How do you monitor up/down Internet usage on a dial-up connection?

November 10, 2009 3:38 PM

Rural Internet Connection: I need help with gauging current data use before investing in mobile broadband.

So, like 4% of American homes, my parents have no access to broadband Internet service. The valley they live in is technically covered by Verizon 3G, and my dad is considering erecting his own cellular repeater. (He's a mountain goat, so I'm not worried about him running cable up 200ft of hillside.) We've already been assured that you can use 3rd party equipment to rebroadcast 3G service directly in the house.

We totally get how the repeater works and is set up.

Here's the real problem: How the hell do you know if you're using 5GB of Internet access in a month? I understand there might be monitoring software out there, but I don't know what it's called. Looking for "monitoring software" leads to software teaching you how to snoop on other people's browsing habits. I just need to know how much data they're pulling down and sending up in a given 30-day period. I want them to have better Internet access (instead of 28.8 kbps) and access to phone service during fire season (lots of things related to the phone lines get burned). He's not going to spend $600-$800 on repeater equipment if I can't make this a watertight presentation.

Anyone know of any good candidates? Remember: this is dial-up. I can't configure a router to monitor or help me monitor their usage.

Thank you!

posted by fujiko to technology (10 comments total)

There's plenty of bandwidth monitoring software out there. NetStat Live is what I've used in the past and it was simple to use. It can tell you how much you've uploaded and downloaded in the past month.

Just for fun and to help your estimates, 28.8kbps flat out for 30 days without stopping is 8.9 gigabytes.
posted by zsazsa at 3:58 PM on November 10, 2009

Googling "broadband usage meter" or "download meter" brings up plenty of apps that'll monitor & log total use. Don't worry about the 'broadband' part of the description; almost all will monitor the dialup ppp interface just as well as an ethernet / wireless interface.

I'd link a few - but since Google insists on providing Australian results to me first, & most of those are aimed at comparing the locally-logged volume against the ISPs on-line metering page, they're probably of limited use to you. A generic one like NET meter should do fine.
posted by Pinback at 4:06 PM on November 10, 2009

Thank you both! It was the broadband label that was tripping me up.
posted by fujiko at 5:15 PM on November 10, 2009

You may also want to check out Millenicom - they re-sell Verizon and have unlimited plans for $70/month. I use their 5GB service (used to be unlimited) and have been really happy with them.
posted by jenh at 5:58 PM on November 10, 2009

I've had good luck with DU Meter for tracking download/upload totals.
posted by reptile at 7:41 PM on November 10, 2009

I have a smart phone on verizon and I'm able to log onto my account online and see my phone minute, txt message and data consumption as soon as I log on. They should have this for an aircard/mifi as well.
There is also a data counter in the Verizon Access Manager application.

You can still have your own bandwidth tracking application, but it is best to know what the company thinks you're using.
posted by ijoyner at 9:25 PM on November 10, 2009

If it's for just one PC, I second Netstat Live, it will monitor your choice of PPP or Ethernet interfaces. If it was for myself, 5GB a month is a pretty low quota.

I'd get a second POTS line for $30 a month and a $25 unlimited dialup account, leave it connected 24x7 and max out that downstream.. 4.5KB/s for 30 days is a decent amount of data. That's the setup I suggested for my mother who recently moved to an area that is devoid of DSL, cablemodem or wireless local loop options. She is not going to pay $300-400 for equipment + $95/month+ for a small VSAT terminal.

For people who need to download big things from a dialup and use Firefox, check out the downthemall extension which is extremely helpful in setting up queues of files, moving files around in a queue, resuming HTTP GETs, and so forth. With it I can grab things like the 400MB+ OSX10.6.2 patch from even a shoddy 128kbit VSAT in the third world.
posted by thewalrus at 10:22 PM on November 10, 2009

Reptile has the correct answer.

You want DU Meter.

You can set it to keep track of total bandwidth per day, per week, per month, etc. Plus it will show you realtime stats.
posted by crazyray at 11:07 PM on November 10, 2009

What router do you have? IF you have a linksys you can put on dd-wrt and it will tell you the bandwidth of everything put together that comes through the router.
posted by majortom1981 at 4:36 AM on November 11, 2009

We also live in the country and use Verizon 3G. ijoyner has it right - the Verizon software has a bandwidth usage meter built in. The data can be up to 24 hours old, though. You can watch your connection speed in real time, too. We have a USB modem that we swap between our two computers, no router needed. If you're not heavily into downloading the 5GB a month is more than enough.
posted by rfs at 1:40 PM on November 11, 2009