Tools to monitor network usage at home

The newer routers have that capability. To see what's connected and how much data each is using. Others will come along to suggest something for you, but it will most likely have to be a "shark" that connects to your modem or router.

what router?

You want it broken down by MAC address. IPs can change from day to day as you connect, disconnect, and reconnect.

wireshark ?

I'm not familiar with that router, but you can go HERE and start a live chat and ask one of the support team your question.

Wireshark won't work for a router since it needs a computing platform to run on. It's great for servers. (At least from what I know about it... I've only ever used it on a server)

I don't know of a good tool for that, but if you are concerned about unwanted users on your network, your router should allow you to filter clients by mac address.

I was actually just about to install Networx, which is a tool that collects bandwidth data. Unfortunately, it only monitors the up and downstream data for the device it's installed on. Luckily for me, 99% of my data usage comes from my main PC, though.

Also, if you are worried about what Cox will do if you keep exceeding your data, the answer is nothing. They'll keep sending you the same e-mail saying you exceeded your data, but others have more than tripled their data limit without consequence. I read that another person even complained to a cox manager about the warnings and threatened to cancel, and he never got a warning again, as the cox manager admitted to him that the warnings are meant to 'educate' customers about data use and to upsell the next tier.

Likewise, I've not been charged, and the last several months have seen a good bit of usage from me. Check out September. and my billing cycle doesn't end until October 9.



Just yesterday, I downloaded the same 15GB Steam game 3 times from 3 different servers to test my actual throughput since the speeds were doubled.

Actually, it looks like this Networx program can monitor router traffic by IP and not just the PC. However, after trying to enable it, it's telling me my router doesn't appear to support SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol). This is where my network admin knowledge ends, so I'm going to have to research this, unless someone here can enlighten me.

I might try the Networx program. I'm more concerned about an unauthorized user on the network more than anything.

I would do MAC address but I have so many devices it would be a pain to do it I think. TV's, DVR's PCs etc

quote:

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WEP encryption

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WPA2!

I am not even close to a hacker and I am pretty sure I could manage to get into a 128-bit WEP-encrypted router. I read a tutorial for it online a couple of years ago and it seems reasonably easy.

It's a soft cap. They never have charged overages or even threatened to disconnect or throttle. This may eventually not be the case, though.