He downloaded 47GB in 2 weeks!?!?!?!

Johnny Bitte

Hi all,
Just need to get some advice on a situation that has come in a place im renting.

I got in a 3 mb BT DSL package a couple of months ago with a 30 gig download limit on it.

Recently a new house mate moved in and I said I would allow him to share the connection which was working fine until Monday when I came back from been home and the connection was extremely slow.

He comes to me and says it been like this all weekend and could i contact BT to find out whats going on.

Turns out we went over our limit, 50.6 downloaded and 27.9 uploaded since the 1st of June. This was the 16th.

I called him up on it tonight and he says he didnt realise there was a limit (even tho i had told him so) and that he downloaded 47 Gigs of his favouraite tv show and that he is sorry.

At first i was just stunned and let it go now I pissed and freakin out.

47 ****ing gigs. How the **** did he manage that.

Any way the questions.

1. Should I as the owner of the connection be worried about what this guy has and is downloading from a legal stand point?

2. I use a Netopia router, is there any way of throttling his traffic or at least monitoring his useage?

3.Will BT bill the **** out of me for this?

4.It is suppose to come back to normal on the first and I am on hols that week so wont be using the connection here.I want to see if he uses a lot and he does it again do you think I m right to tell him to get lost and cut him off?

I ve locked out the router and set up a mac filter but I am raging with the little ****.

47GIG

Giblet

Legally, you probably shouldn't worry, but if his usage results in you being throttled? I'd cut him off to be honest.

They won't bill you for going over it. To be honest, it's not really that much over the cap, I'm surprised you were throttled.

Bill him for half the connection!

admol

If i were you i'd cut him off competely. 47 gig in two weeks is taking the piss since its in your name. It is you who would be responible from a legal point and if BT were ever to decide to charge you. Let him get his own connection and download what he likes

Edit: That upload is awfully high. You should be a lot more worried about high upload versus download.

Phlann

Hold your horses there, kids. No reason to go mental at the guy just yet.

It was pretty stupid and inconsiderate, but it's an honest mistake, he apologised and the last thing you want to do is create a difficult living situation by harbouring animosity towards him over something so small.

Best course of action is to tell him that you're not comfortable with him downloading copyrighted material, that the connection is in your name and if the **** ever hit the fan you'd be the one footing the bill. Possibly long after he's moved out. Tell him if he's not happy with that he shouldn't use the connection or he should get his own one (if NTL are available in your area he should be able to get their product, independent of your BT connection).

This post was sponsored by Love For Your Fellow Man (TM)

edit: By the way, BT's unofficial cap is actually 100GB, not the 30 they advertise and it works over a rolling 30-day time period, not the calendar month. So he probably downloaded another 50 gigs before June 1st.

Thought you might like to know that

challengemaster

How did he manage it? uh.. quite easily tbh. 3mb line = 300~kbps

If you're getting full speed on torrents then it probably wouldnt take that long. You could download probably about 6 gigs a day easy

Fremen

MAC filtering is NOT secure: MAC addresses can be sniffed from wireless packets, and a machine's address can be changed pretty easily.

Ask him to pay the bill if it turns out to be astronomical. In my opinion, it's unreasonable to monitor his usage. I'm sure you wouldn't want anyone looking over your shoulder while you surfed.

Phlann

Fremen wrote: »

Ask him to pay the bill if it turns out to be astronomical.

It won't, I'm with BT and they've never charged for exceeding the cap (yet).

PeakOutput

i use rapidshare and iv downloaded 25gb in one night when getting tv shows i doubt he downloaded anything illegal and they have a record of the ip id imagine so dont worry about it just get him to get his own line

smellslikeshoes

PeakOutput wrote: »

i use rapidshare and iv downloaded 25gb in one night when getting tv shows i doubt he downloaded anything illegal and they have a record of the ip id imagine so dont worry about it just get him to get his own line

What so downloading TV shows from rapidshare is legal:rolleyes:?

ShoulderChip

yeah cause he pays like 5 dollars a year so of course it is,

//sarcasm

PeakOutput

ok well dont quote me on this but i was told by a reliable sourse that once a tv programme has been aired on public television it is in the public domain and free to be recorded copied completely legally so its on that basis i say dont worry about it

edit; either way i should have used punctuation to divide my point about rapidshare and downloading legally

AlmightyCushion

PeakOutput wrote: »

ok well dont quote me on this but i was told by a reliable sourse that once a tv programme has been aired on public television it is in the public domain and free to be recorded copied completely legally so its on that basis i say dont worry about it

Just to let you know that isn't true.

AntiRip

Well to download torrents you need a specified port open on your router, well for good speeds anyways. Just close this port on your router and change your login password. Get something like Network Magic or some other traffic monitoring software. You're not spying on his surfing, just monitoring the amount of traffic up/down once a week. He's not a criminal, he probably went mental with the novelty of it. We can all surely remember the first time we got broadband

ongarite

PeakOutput wrote: »

ok well dont quote me on this but i was told by a reliable sourse that once a tv programme has been aired on public television it is in the public domain and free to be recorded copied completely legally so its on that basis i say dont worry about it

Was it Lionel Hutz!

WEST

Phlann wrote: »

It won't, I'm with BT and they've never charged for exceeding the cap (yet).

I have only a 2mb BT connection and I went over my tiny 20GB limit twice and both times I was charged for going over the cap.

OP if you want to check your usage for BT, just use the following link:

http://broadband.iol.ie/usage/

Auvers

WEST wrote: »

I have only a 2mb BT connection and I went over my tiny 20GB limit twice and both times I was charged for going over the cap[/URL]

can you put up a scan of your bill? I would like to see it as its the first time i have ever heard of BT charging, and I go over my cap every month for the last 3 years I always average about 90 down 60 up and I have never been charged.

jor el

The_Goose135 wrote: »

47 ****ing gigs. How the **** did he manage that.

At 3Mbps, you'd be able to do about 28GB in 24 hours, so 47GB in two weeks isn't unpossible.

The_Goose135 wrote: »

1. Should I as the owner of the connection be worried about what this guy has and is downloading from a legal stand point?

Yes. IRMA have already prosecuted people for uploading large volumes of music, and with 27GB uploaded on your account you should at least be worried about that. If there was lots of music in that, you could have popped up on the radar. As the owner of the connection, you'd be responsible for it too.

The_Goose135 wrote: »

2. I use a Netopia router, is there any way of throttling his traffic or at least monitoring his useage?

Not on a cheap router, I don't think.
Actually, that's not quite true. If he has port forwarding configured, to forward certain file sharing ports to his machine, then remove these and it will reduce his maximum speeds. Won't stop it, but can be fairly effective in slowing him down. After doing this, change the router access password so he can't set them back.

The_Goose135 wrote: »

3.Will BT bill the **** out of me for this?

They shouldn't do. They've throttled your connection now, so that should be it.

The_Goose135 wrote: »

4.It is suppose to come back to normal on the first and I am on hols that week so wont be using the connection here.I want to see if he uses a lot and he does it again do you think I m right to tell him to get lost and cut him off?

Tell him to stop with the torrents, if that's what he's at. Also, make him pay the entire bill for June, since he's effectively shutdown your connection on you now. I would go as far as considering stopping him from using it too, though give him next month first to see if he cops on.

Johnny Bitte

Thats what I want to do is give hime a chance to see if he cops the **** on.

**** is it a rolling month or the calendar month with BT?
I take it this means if it is rolling they wont un throttle until July 16th?

He already pays half the bill but this does not give him the right to **** my connection for the month.

The thing is I cant get 3 gigs in a week so he must have done something special.

I dont want to know what he is downloading just how much so I can have proof to cut him off if necessary.

My Da has Digiweb at home and their usage web site give you a day by day account.
The BT one is just to basic to even see what happens at the weekend when I m not there.

WEST

Auvers wrote: »

can you put up a scan of your bill? I would like to see it as its the first time i have ever heard of BT charging, and I go over my cap every month for the last 3 years I always average about 90 down 60 up and I have never been charged.

I will check it tonite, just tried checking my bills online but I can only view the last 6 months. To be honest I hope I misread the bill and that BT do not charge anyone for going over the cap. The 20 GB limit was such a pain.

Are you on the 2mb connection too? If you can download 90 GB on that, Well happy days!

jor el

The_Goose135 wrote: »

**** is it a rolling month or the calendar month with BT?
I take it this means if it is rolling they wont un throttle until July 16th?

BT's cap has always been calculated by calendar month. On the 1st, your usage stats reset to 0. Now, that doesn't mean they'll reset your speed though. On the thread about BT throttling, a lot of people remarked that it took several days past the 1st of the month to get their speeds back up. This could just be laziness on BT's side in not pressing the reset button though. I have never heard of BT using a 30 day rolling cap, like Digiweb do.

Johnny Bitte

jor el wrote: »

BT's cap has always been calculated by calendar month. On the 1st, your usage stats reset to 0. Now, that doesn't mean they'll reset your speed though. On the thread about BT throttling, a lot of people remarked that it took several days past the 1st of the month to get their speeds back up. This could just be laziness on BT's side in not pressing the reset button though. I have never heard of BT using a 30 day rolling cap, like Digiweb do.

Thanks Jor el, guess I ll just have to wait and see.

Gonna have a proper chat with this lad tonight. Dont think I made it as serious a I should have last.

It not as if I dont want him downloading, hell I do some myself but that is just ridiculous.

Thanks for you help with this lads.

Bohrio

The_Goose135 wrote: »

Thats what I want to do is give hime a chance to see if he cops the **** on.

**** is it a rolling month or the calendar month with BT?
I take it this means if it is rolling they wont un throttle until July 16th?

Rolling month

It seems that there is a theorical cap limit (around 100 gb) once you go over it you are throttled. They will unthrottled you once your usage goes below this theorical cap.

Unfortunately the usage tool will not display this information, broadband.iol.ie/usage will only show current month usage, making it a little bit unuseful to be honest.

BT is working on a graphical interface that will show your last 30 days usage but its not ready yet.

So if your usage until the 16th of June was 45 gb and you are being throttled this means that between 16th of May and the 1st of June you or your housemate has downloaded at least 65 gb.

You wont be charged for overuse and I dont think people will, at least for sometime...

Lazarus2.0

I'd make the point that if (as seems likely , given the upload size) he's running a torrent client continuously he is throttling your connection even if BT aren't .
As you are sharing the bill it wouldnt be unreasonable to ask him to refrain from downloading or running torrents for a couple of hours each day or whatever you consider to be your 'prime-time' .

Johnny Bitte

jor el wrote: »

BT's cap has always been calculated by calendar month. On the 1st, your usage stats reset to 0. N

Bohrio wrote: »

Rolling month

Ah ok, just rang BT and after talking to a 3rd person it will return to normal on the 1st of July.:)

Johnny Bitte

nessyguin wrote: »

I'd make the point that if (as seems likely , given the upload size) he's running a torrent client continuously he is throttling your connection even if BT aren't .
As you are sharing the bill it wouldnt be unreasonable to ask him to refrain from downloading or running torrents for a couple of hours each day or whatever you consider to be your 'prime-time' .

Come to think of my connection has be considerably slow even browsing has been dodgy lately.

Cabaal

Legally its your responsibility as the line is in your name

As for usage, I wouldn't ban him completely to start I;d give him a stern warning and watch the usage again....if he takes the piss again then pull all his access.