ISP Miscounts Broadband Usage - Help!

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2003-09-19 02:14am

My ISP's usage tracker tells me that on Tuesday 16th I pulled down 5,840Gbs. Now I've only got 1.5mb... even at full speed, all day, I've never pulled down more than 2Gb. To add insult, my puter was off all day while I was down the coast!
Any ideas how this could happen? I'm harrassing my ISP, because their indicator is a daily graph, and the bar for the 16th goes up to around 6Gb, but the number says '584'... but how could an error like that happen? Any and all help appreciated.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-09-21 01:26am

How long was the computer on before that? With Verizon, if I connect to the Internet near the end of a month, then don't become disconnected until sometime the next month, that entire period is counted for the month I began the connection in. (I've been connected for more hours than there are in a month this way on occasion.) This glitch doesn't affect anyone for DSL, since DSL gets unlimited bandwidth and time. I doubt any dialup user could be connected that long straight, so it shouldn't affect them, either.

If you transfered that much data during one connection, and your ISP's logging is as buggy as Verizon's, then it might log all that time for one day. Then again, that might have nothing to do with it. It's the only thing I can think of. Your theoretical maximum transfer is 129.6 gigabits per day(16.2 gigabytes).

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-09-21 01:44am

Wait a minute. They're claiming that you downloaded five terabytes in a day? Hell, even if that's in bits rather than bytes I'd find it absurd to see you downloading over half a terabyte (in communications, 10bits == 1 byte, due to error correction).

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2003-09-21 02:05am

Ooer ... 5.840 Gb. Misplaced ','. The highest thruput I've ever had on this connection is about 220kb/s, when using three sites at once. With the puter off, and the modem not doing anything, I don't see how this could happen... but they'll just show me the logs, no doubt

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-21 04:57am

And they aren't mollified at all by the fact that this bandwidth is not physically possible on your line?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2003-09-21 05:48am

I have to wait till monday to complain... business hours

I sell this their broadband, but the company recently changed hands and all the savvy people are gone, replaced by Generic Management Staff and a useless helpdesk. I foresee lengthy phonecalls, mainly 'I want to talk to your supervisor' etc...