Hi Cbnurse1, Cox has actually had usage limits in place since 2001. We sent email notification letters in October 2016 to alert you to the upcoming changes to our Data Usage Billing policy. We provided a grace period of 2 billing cycles to help you get familiar with your data usage. Cox offers a Data Usage Meter to help customers monitor their daily, monthly, and historical data usage. The Data Usage Meter is available in My Account and the Cox Connect mobile app. Since you haven't drastically changed your internet use, allow me to highlight a few things that may account for the spike in data usage.
• Make sure your home network is secured with WPA2 and a password that's not easily guessable.
• Have you had any recent houseguests who may have utilized your home network?
• Have there been any changes or activities in the household that could lead to additional usage like streaming music, streaming video, or online gaming? Even if you're not actively watching online content, the device could still be streaming, which counts toward your data usage.
• One thing we often overlook is how often devices update apps or how often our devices upload things like pictures and videos to the network cloud. Has anyone in your home recently received a new device that could be doing this? For example, a computer could be automatically downloading operating system updates, security software updates, and application updates like iTunes. On each of the computers and mobile devices in your home, disable all automatic backups, automatic updates, file sharing software, mobile app updates, and app syncs between your mobile devices and your network.
• Check all the devices in your home for virus, spyware, and malware. Spyware running in the background can cause sudden spikes in data usage. Our computers and mobile devices may be sending or receiving data even if we are not actively using our internet service.
• Do you have internet-connected cameras tied into your home security system? Using third-party home security services over your in-home WiFi network and security cameras accessed over the web cause an increase in usage.
• Streaming video is typically the largest driver of usage for many customers. Updates to streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu can sometimes alter the default video settings. Factors such as video quality, FPS (frames per second), color usage, and audio bitrate can all impact the bandwidth of streaming video. Most video players offer Low, Medium, and High settings that allow you to adjust the quality of your video stream from standard definition (such as 240p or 360p) to high definition (720p or 1080p). The video and audio quality increase, so does the amount of bandwidth consumed, so regularly checking the quality settings for each streaming service can help you manage data usage.
Check out the links below for more information.
www.cox.com/datausage
www.cox.com/myconnection/learn/data-usage/understanding-usage.cox
http://bit.ly/DataUsageFAQs
-Becky, Cox Support Forums Moderator
