WA Phantom data

[HavocXphere]

At the end of the last month, I did not reset the router so the existing (capped) connection stayed up. That particular connection is still capped.

The WebAfrica Usage panel shows that no connections were established during October, but it also shows about 1.5mb of data usage being recorded per day.

Clearly its not actual data usage since the existing connection is capped both in theory and practice and no new connection was established. If its not data usage then it has to be connection overheads or something else.

Presumably the overheads will be higher when there is actual activity on the account (Nobody is using the capped connection). So adsl users are losing at the very least 45mb cap per month on overheads or something else.

MB Downloaded MB Uploaded
0.98 0.29
1.14 0.27
1.16 0.61
1.12 0.44
4.4 1.61
Total Usage: 6.01

Most of it seems to be downstream, so it could also be that it is incoming data being recorded and being blocked either by the capping or the router firewall.

The amounts look tiny, but on a 24 month contract thats over a gigabyte lost to Overheads/Incoming data/whatever.

DSLSecure is enabled and the wifi zone is secured with a strong wpa key.

I'm guessing that the other ISPs will have systems that behave similarly. And its probably not intentional/malicious...but still, it doesn't seem fair to me that one only gets 23 gigs on a 24 month contract.

 

[fz1]

Are you absolutely certain there is NOTHING that would be trying to access the Internet through that connection?

 

[HavocXphere]

Are you absolutely certain there is NOTHING that would be trying to access the Internet through that connection?

I know there is stuff *trying* to update over the capped connection. AV etc. But its not getting through to the internet.

My point is, the connection is capped but cap is being deducted. So what is that data? Is cap being deducted for those *blocked* attempts by the AV? Or is it incoming unsolicited data that is being deducted?

 

[fz1]

Is cap being deducted for those *blocked* attempts by the AV?

That would be my guess. If you are able to, disconnect everything from that router that would try to access the internet.

Also, it may be data usage as a result of your router not letting an idle timeout occur. Do you have your router set up with a service like dynDNS? That may also be causing data usage (even though it's blocked).

 

[HavocXphere]

If you are able to, disconnect everything from that router that would try to access the internet.

I'll give that a shot. Would imply multiple hours without (pppoe) intarwebz though.

Do you have your router set up with a service like dynDNS?

No, its basically just the AV that would attempt to use the capped connection.

The AV doesn't really explain the d/l though...and most of the traffic seems to be d/l.

 

[Safwaan]

This is common standard network overhead, the general causes would often be pings, headers, keep alive, DNS look ups, etc. That are sent by SAIX or received by others.
Even when an account is capped you can often do tiny amounts of bandwidth on an account.