Broadband usage with Digiweb

Just looking for some thoughts on the following..

I've signed up to Digiweb's metro lite service which gives me 1mb download and 10 gb usage limit.

I had the modem installed just over 2 weeks ago and a week later i bought a wireless router and set that up myself. I'm a complete novice at this and didn't know to put a WEP code on it, or install the firewall with the router.

I have been using the internet moderately since then and havent downloaded much at all - certainly no DVDs or very large files, only a few streamed movie clips. LAst Friday i got an email from Digiweb saying that I have grossly exceeded my usage limits for thew month and that my connection was being downgraded to restrict access.

I checked with their usage page, and according to that I have downloaded 12 GB in the last 2 weeks, and uploaded over 7 GB!! I'm no expert, but that seems to be an awful lot of data!!

There are 3 laptops in the house connected to the wireless network and none of the others have dome much out of the ordinary either. All i can think is that someone must have been accessing my signal, and downlaoding a few movies while they were at it...but not sure how so much was uploaded??? Is there any other explanation for this??

I have now put a WEP access code on the network, and I tried to enable the firewall but im not sure if that worked. CAnt be sure if this will have an impact though until next month when they allow me to download at normal speed again.

Any thoughts??

Your wireless router and might have a log facility (usually available through the router's browser based admin control panel) that might give some clues to whether or not others were using your broadband connection through the previously unsecured wireless link. Your broadband router (I presume it's separate) may have a similar log facility that might give some details about when the link was being used and which you might be able to correlate with your own use. Having an open wireless access point is not a good idea unless you want to share your LAN/broadband.

Thanks Clubman,

yes there is a log on the wireless router (its a separate unit - Sitecom Mimo XR - from the cable modem), and I had a look but its all gibberish to me. I can save it and show to someone else who knows what they are looking at. I didnt want to have the network unsecured but I had trouble setting up the WEP key originally - when I enabled it I was unable to access the internet even though the laptop was connected to the internet, so I had to disable it until I figured out what I was doing wrong. Anyway, it is secured now so will be interesting to see what the usage is like next month once Digiweb allow me download at normal speed again.