioned above. Nevertheless, I will proceed to remove their LAN cable to get them of my home/work network and provide them with a dedicated guest hotspot with internet access only.

Thanks for everyones responses.

 

[zerak]

WTF are you gents doing that uses 200-300GB a day?

Exactly my reaction!! If for legal activities, no problem, if not, problem for me as they are on my home/work network and on my internet subscription.

 

[RedViking]

There are some days where my line is very slow at certain times. Not sure whether this overlaps with the heavy usage days but assume that is possible. I also want to reduce my internet speed to 50mb line, and I am concerned that 1 tenant will cause the other tenants also to experience connection issues if I do this. I simply just want to get confirmation that it is this specific port through which the large amounts of data goes.

Most routers, even the very basic ones, you can limit the up and down speed. Or get a router for each unit and then limit the speed to those routers. Only do this if it affects traffic otherwise there is nothing to worry about.

 

[Progenix Oj101]

It's not THAT crazy. With the kids home for the holidays sitting on Netflix all day, my wife streaming Netflix 24/7 while working, and me streaming YouTube 24/7 while working, we can exceed 15GB/hour without any actual "downloads." Add to that an offsite backup I do daily (30GB) and 200GB/day is "normal."

Looking at the upload usage in the screenshot you provided, I'd be inclined to rule out torrents. More likely is that they got a few new games to play over December, or re-downloaded old games to play.

You mentioned downgrading to a 50Mbps line, so I'll hazard a guess and say you're on 100Mbps now. That has a theoretical maximum of around 0.75TB for a 24 hour period, so 200GB or even 400GB on 31 December shouldn't have too large an impact on your browsing experience.

Hmmm, maximum usage on 31 Dec - maybe they're single and lonely, and streaming 4K VR porn

 

[zerak]

It's not THAT crazy. With the kids home for the holidays sitting on Netflix all day, my wife streaming Netflix 24/7 while working, and me streaming YouTube 24/7 while working, we can exceed 15GB/hour without any actual "downloads." Add to that an offsite backup I do daily (30GB) and 200GB/day is "normal."

Looking at the upload usage in the screenshot you provided, I'd be inclined to rule out torrents. More likely is that they got a few new games to play over December, or re-downloaded old games to play.

You mentioned downgrading to a 50Mbps line, so I'll hazard a guess and say you're on 100Mbps now. That has a theoretical maximum of around 0.75TB for a 24 hour period, so 200GB or even 400GB on 31 December shouldn't have too large an impact on your browsing experience.

Hmmm, maximum usage on 31 Dec - maybe they're single and lonely, and streaming 4K VR porn

Thanks for the reply. Also starting to think it might be gaming... These tenants are afraid of work so I doubt that it is anything work backup related. With regards to the 4k VR porn, I have not yet seen a naked person with a pair of VR's on running around the driveway so maybe we can rule that out... For now.....