UNEXPLAINABLE ADSL USAGE

[Alistair]

We have a 6G cap with M-Web.

On 31 May we were capped (mid-morning). Couldn't understand it as we have never even got close to our cap before.

Research shows that between 22 May and 28 May we (apparently) used over 5G ... and, strangely, the highest 'usage' for the month came over a weekend when absolute minimal use of the internet is made!

As can be seen from the following stats .. the period from 22-28 May is totally at odds with our usage before and after those dates.

DATE DATA SENT DATA RECEIVED DAILY TOTAL
01-MAY-2004 11.15 MB 82.096 MB 93.2 MB
02-MAY-2004 0.226 MB 0.754 MB 1 MB
03-MAY-2004 2.207 MB 9.617 MB 11.8 MB
04-MAY-2004 5.034 MB 50.503 MB 55.5 MB
07-MAY-2004 11.637 MB 52.651 MB 64.3 MB
08-MAY-2004 25.631 MB 42.436 MB 68.1 MB
09-MAY-2004 6.863 MB 35.948 MB 42.8 MB
10-MAY-2004 0.903 MB 4.179 MB 5.1 MB
11-MAY-2004 6.916 MB 39.078 MB 46 MB
12-MAY-2004 9.309 MB 51.384 MB 60.7 MB
13-MAY-2004 15.761 MB 170.029 MB 185.8 MB
14-MAY-2004 7.175 MB 50.043 MB 57.2 MB
15-MAY-2004 15.414 MB 92.747 MB 108.2 MB
16-MAY-2004 4.918 MB 33.423 MB 38.3 MB
17-MAY-2004 2.849 MB 12.342 MB 15.2 MB
18-MAY-2004 13.046 MB 61.882 MB 74.9 MB
20-MAY-2004 15.626 MB 98.915 MB 114.5 MB
<font color="red">
21-MAY-2004 16.104 MB 71.031 MB 87.1 MB
22-MAY-2004 230.309 MB 367.069 MB 597.4 MB
23-MAY-2004 343.898 MB 509.584 MB 853.5 MB
24-MAY-2004 304.972 MB 453.817 MB 758.8 MB
25-MAY-2004 273.95 MB 430.892 MB 704.8 MB
26-MAY-2004 275.603 MB 416.939 MB 692.5 MB
27-MAY-2004 281.866 MB 466.228 MB 748.1 MB
28-MAY-2004 277.997 MB 441.79 MB 719.8 MB
</font id="red">
29-MAY-2004 13.598 MB 53.743 MB 67.3 MB
30-MAY-2004 6.567 MB 42.483 MB 49.1 MB
31-MAY-2004 1.788 MB 11.29 MB 13.1 MB
01-JUN-2004 0.08 MB 0.564 MB 0.6 MB
02-JUN-2004 8.914 MB 54.565 MB 63.5 MB
03-JUN-2004 8.763 MB 55.141 MB 63.9 MB
04-JUN-2004 11.338 MB 46.882 MB 58.2 MB
05-JUN-2004 7.139 MB 44.47 MB 51.6 MB
06-JUN-2004 6.337 MB 29.536 MB 35.9 MB
07-JUN-2004 2.089 MB 9.208 MB 11.3 MB

Anybody with any thoughts on this?
Thanks
Alistair

 

[BTTB]

Does anyone know your account name and password perhaps.
I would contact abuse at your ISP immediately.

BTW, if I look at your average usage, you dont need 6 gigs as 3 gigs would of been enough. I know of one person who uses another persons account who also has 6 gigs, but he has those peoples permission to do so as they dont use that much bandwidth.

<b><hr noshade size="1"></b><font size="2"><font color="red"><b>You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.</b></font id="red"></font id="size2">

 

[mbs]

It's apparent that during the period in question, there were major transaction accounting difficulties experienced. I don't use MWeb, but these are the figures reflecting my ostensible usage reported by Telkom's usage tracker for more-or-less the same period:

DATE D/LOAD UPLOAD TOTAL
21-May 8.2656 0.9289 9.1945
22-May 62.9605 2.1436 65.1041
23-May 12.4181 1.3644 13.7825
24-May None None 0
25-May None None 0
26-May None None 0
27-May None None 0
28-May None None 0
29-May None None 0
30-May None None 0
31-May None None 0
01-Jun 27.1515 4.8859 32.0374
02-Jun 38.4559 3.7982 42.2541
03-Jun 77.121 5.9811 83.1021
04-Jun 35.3555 2.4506 37.8061
05-Jun 60.1145 2.5235 62.638
06-Jun 32.0015 5.4454 37.4469
07-Jun 2.6199 0.3298 2.9497
08-Jun 22.6652 4.6232 27.2884
09-Jun 19.5202 3.3966 22.9168

The joke is that during the period where no usage is reflected, I downloaded 4 Linux iso's, which would've taken me well past the 3Gb cap on at least 24 May. This affirms the incompetence of Telkrap and the pointless nature of the cap, IMO, and adds greatly to my irritation and anger at their 'some pigs are more important than other pigs' attitude (apologies to George Orwell). Wouldn't be one bit surprised if my usage was added to yours somehow, because of their transaction system shortcomings...

 

[Darkstar]

ME2! Check this Sh*T out, and i got NetLimiter to back me!

11-JUN-04 55863 8 131 995 9 331 139 17 463 134
10-JUN-04 86548 8 786 410 121 347 739 130 134 149
09-JUN-04 86823 21 251 125 156 484 658 177 735 783
08-JUN-04 124943 1 198 557 124 1 723 081 259 2.921.638.383(bytes)
07-JUN-04 140574 2 372 204 583 3 575 263 579 5.947.468.162(bytes)
06-JUN-04 145407 1 327 493 220 733 568 399 2.061.061.619(bytes)
05-JUN-04 71103 58 844 508 180 778 878 239 623 386
04-JUN-04 86380 51 629 126 266 818 562 318 447 688
03-JUN-04 86356 22 456 543 111 362 742 133 819 285
02-JUN-04 86384 32 042 733 97 427 611 129 470 344
01-JUN-04 83654 12 974 344 33 427 151 46 401 495

 

[Darkstar]

****ty post. Bascially look at 6,7,8 june

6: 2.061 gigs
7: 5.947 gigs
8: 2.921 gigs

 

[Bobb]

You have some serious upload there too.... looks like P2P to me! I noticed at the end of last month our usage was inaccurately monitored as well.(In our favour). Sheesh, youd think that Telkom could at least ensure that they are accurate when monitoring bandwidth considering the furora (Not sure if thats spelled right but hey its Monday) they have caused with the cap...

 

[regardtv]

We run our ADSL on a linux system... Disconnect 6pm - connect 7am monday-friday ... weekends off. You can enable the ADSL via a web page ...

This has saved us on average 350MB a month from idiots blasting our network from the outside...

This does not explain the problem with your usage but may be an idea for future use..

R

************************************************************
The views expressed on this site are my own and NOT those of my employer.

 

[Alistair]

Thanks for the response.

Nobody had access to my username/password - so that option is ruled out.

Had already discussed the problem with my ISP and they then got confirmation from SAIX that the usage was "correct" .. sent me a copy of the SAIX report - but just gobbledeygook to me!

It would seem from my experience, and the few esponses to my post that VALID monitoring of ADSL usage is not happening!!

And Telkom boasts a 177% increase in profit this past year!! Go figure!!!!

cheers, and thanks for your input
Alistair

 

[James]

The monitoring software used by telkom is pretty *** if u ask me. I use BW meter and some days my usage is the same and some times it is completly out. Not at all acurate.

There is no peace without war!!!

 

[Darkstar]

Checked logs, No p2p was left running.

 

[kaspaas]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Alistair</i>
<br />Nobody had access to my username/password - so that option is ruled out.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

As far as I know the Telkom orcs have access to all usernames/Passwords

Do the other ISP's techies have access to the same data?



South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.

 

[podo]

kaspaas,

They do, but when your username is being abused, it is very unlikely to be a Telkom technician, as they are rumored to have uncapped ADSL accounts anyway.

What you might want to guard against is the password getting stolen by a third party. If you are using the Marconi POTS router, make sure you have changed the username and password for administrating the router on ALL interfaces. A router having the default admin username and password can easily be compromised. A compromised router will very easily give up your username and password to the attacker.

The username and password might also be stolen from your PC by an attacker that has managed to infect your system with a Trojan horse type virus and is performing keystroke logging. This has more serious implications too, as such an attacker will probably also steal your internet banking and shopping passwords if you aren't careful.

Willie Viljoen
Web Developer

Adaptive Web Development

 

[sss]

maybe u had a virus, we did once, thing used up 800 megs a day going out! and once we had an email that was 20megs big , sent every byte then when it finished got rejected by the smtp cause it was too large, so our smtp tried to send it again 20 minutes later, again and again and again!

GSI 16VS

 

[Darkstar]

Always have MacAfee updated, did check. Also used housecall from trendmicro. permanently up to date virus scan. A virus was one of my first suspicions.