Internet & Streaming TV

[xfoneguy]

Hey everyone - got a problem that I'm hoping to get some input on:

In order to save money, I thought that replacing our Satellite TV service with "streaming Live TV" sounded like a great idea, so we've have been "trialing" the major services available (DTV Now, YouTube TV, etc)..... duh!

Our data usage went from something like 500-600GB per month to 1700 and then 3200GB in 3 months time!

Can anyone tell me "in a nutshell" if (and how) this is even possible? My wife and I use the 'net for email, some occasional surfing, and now for streaming TV. And 2 of our grandsons spend a couple of hours each week playing games here. Other than the streaming TV, all of these activities have been the same for the past several years now.

IF this is really a result of watching streaming TV, then this might be a big problem for anyone who watches a lot (as we do)....

As pricey as Dish has been, they have NEVER charged us extra for watching too many hours of TV in a day! So, in order to "cut the cord", are we going to need to keep a log of how many hours of TV we watch every day?

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[efbrune]

Hey everyone - got a problem that I'm hoping to get some input on:

In order to save money, I thought that replacing our Satellite TV service with "streaming Live TV" sounded like a great idea, so we've have been "trialing" the major services available (DTV Now, YouTube TV, etc)..... duh!

Our data usage went from something like 500-600GB per month to 1700 and then 3200GB in 3 months time!

Can anyone tell me "in a nutshell" if (and how) this is even possible? My wife and I use the 'net for email, some occasional surfing, and now for streaming TV. And 2 of our grandsons spend a couple of hours each week playing games here. Other than the streaming TV, all of these activities have been the same for the past several years now.

IF this is really a result of watching streaming TV, then this might be a big problem for anyone who watches a lot (as we do)....

As pricey as Dish has been, they have NEVER charged us extra for watching too many hours of TV in a day! So, in order to "cut the cord", are we going to need to keep a log of how many hours of TV we watch every day?

Thanks for any thoughts.

Are you shutting off the stream when not watching TV?

One time I forgot to turn off my Roku player and it used 32G of data when I was sleeping.

 

[camo]

If you are using FireTV make sure you put it to sleep when not in use (Hold home button for several seconds until sleep option appears) or it will continue using large amounts data. Roku has options in settings for sleeping, user needs to turn on. Regardless streaming isn't for most with smaller data caps.

 

[xfoneguy]

Thanks for that guys - I have both a Roku and Fire and I'm sure there are some times when I forget to turn them off for a while, but I'm trying to figure out how (or even IF) it's possible to get to 3200GB in a month?? The example of 32GB "while sleeping" would add up to a little over 900GB in a months time, but 3200GB??
What is considered a "small data cap"? I think mine is something like 500 or 600GB. When I see "unlimited data plans" is that NOT really accurate? I can understand "throttling" at some point - that costs me nothing extra. But I'm faced with a $350 cable/internet bill right now!

 

[osu1991]

Mine with Cox is 1TB. 1024GB. I topped it this month for the first time with 1040GB. It costs me an extra $10 per 50GB or move to unlimited for an extra $50 per month

I stream quite a bit and watched more 4K than usual last month. For the past 2 years I’ve usually been in the 700-750GB range each month.

 

[xfoneguy]

Mine with Cox is 1TB. 1024GB. I topped it this month for the first time with 1040GB. It costs me an extra $10 per 50GB or move to unlimited for an extra $50 per month

I stream quite a bit and watched more 4K than usual last month. For the past 2 years I’ve usually been in the 700-750GB range each month.

Now those numbers make sense to me - 3200G in a month (and $350) do not. I guess I need to find what (if any) better plans they might have for us. We have had a lot of service issues in our area with WAVE but we're in a rural area and I don't think there are any other providers out here, so I guess I'm stuck with whatever. We've only had 100GB service for the past year or so.

 

[Jim S.]

Our data usage went from something like 500-600GB per month to 1700 and then 3200GB in 3 months time!

Can anyone tell me "in a nutshell" if (and how) this is even possible? My wife and I use the 'net for email, some occasional surfing, and now for streaming TV. And 2 of our grandsons spend a couple of hours each week playing games here. Other than the streaming TV, all of these activities have been the same for the past several years now.

I'm surprised nobody else has said this yet, but -- how do you use 500-600GB per month WITHOUT streaming TV? Do you have somebody outside the house using your wifi? Are your grandsons pirating behind your back? Has one of your computers been hijacked by a virus?

 

[xfoneguy]

I'm surprised nobody else has said this yet, but -- how do you use 500-600GB per month WITHOUT streaming TV? Do you have somebody outside the house using your wifi? Are your grandsons pirating behind your back? Has one of your computers been hijacked by a virus?

To be honest, up until now, I haven't paid much attention to it - i guess just because it was the same charge every month (for years now). The grandkids come over a couple of hours every week and play video games, my wife spends her free time on Facebook, I like to "surf" a bit......does anyone know if the "YouTube" and "Netflix" apps that are integrated into the Program Guide of the Dish Hopper 3 are using satelite, or do they use my WiFi? I've been watching those for some time now. I have anti-virus software on 1 desktop and 2 laptops. And our cellphones, tablet, and Ipad all use WiFi - and nothing has changed in several years really - except for the streaming video now. If there was an issue with hacking, I'm not even sure what to look for, short of shutting everything down for the next month (fat chance!) and seeing what happens?

 

[xfoneguy]

To be honest, up until now, I haven't paid much attention to it - i guess just because it was the same charge every month (for years now). The grandkids come over a couple of hours every week and play video games, my wife spends her free time on Facebook, I like to "surf" a bit......does anyone know if the "YouTube" and "Netflix" apps that are integrated into the Program Guide of the Dish Hopper 3 are using satelite, or do they use my WiFi? I've been watching those for some time now. I have anti-virus software on 1 desktop and 2 laptops. And our cellphones, tablet, and Ipad all use WiFi - and nothing has changed in several years really - except for the streaming video now. If there was an issue with hacking, I'm not even sure what to look for, short of shutting everything down for the next month (fat chance!) and seeing what happens?

OOPS - I never used this "data tracking tool" before now, so it's a little confusing - apparently the "Standard Allotment" is "400GB" and I've (apparently) never gone over that. This "tool" only lets me look at the last 3 months, so I really don't know exactly what were using prior to this. Like I said - it wasn't an issue, so I didn't need "one more thing" to check in to. Thanks for the ideas

 

[osu1991]

Do they send you an alert when you’re close to exceeding their cap? Cox sent me an alert when I hit 85% of the 1TB cap last month.

My router has a traffic monitor too. I set it to monitor traffic and reset at midnight on the 25th of each month when my bill cycles.

 

[osu1991]

Depending on the source, you’re looking at 3-5GB per hour HD streaming, so 4hrs a day for a month hits your cap.

 

[camo]

PSVUE stream is rather high everything is 60FPS 5 Mbps vs DTVNow 3 Mbps. So per hour 5000-3000 MB per hour. 10 hours a day using PSVUE will be around 1.5 TB per month DTVNow around 1 TB.

Average 1080p HD movie is also 5 Mbps, 4K movies 15-18 Mbps

 

[xfoneguy]

Do they send you an alert when you’re close to exceeding their cap? Cox sent me an alert when I hit 85% of the 1TB cap last month.

My router has a traffic monitor too. I set it to monitor traffic and reset at midnight on the 25th of each month when my bill cycles.

Yes - I didn't know about that - but I do now, and I have it enabled.

 

[xfoneguy]

Depending on the source, you’re looking at 3-5GB per hour HD streaming, so 4hrs a day for a month hits your cap.

OUCH! I guess I should have clicked on "don't like" - LOL! I do appreciate that, though.

 

[xfoneguy]

Depending on the source, you’re looking at 3-5GB per hour HD streaming, so 4hrs a day for a month hits your cap.

Ok, I'm definitely no math whiz but ........ oh wait, now I got it - yes, 5GB per hour times 4 hrs a day is 20GB times 30 days is 600...... but I hit more than 5X that last month (3288GB) - If i'm counting right, I would have to be watching 20 hrs per day for 30 days (or at least leave it all turned on and streaming)! YIKES! I watch a lot of TV but OUCH! Nothing near that.

 

[camo]

Make sure you change wifi key password and maybe even disable ssid broadcast so public can't see it.

Check making sure you don't have guest network turned on and open also.

 

[Jim S.]

does anyone know if the "YouTube" and "Netflix" apps that are integrated into the Program Guide of the Dish Hopper 3 are using satelite, or do they use my WiFi?

They use WiFi, as does the Video On Demand system.

 

[xfoneguy]

They use WiFi, as does the Video On Demand system.

i suspected that, but good to know for sure

 

[Ronnie-]

What kind of residence? Even before your streaming experiment, your usage seems high for what you stated you used it for. Afterwards, IDK.

We swapped to all streaming a little over two years ago, and with our 1 tb cap, we have gone over it maybe three times. Thats with three of us, and we are rarely watching the same thing.

I would say we average 800 gb a month, or somewhere close to that, and that is with our daughter streaming tv for background noise as she goes to sleep (timer shuts this off after a hour however).

 

[xfoneguy]

What kind of residence? Even before your streaming experiment, your usage seems high for what you stated you used it for. Afterwards, IDK.

We swapped to all streaming a little over two years ago, and with our 1 tb cap, we have gone over it maybe three times. Thats with three of us, and we are rarely watching the same thing.

I would say we average 800 gb a month, or somewhere close to that, and that is with our daughter streaming tv for background noise as she goes to sleep (timer shuts this off after a hour however).

I think I was originally speaking from what i thought was true, but in reality, my billing is all "paperless" and I can only see back 3 month (which shows I used 629.27GB). I have never received any sort of "overage" billing prior to last month. The data page shows my monthly allotment is 400GB. So I really can't say what I was using like, say the beginning of the year. I've been a "YouTube", "Netflix", and "Hulu" user for some time now.
Anyway, I have to figure out how to nail down whatever is going on. I've basically quit watching the streaming live TV for the past 2 weeks or so. I need to get into my router next and see if there is anything suspicious there. Thanks!