Why is my usage going down so fast???

[gam930]

Hi, we just got excede a few months ago. For the first 6 weeks or so the usage meter was down so we had no idea how much we were using. Then last month we checked close to the time it would be resetting and it was working and said we were over our usage by about 7gb. We have the 15 gb/month plan. It reset on the 27th of May and then the 16th of June we ran over again. We don't watch movies on Netflix or Youtube, the only games we play is Frontierville on Facebook and that's a total of maybe 1.5 hours a day. We mainly use the internet to look up things, check mail, order on amazon and get on facebook. Our son posts stories on fanfiction and daughter reads stuff on pintrest. Trying to figure out why we are going through so much before they start charging for overage, because if it's going to be $5+/mb over the limit we won't be able to afford that!!
Thanks for any info anyone can share!!

[gman]

It is really easy to use 15gb a month if using multiple computers. Updates and such add up. I use over .5 gb a day and sometimes do nothing much.
Make sure if you are using a router that it is secure and nobody is using your service, people are really good at finding free internet ...........

[jamizer]

Yes, 15GB isn't that much data for multiple computers. Then if you add on smart phones, game systems, etc. it grows more. While you don't think you use that much data, monitor it on a daily basis. You might be surprised how much you are actually using.

[markn455]

The usage calculator they suggest you use is very misleading. My usage is already three times the limit. Bummer. Now i am stuck with this overpriced servicemfirmthe next two years.

[gam930]

We only have 1 computer, a desktop and we don't use any other devices. We had HughesNet before this and it was so much slower and we had the 375mb/day plan so it added up to less than 15 gb/month, the only thing I can figure is it has "free time" from 2 am to 7 am and thats when we had our updates set for?

[jamizer]

Probably not doing middle of the night updates you specifically used the download manager Hughesnet provided and scheduled downloads accordingly.

I would check your usage at the beginning of the day. Then use your computer normally. Then check at the end of the day. See what your usage is and see if you can "discover" what is eating so much data. There could be a number of things going on.

[danneauxs]

My data usage goes up bout 200 megs a day. I have all updates turned off and follow the same usage patterns I used with the old wildblue pro package. Since my last reset I umplug my router from the modem and only plug it back in for about 4 hours a day to check mail and do some shopping. Funny thing is I didn't have it plugged in from about 7pm Tues night till 6am Thurs morning and my data usage shows I went up 300Megs! The modem was plugged in but nothing was connected as I physically disconnected it from the network.

I never thought I'd say this but I miss the old rolling FAP! I had the pro plan and occassionally I'd hit the limit but I'd have to download a dozen Linux Live installations to do that and I'd watch a dozen youtube videos a day and still not hit my cap. Now I'm afraid to use my internet at all LOL.

[staraven]

Funny... I have been with Wildblue for 4 years and have switched to Excede for 3 months now and iI am also scared to use it! I never went over my limit when with original Wildblue with rolling FAP. But have noticed now I use alot of data and do nothing different. I am very careful also no auto updates no videos etc. etc. I am very familiar with watching my data since I have been a customer for so long. I had a 50 % increase in data in 24 hours today. Am trying to figure this out since this would have been an extremely low data usage period. Scanning for virus etc found nothing. As I said I have never been over on usage and 90% only 1 time, but am now over 100% I am not sure what to do now. I am still secure have changed password so I will unplug router each time. Only fix I know of. Oh yea, I watched some youtube videos also previously but haven't done so much at all with the Excede. Strange.

[danneauxs]

Had to upgrade to top level plan. Just noticed that you can now buy more data but the prices are like in the old gold rush towns where someone paid $500 for a $1 shovel.

I mean if you have the bandwidth to sell why not sell at reasonable prices and sell more?

I still haven't figured out the usage thing, but it's completely different than the rolling plan; that regeneration of available data doesn't happen. I just installed a program called "networx" which lets you track data usage by the hour. Apparently you can even set it to track your router instead of just your computer; if you have a capable router. I don't.

One area I know is costing me bandwidth is dropped connections. I decided to install Linux on a spare computer I was given. I had to download the 1G file 7 times over the course of a weekend because WB stopped working during the download. I was sitting there for 4 of the times browsing the web at the time or actually failing to load pages.
Reload, no data, reload, no data.... This was a huge issue with old wb and now it's back, especially bad the last month or so. I had to reload this page to get here to post.

I suggest getting NETWORX and monitor your useage in detail. I haven't been able to sync up with my billing schedule because I upgraded in the middle of my last cycle and forgot to change the setting in networx for a few days, but it's still within a few hundred megs right now. I reset on the 8th and will post later how accurate it is. Won't be 100% since I can not monitor my router (it's old and doesn't have some feature needed) and my wife and a few devices share the connection (2 tablets, 1 phone, 1 laptop, 3 desktops [only 1 really used] 1 xbox [udates only no online play])

[BlueMoods]

Online games eat bandwidth just as fast a videos. Not as bad if the game itself is installed from a download or disk as if they are no install browser based games. Facebook games will use more than an MMO such as GW2 or Rift. Every page load uses some, any page with pictures uses more than ones without, and Facebook had a ton of graphics, this uses more that a lot of other sites.

I play one MMO, run auto updates, stay off YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc... Don't display HTML in email or on forums and rarely even click on a link to a picture, still run 70% + usage every month. Oh and my email client is set to only DL messages if the sender is on my safe sender list (that's all of 3 senders)