What could cause sudden increase in upload amount????

Ariell · Jun 19th, 2012, 06:28 PM

Hi. I use Bell internet and have a 65 Gb cap which is normally more than enough. This past month we got a bill with a $40 overuse charge (!) So I went in and looked at the monthly usage amount and we used about 35 GB downloading and 50 GB uploading. I looked at our bills for the past 6 months and maximum uploading has always been 2 GB or less. What could be causing this big increase??

We don't specifically upload anything like movies, photos etc. so I have no idea how our usage could jump so much. On some days, we apparently uploaded over 2GB which is the maximum that we've used in a whole month. I spent almost an hour on the phone with Bell and they weren't able to explain much. Apparently no one else is using our service. They suggested it might be a virus (although the 4th person that I got transferred to suggested it might be torrents. As far as I'm aware, we're not using torrents.) Is there anything else that could cause the upload amount to jump so high.??

Joker Eh · Jun 19th, 2012, 07:14 PM

What devices do you have? Do you have an iPhone ? Could you or someone in the house be backing up the idevices to the iCloud?

Ariell · Jun 19th, 2012, 07:43 PM

A MacBook, MacBook Pro, netbook and a Samsung Galaxy phone. I've never used iCloud and neither has my husband. I use Remote Desktop Connection on my MacBook to remotely access and upload files for work but they're only Word documents (reports) and just a few times a month, maybe once a week.

macintosh doctor · Jun 19th, 2012, 07:46 PM

Check the logs in your router - most decent router have logs of useage by device and places visited.
Also I would turn off or block ads
Try to see if any one is backing up to iCloud or photo stream which useless and I disabled it.
Also have you reinstalled your OS a few times ? Since everything apple does is net based
This happened to me once was never charged but I turned off my Rogers modem over night and it cleared the cache on it.
That was the best tip I got from Rogers.

macintosh doctor · Jun 19th, 2012, 07:47 PM

Oh be sure to turn off and disconnect from the remote connection properly
Or the meter runs all the time

Ariell · Jun 19th, 2012, 08:01 PM

Thanks so much for the advice macintosh doctor! I think I always log out of RDC properly but I'll definitely keep an eye on that. I didn't realize that it still keeps running if you don't log off . There's only me and my husband and neither of even know how to use iCloud (!) I haven't reinstalled the OS ever. Sorry but I have no idea how to check the logs on the router or to disable ads. Could you give me an idea how to get started with that?

G-Mo · Jun 19th, 2012, 09:02 PM

Reinstalling your OS isn't going cause your UPLOAD to increase. Lol!

Done any torrent downloading? Left it seeding afterwards? Popular item?

JCCanuck · Jun 19th, 2012, 09:44 PM

Do you do a lot to TV or movie streaming on your computer? Like even watching Netflix on your xbox or playstation would do it. I had to upgrade our bandwidth usage because I had two kids watching lots of netflix stuff and streaming TV shows on the laptops.

G-Mo · Jun 19th, 2012, 09:51 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by JCCanuck
	Do you do a lot to TV or movie streaming on your computer? Like even watching Netflix on your xbox or playstation would do it. I had to upgrade our bandwidth usage because I had two kids watching lots of netflix stuff and streaming TV shows on the laptops.

Would not cause a sudden increase in UPLOAD!?

JCCanuck · Jun 19th, 2012, 09:58 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by G-Mo
	Would not cause a sudden increase in UPLOAD!?

Ooops misread that one, thanks!