Need help from people in the know about spikes in excess data usage

[roseworthy11]

Hi all - any help would be greatly appreciated. I have a Telstra 4G NETGEAR USB wireless connector for my internet. I have been connecting with wireless USB sticks for years. With this new one, which is still less than 12 months old, I took out a 15GB a month paln. I have never used up to the 15GB, except for last billing cycle, I used over 18GB and this current billing cycle, will probably use up to 26GB. My data useage has practically doubled in 2 months - I have no idea why. I am doing what I have always done, it is for a single device use only - so it is attached to my lap top. I am the only person in the house. I do spend a lot of time on the internet most days. I spend lots of time on ebay, I use Facebook, Pinterest, look at news sites, do banking and emails. I am not a gamer, I do not down load music or movies, I do not use You Tube etc. I do not backup online or store my data off sight. Of course, Telstra are charging me an astronomical fee for the excess data usage. I have spent inordinate amounts of time in the last week or so on the phone to them - being passed from pillar to post. All they want to do is sell me data packs and increase my plan - they are not interested in helping me find out why my data useage has increased to double in 2 months. Some kind person on facebook has told me to try Kaspersky internet security as this will give me the information about what sites are chewing up my data. For example, this morning when I logged on, I opened 4 Comsec pages, a weather page, the pay pal page, a NAB page and the pinchme page. I did some internet banking, then went to check my session log - a whopping 267MB had been downloaded in 11 minutes and 6MB uploaded. As soon as I disconnected, and since reconnected, there isn't that level of data useage. I have Norton 360 installed and as far as I know, I have no viruses. 

I am really p****d off that Telstra are only interested in selling me data packs or try and increase my plan when I all want is help to find out what is going wrong. 

Any help suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated, thank you.

[cq_tech]

It is possible that somebody nearby has hacked into your WiFi network and is piggy-backing on your signal. That would account for an unexplained doubling of data usage, so I suggest you change your router's logon passcode and see if that makes any difference in the short term.

Also, while 3G is slower, it costs a hell of a lot less than 4G so it might also be worth switching back to 3G and see if that reduces your data charges, as the ISPs really stick it up you when you exceed you plan limit.

[amber-eyed-girl]

I would be inclined to agree with cq. Sounds like someone else might be using your data by accessing your wifi. Yes, change your password for your wifi, change your password for the router (as a lot of people leave it as the default), and you should also be able to limit access to your wifi by MAC addresses.

That means you find the setting to limit access to only specific MAC addresses, as another level of blocking unwelcome users, and only allow the MAC address of your computer/mobile devices.

Each of these has a unique one, to find where to get it, just google how to for that device.

To find how to limit your wifi by MAC address, google that and your router model 🙂

You can also have a "hidden" network name, so it isn't going to be seen by anyone not authorised to use it. That will be a setting in your router settings like the MAC address limiting.

[roseworthy11]

thanks for that, I appreciate your time and advice.

[roseworthy11]

thank you - I'm glad there's people out there willing to share their advice

[cq_tech]

You're more than welcome. I just hope that's all your problem is but I'm sure we would both be extremely interested to learn if changing your passwords solves the problem, if you wouldn't mind popping back in and letting us know.