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LDTurpy's avatar
LDTurpy
New Contributor
7 months ago

Why is "network management and testing" usage so high?

The last two months we have exceeded or nearly exceeded our 1.25TB data allowance. This has never come close to happening before. If I look on Cox at the data usage categories I see that nearly all the total is used by "Network Management & Testing" which is supposedly a category that includes internet speed tests. Needless to say we are not doing a terabyte worth of internet speed tests, so something else is going on here. Any ideas?  Is there another common type of activity which gets put in this category? Is this an issue others have experienced?

 

Bandwidth Allowance

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  • ColleenD's avatar
    ColleenD
    Moderator
    7 months ago

    Hi, LDTurpy.

     

     I'm sorry to hear you're seeing increases in your data usage. I can understand how it would be concerning.  We're working to better enhance how data is categorized within the data usage tool. You may see the data categorizations on insights page shift over time.  I can't say I've heard other customers reporting a large amount of activity in the Network Management & Testing category. It's possible an unrecognized traffic or activity has been miscategorized. If so, you'll probably see the data shift over the coming months.  Hopefully other community members will chime in to share what they might see when checking their own activity.

     

    If you are using a Cox Panoramic WiFi modem, you may want to try using the WiFi app to determine which device or devices are using the most data to try to narrow down the activity that way.  You can learn more about the Panoramic WiFi app at https://www.cox.com/residential/support/cox-panoramic-wifi-app-features.html.

     

    If you need additional support for your data usage, please email us at cox.help@cox.com with your full name, complete street address, the details of your inquiry and a link to this forum thread.

     

     

  • Darkatt's avatar
    Darkatt
    Valued Contributor III
    7 months ago

    Many 3rd party routers do testing every so often, and if you happen to have one (ASUS is one), then it needs to be setup properly so it doesn't do it all the time. 

  • Alissa13's avatar
    Alissa13
    New Contributor II
    7 months ago

    Were you able to diagnose this? I'm having the exact same issue - somehow Network Monitoring & Testing used over 800 gb of data this month without any change in behavior from my household. Support guided my to reset my password in case someone is using our wifi, but weren't able to provide any information about what this category is so that we can prevent overages in the future. 

    • LDTurpy's avatar
      LDTurpy
      New Contributor
      7 months ago

      No good solution yet-- sorry you're having the same problem.  I did turn on traffic monitoring on my wifi router (not a Cox one), so I will be able to tell in the future at least what machine is eating the bandwidth. But so far haven't seen anything out of the ordinary.  I'll let you know if I figure it out.  

      • Squirrel1's avatar
        Squirrel1
        New Contributor
        6 months ago

        Thank you for looking into this! Have you learned anything new? 

        We're experiencing the same abnormal "Network Management and Testing" spike  with no change in devices or internet behavior. 
        Cox support was not helpful when we reached out.