Bandwidth Usage - monthly breakdown

[SSK]

As I understand it, the current month total figures on the IDNet customer portal are calculated upto the previous midnight, so the numbers yesterday would not have included yesterday's downloads and woulld not have given me total for Oct. 

I wanted to see my bandwidth usage for the whole of October so I looked again today, but current figures have been zeroed for Nov. So I went to the monthly breakdown and saw only total download and total upload for Oct.

For me it would be much more useful to have the monthly breakdown into total peak-download and total off-peak download, especially as I seem to run close to the allowance. Is there any way to get that from the customer portal? If not, I suppose I could email support? However, as I'd want that information almost every month I'd have to bother them with emails every month.

As uploads don't have an allocation, wouldn't most people be more interested in a peak/off-peak breakdown rather than download/upload breakdown?

Sean

[Rik]

Hi Sean

It's definitely one you'd have to ask IDNet about, as they would have to re-design the portal.

[armadillo]

As I understand it, the current month total figures on the IDNet customer portal are calculated upto the previous midnight, so the numbers yesterday would not have included yesterday's downloads and woulld not have given me total for Oct. 

They do not go up to the previous midnight. They go to the midnight one day before that. e.g. if you look on 24 October, it says the figures cover 22 days to 23 October. "to" in this case means "up to but not including".

I know this because the wording was so confusing that I asked Tech Support about it and this is what they said:

There is a bit of a delay in receiving the stats from BT so, on the 24th we have available the stats covering all day for each of the days up to and including the 22nd through to midnight that day ("up to 23rd"), which is 22 full 24 hours days.

I wanted to see my bandwidth usage for the whole of October so I looked again today, but current figures have been zeroed for Nov. So I went to the monthly breakdown and saw only total download and total upload for Oct.

For me it would be much more useful to have the monthly breakdown into total peak-download and total off-peak download, especially as I seem to run close to the allowance. Is there any way to get that from the customer portal? If not, I suppose I could email support? However, as I'd want that information almost every month I'd have to bother them with emails every month.

It already does break down into peak and off peak. Here is my October usage, from a few minutes ago.



I assume that, since it is now 1 November, those figures go up to but excluding 31 October. i.e. they are for 30 days up to and including 30 October only. I shall check if they increase when I look at the October figures on 2 November, by which time 31 October should be included in the October figures.

Also, at any time you can click that "Download usage stats" button and get a csv file broken down into day by day peak and off peak for the month you chose in the dropdown box.

All I am not sure of is what idnet mean by "gigabyte". I am trying to reconcile their figures with the figures I get from several software based usage monitors. I am finding it hard to work out which gives the closest daily match. i.e is an idnet gigabyte 1024 megabytes, with a megabyte being 1024 kilobytes. Or is an idnet gigabyte 1000 megabytes?

Last month, the usage monitors I used to compare are themselves ambiguous on that issue. I am now using networx too and that, at least, does offer an explicit choice of 1000 or 1024. Speedtest sites and utilities often have the same ambiguity, saying 6megabits when they mean 6000 kilobits.

[Technical Ben]

Hi Sean

It's definitely one you'd have to ask IDNet about, as they would have to re-design the portal.

It is there. I checked mine for oct this morning. As I posted before, I've changed my service for the winter. So I wanted to check out it's still working out cheaper. As I have only gone a little over, it's still working out ok.

Try "Bandwidth usage" then on the drop down list (not the download button) press "oct 2010" and it will show yesterdays figures.

[Edit]
Oh, my daily breakdown also includes "oct 31st" and it seems about right. No idea if yours is not showing.  

[armadillo]

Update:

I just downloaded my csv file for October. 31 October is included there, somewhat to my surprise. The total shown on the screenshot I posted does give the same result as totalling the separate peak and off peak on the csv file from 1 to 31 October inclusive. Possibly, idnet update the month end totals as soon as they get figures from BT, without waiting for the following midnight.

Also, comparing my networx peak and off peak for yesterday 31 October with what it shows on the idnet csv file, it seems that the idnet gigabyte is 1024 megabytes and 1 megabyte is 1024 kilobytes, which is 1024 bytes, as I would hope. Treating the idnet figures like that gives a good match to what networx showed for 31 October.

The tbb meter, on the other hand, shows its figures in what it calls "MB". To match those to the idnet figures, I have to assume that tbb meter is defining MB as a million bytes.

I do wish isps and software developers would make it explicitly clear exactly what definition they are using!

[SSK]

 
Oops!

It is there after all...

Because the dropbox with different months was blow the 'download usage stats' button I incorrectly assumed that the dropbox would only affect the month to be downloaded when the box was clicked on. I didn't see that it actually affected the month displayed at the top of the page!

So it's easy to find the numbers I need once it was pointed out to me.

Sean

[Rik]

Glad you're sorted, Sean. 

[armadillo]

Sean, the great thing about the forum. Much less embarrassing than asking Tech Support by personal email!

[tKe]

I do wish isps and software developers would make it explicitly clear exactly what definition they are using!

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

Unfortunately, the distinction available with MB vs MiB is still not widely accepted throughout the consumer world (however most open source applications will use the correct form, as appropriate).

[Technical Ben]

Sean, the great thing about the forum. Much less embarrassing than asking Tech Support by personal email!

I think I've done that before... at times... over payments... and bills... 

[armadillo]

Good link, tKe. I am not surprised that most of that notation has not caught on! gibibytes is such a weird word.

It would not be much to ask an isp to publish what they themselves mean by what they call a GB though. For example: in usage allowance, "1GB means 1 073 741 824 Bytes". They would then be using gibibytes though the abbreviation GB is for gigabytes. I believe that is what idnet are actually doing. And it is good because you get a few more bytes for your money!

I notice that Microsoft do this when you display the properties of a file or folder. They quote the size in GB or MB and also in bytes. Then there is no ambiguity.

[Rik]

gibibytes is such a weird word.

Not when you've had a few.

[JohnH]

Sean, the great thing about the forum. Much less embarrassing than asking Tech Support by personal email!

As it is, the whole forum knows now 

[Rik]

We're all friends.

[Technical Ben]

Good link, tKe. I am not surprised that most of that notation has not caught on! gibibytes is such a weird word.

It would not be much to ask an isp to publish what they themselves mean by what they call a GB though. For example: in usage allowance, "1GB means 1 073 741 824 Bytes". They would then be using gibibytes though the abbreviation GB is for gigabytes. I believe that is what idnet are actually doing. And it is good because you get a few more bytes for your money!

I notice that Microsoft do this when you display the properties of a file or folder. They quote the size in GB or MB and also in bytes. Then there is no ambiguity.

I don't see it as getting more for your money. Just as being honest.Using decimalisation (thousands and millions) fails to count for overheads and proper computer usage and needs. It's a bit like slices of bread. Do you count the crusts at either end? 

[Rik]

No, Ben, that's way to easy to do, I don't even need to use my fingers.

[armadillo]

Ben, all I mean is that publishing the allowance as GB (and meaning gibibytes) does at least mean that, if you are using a local usage monitor that reports powers of ten type Gigabytes, you will not end up going over your allowance by accident. And your local usage 10-based software would report more bytes than idnet have recorded. I now use networx anyway (thanks to recommendations on this forum), and that offers a full choice between kilo and kibi throughout. But it took a while to establish what type of gig idnet were using.

I see overheads as an entirely different issue that is independent of the choice between power-10 and power-2 arithmetic.

The bread crusts are useful for making breadcrumbs. Throw them into a food blender and you have breadcrumbs to toss your homemade burgers in. Serve with Rik's chips.

[Rik]

Sue's chips. I'm just the eater.

[armadillo]

After all your talk of chips, I made myself some two days running! Can't beat home made chips. No doubt Sue's are even better than mine.

[Rik]

We'll have to meet and compare. What is it about the humble chip which makes it so attractive, yet relatively bad for us. Life's not fair. 

[armadillo]

My chips are good for you. Best quality potato shallow fried in extra virgin olive oil. Yum.

[Rik]

Prove it.