Looking for a way to monitor bandwidth usage on a home network

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Trissy

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May 28, 2016
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Hi all -

Like most, we use a small wireless network in our home. Together, we have a few laptops, a couple chromebooks, 4 phones, 4 tablets, a couple blu-ray players, and an xbox one console - all connected with an Archer C5 AC1200 v2 router. It sounds like a lot, but typically no more than a few devices are connected at the same time.

Recently, we've been maxing out on our 250GB monthly bandwidth allowance. We upped the package to 400GB, but it looks like we'll probably hit that by the end of the month.

I can look at the history from our provider, based on the cable router - and see big consumption when my daughter has brought home new games & they've updated on xbox. However, sometimes when no one is "online" - and even with the xbox powered down - we see usage as high as 1GB per hour.

Right now, I'm limited to monitoring usage for the whole network in total. I'd like a way to look at the usage by individual device. Is there any software offered that can accomplish this - or even a piece of hardware? I've looked a little at dd-wrt firmware, but it doesn't appear it's available for v2 of my router. Also - I'm a little leery of doing something like this.

Any ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks in advance...
 
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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May 29, 2013
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Per device accounting takes a lot of housekeeping, especially with wireless devices. The only thing you could do is get a different router that will support your needs. A dual core router that supports DD-WRT and then run https://code.google.com/archive/p/wrtbwmon/ Something like the Netgear R7000 would be a good choice.
 
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wpgwpg

wpgwpg

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Jul 18, 2014
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I guess you're aware that Windows 7 and later are sending telemetry back to Microsoft about all kinds of things you do on your computer. If you have Windows 10, you can see the over 4 dozen categories they do this with in Settings -> Privacy. It sounds like maybe you'd be better off getting an unlimited bandwidth deal with your ISP. FWIW there's a whole lot of info in your router re usage as others have mentioned. Depending on make and models the data there varies. I have an inexpensive TP-Link router that shows packets sent and received by mac address. That sounds like the kind of thing you're looking for. Here's the make & model info:
300M Wireless N Router
Model No. TL-WR841N / TL-WR841ND
It's a few years old, so I don't know if it's still on the market. It's still working just fine for me, so I'm not about to try replacing it. :)

Good luck.
 
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Trissy

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May 28, 2016
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Hi all -

Thanks for the responses. Maxwellmelon led me right to an answer. I feel a little silly that I hadn't researched the monitoring possibilities for my particular router more thoroughly. I had looked through the manual, but apparently not enough. I discovered that there IS a statistics feature where I can watch current traffic statistics by IP & Mac address. I can also reset all to zero, for a simple comparison within the same time period. It doesn't give an export of stats, so I've put together a spreadsheet to enter the numbers for each device when I want to do a comparison.

Also need to mention - For this feature, I had to disable the 'NAT Boost' feature. So far, I haven't noticed any performance decline.

I've not really identified the culprit from days ago, and the current numbers are skewed from a new phone that came in yesterday - lots of app updating. However, I do think I have a handle on seeing who is using how much. Other than the new phone, it doesn't seem like anyone is using an extraordinary chunk. Funny how it goes down when people know it's being watched.

Another thing I've noticed though, is how much traffic is going to devices that are powered on, but may sit idle for days or weeks. I have a kindle fire that I haven't used in months, but appears to still be using a fair chunk of bandwidth - probably just to stay updated with latest amazon commercials. Think I'll turn that off when not in use.

Thanks again for all the suggestions. We may get to a point where a WRT solution is needed, but right now it seems the statistics tool in the router interface will do the trick. Thanks maxwellmelon for pointing me to what was hiding in plain sight.
 
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