Hey guys,
So first of all - I live with my little brother, we’re both in our 20s. We watch streams here and there, we both own a smart TV, watch Youtube here and there, we both own PCs, and phones which are in the WIFI most of the time.
We’re not streaming / gaming 24/7, but more like a 3-4 hour gaming session every few days in the evening, maybe some Youtube here and there.
We don’t download huge games, we don’t upload anything at all, besides maybe an image here and there, or some videos over Whatsapp.
Today I checked my router because I feel like my internet’s just weird for whatever reason. I then found the “data usage” section on my router, and was kinda… surprised.
1.650.000MB of data used in the last month, 1,500,000MB this month, download. Upload, around 500,000MB last month, 450,000MB this month.
Let me mention that we’re running a 100mbit/s connection, with 50mbit/s upload.
Isn’t this weird for some reason? We’re not huge gamers, we live alone, this is our router, and nobody else is in it. We just enjoy watching streams in the evening, mostly just Youtube, and that’s it already.
This seems very high. You can get IP scanners which will tell you what devices are using your network, might be worth having a look and seeing if you can identify them all
Easiest thing to do is to change your wifi password. If someone happened to have figured out your password, they might be adding to your usage. If that fixes your issue, then you can likely assume someone was getting a free ride from you. If not, then you can check data usage on your devices and see if there is an app or something consuming a lot of data in the background from your regular usage.
If you’re downloading a lot of shows or games often, not too bad.
But wtf are you uploading? Are you sure neither of you are YouTube content creators?
More likely explanation is someone leeching off your wifi.
Definetly on the high side, my house has 2 tv’s a game console, 4 computers, 3 smartphones, and 3 servers (with 1 being a nas), and we’re clocking in at around 800GB down and 200GB up a month (3 people)
First thing I would do is look at the client list (or DHCP list) to see if there’re any devices that have connected you don’t recognize.
2nd, change your wifi passphrase and reconnect only your known devices.
If your router has detailed logging as a feature, enable it so you can see which client is the most chatty going forward, and check next month to see if traffic died down. If not, check the logs to see which client was responsible.