johntafshar's profile

New Contributor II

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8 Messages

Thursday, August 3rd, 2023 7:31 PM

Closed

Data Usage Meter

I've seen some older posts, but I'm concerned about the data usage meter. I got a notification that I have used half my allotment in just a few days. The vast amount of usage is supposedly in "other" which has supposedly used hundreds of gigabytes of data in the last few days, even though no one has been home for the vast majority of those days. No wifi connects are open, so it appears to not be tracking actual usage correctly. 

Contributor II

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111 Messages

2 years ago

I have had this problem, mainly in the summer for about 2 weeks. I will go along with a average use of about 30 a day all year long and then in july, it goes wonkie and holds at about 70- 100 a day for about a week, with no changes. There seems to be alot of stuff updating at that time. Apple mainly. I can not figure it out, and I tried for a while. I am just telling you this so you know your not crazy. This is my 3rd year of this phenominon.

Honored Contributor

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1.9K Messages

2 years ago

Do you have a ring camera or video surveillance? What about amazon echo or dot? If you the amazon devices, make sure you turn em off when you are not at home. The will start a loop of listening/transmitting/receiving and chew up data. Also, they share bandwidth with other amazon devices. Cameras can use a LOT of data if they are sending to remote sites, ring doorbells are good for that. 

Last but not least, make sure no neighbors have your wifi pwd. Years ago I worked with someone, who's son was trying to be nice to a girl, and gave her the wifi pwd, and next thing you know the entire neighborhood had it. 

New Contributor II

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8 Messages

I do have echos and Ring cameras, but they are not new. They've never used this much data. Confusingly, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday when we were home we used 50-100GB / day. That makes sense if we were both streaming all day. Monday, when we were not home, we used about 17GB, which also seems reasonable. But then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday when we were also not home, we used 250-350 GB / day, which is outrageous.

I double checked and there aren't any open networks. We have a secure password and no kids, so it seems unlikely that there was any outside access.

Contributor III

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136 Messages

2 years ago

What router are you using? Any chance there's a built in tool for checking data utilization? Google will show data up/down by device with options to present real time/ 1 day/ 7 day/ 30 day stats.

New Contributor II

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8 Messages

I have some Deco XE75s. Sadly they don't have their own data usage monitor.

Honored Contributor

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1.9K Messages

If you had the pano modem, we could use the cox pano app and see what was using data. 

How do I track data usage on Deco?
Launch your Deco app and go to MORE > Data Settings.
  1. Set the Data Usage Type as Total or Monthly. ...
  2. Enable Total/Monthly Data Usage Limit to set total/monthly data allowance and usage alert to prevent data overuse.
  3. Enter the allowed amount of total/monthly data. ...
  4. Set Usage Alerts.

New Contributor II

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8 Messages

Thanks. I think the Deco instructions are just for the 4G/5G routers. Mine doesn't have that option. The parental controls do let me review usage, but only by time, not data. I couldn't find anything on TP-Links site allowing that feature, and several off-site posts complaining it wasn't available. 

If the pano wifi will let me track usage that way, I'll pick one up today and set it up. It's worth $5 to see if it can say what's using so much data. 

Honored Contributor

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1.9K Messages

How about an update when you have it?

New Contributor II

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8 Messages

Will do :)

New Contributor II

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8 Messages

2 years ago

One more update:

The Cox app doesn't appear to have device-by-device data usage anymore. Or at least I can't find it anywhere it's supposed to be according to Cox's website or other tutorials. It's not been helpful for troubleshooting.

The online data usage site shows my usage is about what it should be - roughly 12-20 GB/ work day, more on the weekends or if I download a big file. I still have no idea what caused massive data spikes seemingly at random, but it doesn't appear to be any of the devices on my network since they otherwise act normally.

Honored Contributor

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1.9K Messages

it is supposed to show you the amount of data each device has used. I cannot use the app any longer or I would walk you through it, but you can call Cox and request to speak to someone in CAG and they can help you with it!

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