Monitor internet usage

NTL is gradually upgrading all its 512K customers to 1Mb, but I’ve discovered that it intends to place a 1GB cap on this service. I was advised that from any time now users will be told by some method that they are getting close to their monthly usage figure.

Is there any software that will enable me to check my usage without having to wait for NTL’s ‘final’ warning? I have a router feeding two PCs at a room, and it could well be that either of the PC’s will receive the message, and not pass it on to the one that counts: the bill payer.

I checked NTL’s offers some time back, and it looks like it will be capping 1MB users to 3GB a month. It also claims that it will be providing ‘capabilities’ that enable NTL users to quickly check their Iage at any given time, not just when the warning message appears. If you do exceed this limit you’ll have three options: either upgrade to a higher tariff, pay for the additional bandwidth or use the service at a ‘lower’ speed (it doesn’t say what speed this will be).

There are quite a few programs out there that can monitor Internet usage for you. One free, simple tool is Down2Home, which you can download from http://jitserv.coolfreepage.com. It’s simple to install and set up: you can get it to monitor Internet usage over a set period, and even choose a limit that the user is warned about when they get close to it. The major problem is that it only works on one machine, so you’d have to install it on both PCs and monitor them separately using this tool.

One workaround is to set limits at 50 per cent of your monthly allowance for each machine.
The alternative is to invest in a solution that monitors both machines. You’d have to install it on both and it would need to pull Internet usage statistics from both to give you an accurate picture. One such program – with the added benefit of allowing you to restrict online usage based on bandwidth used – is ConnTroll, which costs US$38 for a three-user license. However, you can go ahead and download a fully functional 30-day trial from www.winglink.com/conntroll/.

As NTL has hinted that it will be providing these capabilities, though, you might prefer to muddle along with Down2Home for now and see how you get on.