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rickbonnie1's avatar
rickbonnie1
New Contributor
4 months ago

Data usage through the roof - 2TB

We have had Cox internet now for several years. We are in no way power users of data. Our DAILY data usage over the years consistently averages approximately 17gb to 25gb per day over these years PER Cox’s data monitor. Our monthly usage averages right around 400gb. You can set your watch by our usage. 

3 times this billing cycle now we have seen usage as stated above consistently EXCEPT for dates of 1/6 - 267gb,  1/17 - 308gb and the most recent 1/29 -639gb ….these are 1 day usage totals. ALL other dates in same billing are less than 20gb per day. 

I have called Cox 4 times now this month expressing a concern of this usage as it is highLy unusual and am concerned of a possible data leak or issue. The only solutions provided by Cox is to either send them more money to upgrade or change all log in credentials. Went the simple route and changed all passwords as well as Wifi names and we now see 639gb usage from 1 day. By month end they will show we have used in excess of 2TB of data. This is laughable at this point as the same solutions have been suggested in talking to a tier 2 supervisor. 

Cox has no other solution. Anyone else seen usage spikes like this that are highly irregular?  

Thanks in advance for any feedback. 

Rick

Bandwidth Allowance
  • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
    WiderMouthOpen
    Esteemed Contributor II
    4 months ago

    I think you have to make profile for every device on your network. They you can use the app to click on the profile and it will show you a crude representation of how much bandwidth that device used. See video here

    Once you know what devices are using the extra bandwidth, then you can see what is running on that device that is using that bandwidth.. 

    Do you have 4K TVs that you stream to? Any backup services? Anyone use any torrent or newsgroups programs?

    • rickbonnie1's avatar
      rickbonnie1
      New Contributor
      4 months ago

      Thank you for the reply and additional info. Will look at the video. Funny thing is, most of our devices sit idle majority of the time each day thus the daily usage so low over so many years. 

      We do have a 4K television that is lucky if it is on 2 hours per day.

      We have roughly 15 devices that are “connected” to our WiFi but, as said, are rarely being used each day if at all. Unless just sitting idle now uses a very large amount of bandwidth. Talking Sonos speakers, Aura picture frame, etc. 

      Cox app shows we used 639gb of data yesterday. That 1 day is the highest we have ever seen including for entire months of usage over many years.  If our monthly usage goes over 400gb total that is shockingly high for our usage. No way we did nearly 2x that in 1 day. Not to mention the other 2 days in same month.

      Will try the suggestion above to narrow down items. 

      Thanks again!