Broadband usage meter for desktop+laptop using same router

markjbloggs

Hi,

is there a meter that can calculate broadband usage at the router rather than seperately at a desktop or a laptop. I use both frequently from the same router. With Eircom getting pissy about exceeding their ridiculously low 30 GB limit, I need something that can monitor total usage in real time.

thank you

Knasher

You would need to buy a new router in order to get something like that. I'd imagine that some routers would have it built in, but I'd recommend any router that can run custom firmware like DD Wrt which has a usage meter built in.

Bruno2010

markjbloggs wrote: »

Hi,

is there a meter that can calculate broadband usage at the router rather than seperately at a desktop or a laptop. I use both frequently from the same router. With Eircom getting pissy about exceeding their ridiculously low 30 GB limit, I need something that can monitor total usage in real time.

thank you

The eircom broadband usage meter measures traffic like this ... www.eircom.net/usagemeter

Knasher

Bruno2010 wrote: »

The eircom broadband usage meter measures traffic like this ... www.eircom.net/usagemeter

I'm open to correction on this, but are you sure that the data on that is collected in real time, as per the OPs request.

markjbloggs

This meter seems to only track the total download, and is basically the same as what is displayed on their support site (ie totally useless) - what I need is to track the individual components (laptop, desktop etc) that use the router in one location.

Bruno2010

Knasher wrote: »

I'm open to correction on this, but are you sure that the data on that is collected in real time, as per the OPs request.

Hi, it's up to date within 3hrs

Bruno2010

markjbloggs wrote: »

This meter seems to only track the total download, and is basically the same as what is displayed on their support site (ie totally useless) - what I need is to track the individual components (laptop, desktop etc) that use the router in one location.

Hi,

collects both upload and download ... if you're looking to have it broken out by IP (or device) then no this widget will not do that for you. What it will do is measure all usage on your eircom NGB Broadband account from any devices that use the service .. and display back to you as a total

markjbloggs

Bruno2010 wrote: »

Hi,

collects both upload and download ... if you're looking to have it broken out by IP (or device) then no this widget will not do that for you. What it will do is measure all usage on your eircom NGB Broadband account from any devices that use the service .. and display back to you as a total

Thanks, Bruno - I was looking for IP level detail. Not exactly brain surgery, surely....

vibe666

markjbloggs wrote: »

Thanks, Bruno - I was looking for IP level detail. Not exactly brain surgery, surely....

you'd be surprised.

it is (apparently, not tried myself) *possible* to set it up with ddwrt, although you'll need to know your way around the linux command line to get it working (unless there's been a recent update that added it to the gui, but i don't think so).

it's probably easier to set it up on a router that supports the tomato firmware from what i've read, but again it's not exactly simple to do either.

ideally, either way you'd still need a router & firmware that supports mounting additional filesystems like usb, sd cards or a network share, altho that would require a pc on 24/7 for it to save your bandwidth logs.

personally, i have tomato running on a linksys wrt54gs v4 saving my logs to a cifs share on my nas, but i have never needed to break down my usage to individual machines so i haven't looked into it that much although i do remember reading that people have been trying to get it to work with varying levels of success and that it's pretty much a total a PITA to get working on any router in either ddwrt or tomato.

another option might be a router that supports gargoyle which is a relatively new firmware that does (apparently, i've not used it as i'm more than happy with tomato) allow bandwidth monitoring and allocation on a per-machine basis, but caveat emptor on that one, i can't vouch for how well it works at all or that it wouldn't kill your new router (if you got one).

if you don't want to buy a new router at all and fancy the free option, you could enable snmp on all your pc's and set up some kind of monitoring software as a VM applicance like nagios or cacti that you can set up easily enough to monitor all network usage (and anything else supported by snmp) although i can't vouch for how accurate that might be in practice either.

markjbloggs

To follow up on this, I am still having excess usage problems on my Eircom router. So, to correct this, I am hoping to restrict the perpetrators access to wireless.

Is it possible to disable wireless only on the Eircom router while still allowing ethernet to function?

bhickey

markjbloggs wrote: »

Is it possible to disable wireless only on the Eircom router while still allowing ethernet to function?

Yes. Just login to the router and disable wireless or change the wireless key without telling anyone.