About Me

The Importance of Knowing Internet Service Options

Hello! My name's Cindy. I graduated from college last spring and moved from the dorms to my own apartment. This has been my first experience living alone. While I love living alone, there is so much to learn. I never realized that even simple things like having internet service in your home could be confusing. I made the mistake of not knowing what internet options were available and went with the least expensive provider and service. As it happened, I purchased a plan that gave me 5 gigabytes of bandwidth a month. I didn't know what that meant, and I went over my allowed bandwidth in a week! Believe me, I started doing some serious research on internet terms and what other options I had. I don’t want you to fall into the same trap I did, so I’m writing this blog. I hope you find it to be helpful.

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How To Monitor Your Bandwidth Use With Your High-Speed Internet Service

Posted on 15 July 2020

Since internet service providers enforce data caps, you may be wondering how you are doing in terms of data use. Here are 4 ways that you can monitor your data usage so that you can ensure you do not go over your limit. 

Desktop Application

The easiest way to monitor your personal data use will be to install a desktop application that monitors how much data goes in and out of your computer. If you are doing the majority of your data transfers on a single computer while working from home, this may be enough to keep an eye on it as the month goes on. There are many applications out there that can do this, and they sit in your computer's system tray and let you see your monthly data usage with the click of a mouse.

Router Interface

If you want to easily monitor the data usage for your entire home, it is possible that your router has these features built into it. Since all of the data in your home flows through the router, it will give you an instant look at how much data you have used in a month at any given time. While it requires knowing the login information and where to find it, the information on data use will be accurate for your entire household rather than just one device.

ISP Website

Your ISP website should also be able to provide you with information on how much data has been used by your Internet connection. This data is not updated in real-time, with it often being updated once a day but will be what your ISP is recording and be the most accurate indicator of how much data you have left for the month. 

ISP Warnings

If you don't want to be bothered with monitoring your bandwidth directly, look into what sort of warnings you'll get from your ISP if you approach your bandwidth limit. For example, you may get an email, text message, or pop up browser warning when you hit a certain threshold of your data usage for the month. This can then allow you to start looking into your usage more closely or reach out to your ISP about increasing your data caps.

While data usage is not something you'd rather not think about, it is something to keep in mind as many people continue to work from home and are finding themselves using much more data than usual. Speak with an internet service provider about the plans they offer. 


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