Mac software for tracking gb use?

[2tontess]

Anyone know if there is some software I can download to track our internet usage? We use a Mac and we're on BT option 2. Each month it's going up (dh movies use to blame ), this month it's 16 gb over = £16 .

I would change but we may be moving overseas in the next couple of months and don't want to be tied into another contract. Besides, I think dh needs to see that it would probably be cheaper for him to go to the cinema!

I don't know of any such thing, and it's hard to see how it would work and be accurate- the only things that know how much internet traffic you have used are your router and the gateway at BT's end. If you had more than one computer in your house, the one running the software wouldn't know about the others, and it would be hard to distinguish between network traffic that really is from the internet and stuff that isn't. Blah blah...

Doesn't BT have a way of logging in to your account to see what your usage is?. My ISP, Plusnet, does, and I know some others do too- check out what information you can get by logging into your account details.

I think relatively few ISPs do this.

For 2tontess - is that the only machine you use ?

Thanks, I really thought it would be a simple piece of software, I'm obviously still stuck in the dark ages of the technology world since having kids.

My husband has a laptop that he occasionally uses. He does use spotify and iplayer quite a bit, would that increase the useage?

No, you're quite right, it's not unreasonable, but if there is only 1 PC, or the router reports data showing IP addresses, then it is much easier to 'assign' 'blame' (OK, show which PC used most!)

Yes, both Spotify and iPlayer are potentially major causes for traffic. The latest free version of spotify restricts listening to 20 hours and the software is meant to cache (store) downloaded music (so listening to a small number of albums should mean they get copied to your own PC and cause no further downloading - except perhaps for adverts on a free version) but I have yet to see this in real life (I have used Spotify for over a year with a free account).

iPlayer can typically download 300+ MB for a 30 minute show, Dr Who (55 minutes) is 580 MB. The Budget ran to 2h 40m and 1.7 GB if it was downloaded. The figures are higher if you download High Def copies to play via a 42" TV or similar.

It would probably be worth going to www.ThinkBroadband.com and using their download tool (free) on his laptop, if you know you are not using massive amounts of data. See if you can install it the day before the next monthly period starts and then 2 weeks in you can tell him - hey DH you've used 15 GB (or whatever!)

I have an old G3 iMac so have not looked at traffic allowances/ monitoring. I also use Plusnet and currently pay about a tenner for 60 GB a month (and anything from midnight to 08:00 is not counted at all).

Reason I know about iPlayer is that my line is so slow (*) I cannot watch any streaming video so have to download it if I miss something.

(*) I get from 160 kbps to 500 kbps if lucky - my sister has just gone from 7,000+ kbps to 11,000+ kbps over in Staffordshire, so maybe I should move - I do IT and website support for a living but have to also keep a mobile dongle in case I get disconnected for a few days (has happened more than twice in 4 months).