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charlieg wrote: Michael,
I understand what you are suggesting - a single point - which is what I thought I had. This is my setup:
Wall -> cable coax -> Cable modem (mine btw) -> router -> every other device in the house.
I'm measuring at the router point. The frustrating thing is that they don't even bother to listen to the data. I'll keep the beating as a last resort. 
You do have a single point in the router, and since it is yours it is probably more reliable than if it was cable company supplied. But it is still a black box and will be limited in what information it will provide.
The proxy server is obviously more work and if you use Squid (or whatever the new thing is now) it is open source and able to get what information you need.
In the end though, you are stuffed as you say the cable company are not listening to you anyway. Maybe you should build a home made digital clock and take it down to them.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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I have a Linux box sitting in my closet somewhere. Leftover from my days of attempting to build my own web filter. It was easier to just take laptops and tablets away. Even so, I'm sure it still runs, has Ubuntu, so we should be close.
The router goes okay, but if I want pure customization, I have to flash it with dd-wrt or tomato.
Stuffed is what's pissing me off. If I were using the data, I would pay for the data. In a prescient moment, I left my old UVerse connection on for a month or two. I just disconnected the router from the cable modem and to the UVerse box. We'll see what happens to the usage then muahahaa
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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charlieg wrote: I'll keep the beating as a last resort.
It's Comcast. The beating needs to be the 1st resort, and the 3rd, and the 4th...
CPallini wrote: You cannot argue with agile people so just take the extreme approach and shoot him.
:Smile:
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charlieg wrote: I'll keep the beating as a last resort.
Maxim 6[^]: If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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charlieg wrote: Wall -> cable coax -> Cable modem (mine btw) -> router -> every other device in the house.
I fought a similar battle with Cox a few years ago and I implemented a SmoothWall as my single access path from my LAN to the Cox WAN network
Wall -> Cable Model -> SmoothWall PC -> Linksys Router -> Every other device in the house
In my case, I discovered that the Cox usage figures were accurate. Before I stood up the Smoothwall router/firewall PC between my LAN and WAN I had my Linksys Router connected directly to the cable modem and quickly determined the Linksys bandwidth monitoring was way off, by an enormous amount (like 50 GB of usage or so during my first month of analysis).
Like others mentioned, a Squid proxy server or a firewall PC (SmoothWall, PfSense, etc) sitting between your LAN and WAN is the only accurate way to measure bandwidth utilization.
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Comcast is the devil!
There are two types of people in this world: those that pronounce GIF with a soft G, and those who do not deserve to speak words, ever.
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You mentioned three times about changing passwords. I assume that was to keep unauthorized users off. Is that outsiders or family members?
charlieg wrote: ...but nothing to absurd levels - calculating the daily rate, we're averaging 150 GB / month.
You need to do this on a daily basis. In other words, instead of gathering a few days's usage and extrapolating that out to a full month (e.g., a 100MB difference per day would result in a 3GB difference for the month), you need to monitor each connection for a day and compare that to your ISP's numbers for the same time period. Narrowing the scope down like that will help you to zero in on why your usage numbers differ from theirs.
The only other thing I could suggest would be to tighten the rein on family members. That shouldn't be too hard to do.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Outside users. The router is setup as a secure WIFI. Password has been changed twice in the last two weeks. This weekend, I will restrict access to only MAC addresses I recognize (that's about as tight as you can get). However, I can see the list of MAC addresses accessing my router. There are only 3 that I have no identified. I think one is a roku, another is a phone, and another is a tablet somewhere. But they are not using any data.
Agreed on the sampling. Has been started.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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It has been my experience that the default settings for a Comcast modem is to have an unsecured WiFi presence called xfinitywifi. If that hole isn't plugged, then you may have traffic that bypasses your router.
Fletcher Glenn
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jschell wrote: That is in fact a specifically a selling point of xfinity.
Yes, but the real question is whether or not the xfinitywifi traffic adds to his total usage.
Fletcher Glenn
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"family members" - I have a fairly technically literate 18 yo. She's the main bw hog (my opinion). But her router #s are not unreasonable. I have a theory that Comcast gives extra credit to any streaming service that isn't from them. Just a theory.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Before investing much energy into wrong direction, take them here[^]
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning
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good link! I'll save it.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Do you have X1? Most of the system is very web dependent, especially the DVR.
I just got X1 about 4 weeks ago. No problems but I also haven't tracked the data usage yet on the new system. Now you've got me curious. I used to use about 350GB a month before the switch so I have a good baseline to look at.
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I do, and this is what Comcast "says":
Will live TV and/or XFINITY On Demand streaming on the XFINITY TV app or XFINITY TV website (xtv.comcast.net) count against my XFINITY Internet data usage threshold?
No. Live TV and select XFINITY On Demand streaming does not count against your Internet data usage threshold. Streaming XFINITY TV Go On Demand content, however, will count against your Internet data usage.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Yeah, that's live TV and select OnDemand streaming. You don't see a reference to DVR in there, do you? 
Also, the last time I looked at my bill, there was a message that said the data caps we not being enforced.
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I'll check. We use the DVR heavily but not from a remote location. The way they have our house wired - we have cable that comes to my office -> cable modem. Also cable that goes to DVR and another set top box, so cable protocol, no Ethernet.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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When you DVR something, it's actually being recorded "in the cloud", not on your local box. Play that back and you're using data.
You'll have to verify that, but I think that's what's going on.
[EDIT]
Well, I guess I was wrong. I just found this:
Quote: Does the functionality enabled by X1 DVR with Cloud Technology count against the XFINITY Internet data usage threshold?
Downloading and/or streaming DVR recordings, live TV or XFINITY On Demand content will not count against your Internet data usage threshold if you are connected to your in-home XFINITY network. However, if you choose to stream or download DVR recordings outside of the home, this may count against your data usage threshold.
modified 17-Sep-15 12:42pm.
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote: When you DVR something, it's actually being recorded "in the cloud", not on your local box.
Is that really true? If so, that's yet another reason to shy away from cloud services.
I do NOT want anyone, neither the cable company nor authorities, to have the facilities to monitor which movies I am watching, when I watch them, and how many times I watch them. (It is bad enough with the facilites for tracing which movies I am buying! I prefer to pay for DVDs in cash, over the counter...)
I do NOT want to risk that my movies (or music or photos) suddenly becomes inaccessible because someone in the Establishment points out, say, that one of the actors has declared himself as a communist. (I do have a collection of Chaplin movies...) Or that "for the protection of the children", a photo of my baby daughter at the changing table must be removed within 48 hours, or my account will be closed down.
I DO want to have full access to my movies, music and photos even if my cable connection experiences an 'excavator error', or the switching center experiences a power down, or if the cloud server is overloaded. If I go on vacation, bringing my portable, I want to have access to music and other entertainment on the trip, even when visiting places where 'cable' is something that carries AC only and the only wireless is the AM radio.
Nowadays, the disk costs for storing a movie is in the range of ten US cents - even less if you buy an internal disk for your desktop (rather than an external disk for your portable). That gives you privacy, reliability, independence of the network, stable quality, no risk of loss due to the contents of the movies or photos. No monthly fee - those 10cents/movie is a one-time fee.
Is there any real reason for using the cloud storage for anything? I can see a single one: I handle that by keeping a duplicate of my disk(s) at the office, in case my house burns down.
So: No cloud service for me!
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It comes in handy when your recording something and the box crashes and restarts in the middle of the recording. When the box comes back up there's no break in the recording at all.
Member 7989122 wrote: Is there any real reason for using the cloud storage for anything?
Yeah. I save whatever I want and can access the content from anywhere and I don't have to carry around anything other than my phone.
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Might be too late for that... data is collected so universally. Cash might work. I have a recommendation for a Voyager Air. Looks pretty slick.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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charlieg wrote: Might be too late for that... data is collected so universally.
Toll roads give such huge discounts for those that accept being traced (that is, charged to that chip glued to your windshield), and it is so convenient just driving on board that ferry, or whatever. So they do know roughly where my car is at any time - or at least when it last passed a toll station or used a ferry. And they can roughly tell where my mobile is located.
But my mobile is a simple GSM phone - no GPS, no smartphone with apps reporting my GPS position continously. I even tend to leave my phone at home when I visit friends, or turn it completely off when I bring it for emergency use (such as on mountain hikes). I do pay in cash whenever possible, and essentially avoid discount cards from chain stores - even if you pay in cash, they make a record of your preferred toothpaste and the amount of beer you buy; I don't want them to file such data about me! I do not have any Facebook or Twitter account (nor was I in Second Life a few years ago) and avoid any discussion fora requesting more than a semi-anonoymous email address. I am right now setting up another computer that I will use for most of my writing and photo/video editing; it will be off net. The old, net connected computer will solely be used for network communication, with no private information on that machine.
When I cannot keep my location private, such as when I'm driving on toll roads, I might as well use my plastic card at the gas station; that doesn't reveal more than they already know. My employer can tell that I come to work every day, so I let my GSM tells the same. But I believe that I have managed to reduce my electronic traces to a couple magnitudes less than the typical careless, young person today.
Maybe I am paranoid. Still they might be after me...
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Well, I did a test yesterday. I still have my uverse service, so I unplugged from the Comcast cable modem. Network usage dropped to zero, and that is after watching multiple recorded shows.
Rough conclusion? The dvr is not counted against your data cap.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I currently with Comcast and my family (2 adults, 4 teenagers) consistently uses about 400 GB each month, however Comcast has never enforced their cap on us (which is only 250 GB according to my account info). Been with them a few years now and I use them for TV, internet, and phones.
Their internet speed is great compared to other alternatives I've used such as AT&T. But I've found their internet is not as reliable as I would like. It goes down about once a week (and I hear about it from everyone in the family when it happens). Usually requires me to pull the router battery and power cable to reset it.
In this age of cell phones, I've decided using Comcast for phone service is stupid, however my wife does not want to give up the "home" phone number. 
I'm currently undecided about their TV services. I love the search feature to find shows, and the on demand services are pretty good. But the X1 platform is buggy as hell, and the DVR hardware is slow. I hate pressing a button on the remote and then waiting a couple of seconds to see if anything happens on the screen. I just don't have enough patience to use their equipment. Whoever designed their software needs to be fired before they do any more damage. Popup screens with an OK button that takes over the whole system for a couple of seconds? Seriously? Just add a status string at the bottom of the screen so I can get back to my show. The DVR freezes up often (at least once a month) and requires a "hard" boot to reset the DVR by pulling the power cable and then waiting five minutes for the damn thing to start up again. Seems like that always happens right in the middle of a sporting event I'm watching. I've talked to Comcast service a couple of times now about these issues and though they are very friendly, they are pretty much useless. Nothing has changed since I've been with them.
I'd say there's a good chance I'll be dumping Comcast when my current contract is up. But who to switch to? I've been with AT&T, DirectTV, and DishNet. They all suck...that's why I keep switching. I've just about decided to switch to a local company for my internet, dump the internet phones (she'll get over it), and go to on demand services for TV (AppleTV or Amazon Fire or something similar). I'll miss my sports but some of those are on demand now and more will be that way in the future. One thing for sure, no more contracts. I'm sick of those.
-NP
Never underestimate the creativity of the end-user.
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