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Unexpected Enormous Usage Increase
Up until May 17, the online usage meter page showed that my daily usage varied between 10GB to 25GB. However, starting on May 17, the usage meter has been claiming that my daily usage is typically between 90GB to 115GB. My current monthly usage (ending 7/2) will end up around 2TB if this continues.
I have only Internet service. My use of the Interment is light compared to many, as can be seen from the usage meter numbers prior to 5/17. There has been no change in the pattern of Internet use since May 16.
I've done the usual troubleshooting steps.These very high traffic levels persist even after I've shutdown/disconnected equipment such as laptops, desktops, phones/pads, an AppleTV, a LaserJet, and WiFI extenders (but leaving the modem itself on and connected). Also, the traffic level persists even after I've changed the SSID and WPA2 password for my WiFI net. All WiFI clients on my WiFi net are devices that I recognize and are under my control. I have malware detection; there's no evidence of any infestation.
I have no children that might do such things as falling asleep while leaving Youtube videos running all night, every night, as I know has happened to some.
My household is mainly Apple hardware; there is one Windows machine (but, as mentioned, the immense flood of traffic is in evidence even with computers off, hibernated, or disconnected).
On Thursday, I called COX tech support for help. The agent double-checked my type of service and my trouble-shooting steps. He walked me through use of the usage calculator in order to estimate monthly data throughput based on my use profile. He and I agreed that there's a huge discrepancy between the profile's prediction of data rate and the actual numbers in the usage meter (about a 5-fold difference). The agent decided to escalate my case to tier #2 support. That agent went over the facts again and decided that a 'traffic check' should be done, telling me that I should expect a call back with 24 - 48hrs with findings
Not having received any callback after 4 days, I called tech support yet again. That agent reviewed the case history and the information as above, and recommended that I should step up to the 'unlimited data' service plan for an additional $50 over my current plan. She seemed disinterested in any further troubleshooting, and was politely insistent on the service plan step-up.
I declined the service change...it seems untoward to buy bandwidth in order to accommodate what appears to be a technical problem. That's like installing a bigger gas tank in a car in order to resolve a leaky fuel line. I would think a better next step would be to analyze/categorize/typify the traffic flow itself. I seem to recall a past case when COX did that for me (years ago) and found an actual equipment problem. Even if only the source/destination of the traffic were to be identified, that could shed light.
Bruce
+4 more
Honored Contributor III
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Good analogy! Cox could rummage through your metadata to investigate...but they won't. Do you rent the Panoramic? If so, replace it with a router equipped with Data Monitoring.
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Bruce
+4 more
Honored Contributor III
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I wonder....if you're streaming via a cable-box...and turn the TV off for the night...and the cable-box is always powered on...does the cable-box still stream in the background?
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sjtsnix
New Contributor
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As I read your post, It was like I could of wrote it myself.
I have had Cox for two years come October.
One month during Covid, we almost hit the 1280GB mark, but avoided going over.
This month though... I'm at 120% and can't determine what/why it's so high
March Bill : 853 GB of 1280 GB
April Bill: 935 GB of 1280 GB
May Bill: 1554 GB of 1280 GB !!
I did not have notifications on for my phone, not sure what alerted me... perhaps an email...
That said, as soon as I saw how there were days showing in the app that were greater than 100 GB in a day, I started shutting any and everything down on my home network that might be contributing to this issue. My daily went down that one day. but the next day it was up to 23GB even after I informed my wife that we need to hold off on any streaming (Netflix, Amazon Prime), we went down to 8GB that day, but the next day.... it's showing 23GB for the day.
Strange, because all that occurred that day was streaming via the Cox Box, and watching DVR content via the Cox Box.
After hitting 6 total bumps of $10 for each 50 GB overage.... I called, and went ahead and added the unlimited data for $50 per month.
now, I'm on a mission to try to determine what is causing this consumption of data that is off the normal chart for me.
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sjtsnix
New Contributor
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Do you have any security camera's that send footage to the cloud?
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wbloom2
New Contributor
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I have a 'hot clue'. If COX had done a 5min network analysis on the traffic flow, they would have noticed that the excess traffic was flowing into my network (incoming) from a site in the aaplimg.com domain, which is Apple's CDN (content delivery network) for download/installation of OS updates and applications. Even without COX's help, though, I was eventually able to suss out what had happened albeit it took several extra days.
Turns out that my 'work' Mac laptop at home (part of my network, I use it for my job at a all-virtual company, the laptop is the property of my employer) has been downloading a massively large software development toolsuite multiple times per day in the background for no apparent reason. One download by itself is 12.3GB, and my laptop is doing 7+ of these downloads a day with no notifications to alert me. This is an errant behavior and almost surely due to an oversight/error by the corporate system administration team. Not a hacker. I have opened a ticket with the admin team to have this investigated.
Update...
After investigation, the solution turned out to be straightforward. I used the Apple 'Launchpad' to simply delete the problematic development toolsuite (called 'Xcode.app') from my laptop and allowed it to be reinstalled. Instant cure. Locating the cause of the problem took nigh on 3 weeks and 3 phone calls, and a mere hour or so to fix. Very baffling, elusive, and obscure underlying cause for this problem; glad I didn't take COX's offer to boost the data plan by $50.
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carolyn844
New Contributor
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cox did this to me my bill was 157.00 a month to 356.00 a month all of a sudden where going over are data usage we are elderly couple in are 60s how much data can we use . they talked us in to getting more data and that didn't work we started going over that amount to. wo we had to pay the 50 $ for unlimited. I think cox is ripping people off they slow down your internet speed and then tell you to pay 5.00 for more speed. they need to be investigated. something's not right.
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carolyn844
New Contributor
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cox did this to me my bill was 157.00 a month to 356.00 a month all of a sudden where going over are data usage we are elderly couple in are 60s how much data can we use . they talked us in to getting more data and that didn't work we started going over that amount to. wo we had to pay the 50 $ for unlimited. I think cox is ripping people off they slow down your internet speed and then tell you to pay 5.00 for more speed. they need to be investigated. something's not right.
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