160GB additional usage over 6 months - its a lot if you haven't used it!!!

[#1]

Some time ago on a few occasions I accurately recorded my usage at my computer's/router end to cross check against the Plusnet figures.
In particular I wanted to see how accurate was the recording at the pre/post 8am swap over of free/charged periods.
My conclusions were that the Plusnet data was accurate and if anything slightly unread at the 8am switchover so traffic which should have classified as chargeable data was being allocated to free - but this was in any event a very small amount.
I concluded that the slight under recording was deliberate to ensure Plusnet stayed on the right side of limits should there be any dispute with a customer.

[#2]

That's correct - we disregard everything I believe 15 minutes either side of midnight for exactly that reason.

[#3]

These are my usage figures as at today 1620 (28/01/13), my billing and usage data for the month commenced yesterday, I'm  not sure at what time exactly. I have simply read some emails and browsed 5 web pages bbc,daily telegraph,met office and 2 other similar one additionally I have visited here and posted. Surely this is far too much data usage?
          Mon 27           Tue 28       Wed 29    Thu 30 Fri 31  Sat 01  Sun 02     Total
Peak 163.13MB 128.83MB - - - - -                                         291.96MB
Off-peak 6.83MB         162.15MB - - - -     -                                         168.98MB
Total 169.96MB 290.98MB - - - - -                                         460.94MB
During your current billing period you've used:
Activity Peak usage Off-peak usage Total usage
Web 269.37MB 135.82MB 405.19MB
Email 0KB 0KB 0KB
Broadband phonecalls 16.12KB 8.83KB 24.95KB
Gaming 108.22KB 15.72KB 123.94KB
Streaming 19.29MB 9.4MB 28.68MB
PlusNet FTP 0KB 0KB 0KB
Peer-to-peer 5.56KB 0.24KB 5.8KB
Usenet 0KB 0KB 0KB
FTP (non PlusNet) 0KB 0KB 0KB
Other 3.17MB 23.74MB 26.91MB
Total usage so far 291.96MB 168.98MB 460.94MB

Sorry the above hasn't tabulated well but you can see the figures. No email shows up, which I have used, however gaming,streaming,broadband phone calls and Peer to peer shows, none of which I have knowingly used. Note this is in a very closely monitored period of less than 48 hours.

[#4]

Hello,
Some time ago our usage apparently rocketed. Monitoring the data traffic using Think Broadband meter discovered the computer had a mind of its own and behind the scenes was accessing various websites. Maybe worth to monitor what your computer is up to?
Even after we'd removed the bug, it was astonishing the amount of usage simple web pages clocked up (even PlusNet  :D). 

[#5]

I can easily believe those figures.
For example, I just loaded the Daily Telegraph home page and it used 3.8MB, the BBC news page was just under 2MB.
A bit of browsing through a few stories could easily come to 150MB
Your Gaming and Peer-to-peer usage looks like it's just background noise
The streaming could well come from an advertisement on a web page
But, why no email? You don't happen to use webmail to read your email do you?
If you really have had 160GB additional usage over 6 months (over 20GB/month) then you should seriously consider switching to Unlimited

[#6]

Hi, I've switched to unlimited as of yesterday, however what is done is done and I've been charged for an additional 160GB that I didn't use. Again my point is,  when I say to PN, 'I don't think I used that amount of data', they reply 'yes you did' and can't, won't and don't have to proove it!!. It's a ridiculous situation, I don't believe any other company/industry would be allowed to get away with being so vague about their the service that they provide.

[#7]

Maxviz - why didn't you just cap your monthly overspend at £0, as I described earlier in the thread?

[#8]

I don't see how they are being vague.
What would you accept as "proof" that you had used that much data?
The "data protection" stuff is just that they only record the amount of data you use - I don't think people would be happy if they kept a record of every web page they visited and every file they downloaded. The breakdown by usage is known to be inaccurate. It matches your data to a "signature" to attempt to categorize it and often gets it wrong. The total data figure though is normally correct.
Also bear in mind that the figures are for all traffic, including any unsolicited incoming traffic from e.g. hackers looking for a vulnerable system. This gives rise to a certain amount of background noise but is normally only KBytes rather than MBytes.

[#9]

Maxviz - I've just worked out what has been bothering me about your thread, and it is this...
...Why has it taken 6 months for you to raise this query?

[#10]

its over an accumulation of a 6 month period the OP id querying

[#11]

Hi again. Reading some of the replies I'm not sure people are getting my point. Let me recap..........If you received a bill suddenly from plusnet that was significantly higher than your normal monthly charge, would you query it? Yes of course you would. So when you query it plusnet tell you its because you have downloaded a significant amount of data for that month. So you say 'but there is no way I have downloaded that amount of data' and plusnet say 'well it says here that you have so you must have done'. I think people are missing the point here and that is that plusnet are not able to tell you what you have been downloading it on, whether rightly or wrongly. Nobody would take a car to a garage with a problem with the engine and when fixed get a bill for ££££ significantly more than you expected, and just accept that it was for repairing your engine. You would expect to know what the money had been spent on! I have said before and I will say again I am not trying to rubbish pn, I find them very professional on the whole and significantly better than the other providers, however I am concerned that there is perhaps an area where an anomaly exists that needs to be addressed.

[#12]

I'm confused. When did you get the first bill for extra usage and now much was it for?

[#13]

They will be able to tell how much traffic your router transferred and with the DPI what type of traffic it was but beyond that they won't have any detail.
As I said earlier get them to check there isn't a duplicate session somewhere, but if there isn't then it's likely that you really did download that data.
160GB over 6 months isn't a lot these-days and more and more apps call home to auto update in the background.

[#14]

The only thing you can do is to measure the usage yourself and then compare this with the usage PN are claiming
As suggested in the third post in this thread http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,122956.msg1066968.html#msg1066968 you can install something like Networx
http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/ which (if you run it on all computers) will give you the numbers you need.

[#15]

Quote

As I said earlier get them to check there isn't a duplicate session somewhere, but if there isn't then it's likely that you really did download that data.

There isn't a duplicate session. I've already checked the raw data in comparison with the displayed data and these match, so I'm confident this has been attributed correctly.
I've just checked over your account and can see that every month we've sent you an email advising that you're getting close to the usage allowance on your account, this includes information on how to limit the spend. We also emailed you each time we added additional usage.