Lemon law
Lifer
For years and years and years my wife and I have been stuck on dial up because it was the only internet access means in our rural area. And because we networked our PC's together, each of us had to share slower than snails dial up. And were always at each other's throats for hogging all the bandwidth. Basically zero divided by two is still zero.
Then in late 2009, Verizon finally completed a a 3G EVDO tower able to deliver decent broadband speeds. For a mere $60.00 a month and sadly capped at 5 GB /mo. But since we were able to lose our $10.00/mo dial up isp and and a $10.00 a month internet answering machine for our land line phone, its real cost to us is $40.00/mo.
My network architecture is totally unchanged before or since the switch to to 3G verizon EVDO. My network consists of two XP computers, connected by one crossover cable to Ethernet ports on each computer, no router, and method of networking microsoft ICS. Which has proved rock solid either way, but now that we have a faster connection to feed our network, all those who is hogging all the band width arguments have gone away as I now average a connection speed or 750 mbits/sec down. Which works out to be about 20x my previous dial up speeds.
But now I have a totally new problem with the 5 GB/mo cap. And I should note, being retired, I spend a lot of time on the internet. And while my web surfing habits are basically unchanged from dial up days, my wife has seemingly gone hog wild. Even if she spend far less time on the internet.
Let me quantify just today, with just me on the host computer I used about 60 MB in 11 hours, which means that when I typically shut down about 1AM, it would work out to be be a projected 80 MB day. But when my wife got on her computer at 10 PM, we are up to a combined total of 115 MB downloaded by the combination of me and her in an additional 1.5 hours. And when my wife is likely to be on for another 1.5 hours, I get the following.
Myself alone uses 5.5 MB/hour. My wife alone downloads about 46.5 MB an hour. So if I let my wife on the internet for more than 4 hours a day, there goes more than 100% of the 165 MB a day I am allocated in a 5 GB/mo cap. Worse yet the first 5 GB are billed at the rate of $12.50/GB, any subsequent overages are billed at $50.00/ GB.
Part of my problem is I can't quantify what she uses and what I uses while we are both on. I only have two network icons on my task bar, one calibrated in bytes and subdivided into sent and received to measure the total session traffic on the host computer. But when I look at the equivalent network icon that appears on my task bar and her task bar for the client computer, its denominated in sent and received packets. And as far as I know, there is no fixed conversion factor between packet and bytes.
But since I have to pay the total Verizon bill, my inclination is to find some way to let my wife have her 165MB/2 daily allowance and no more. Once she exceeds her daily allowance, she is sad out of luck.
But then the question becomes, how can I accurately measure her daily usage to know when to cut her off.
speeds.
Then in late 2009, Verizon finally completed a a 3G EVDO tower able to deliver decent broadband speeds. For a mere $60.00 a month and sadly capped at 5 GB /mo. But since we were able to lose our $10.00/mo dial up isp and and a $10.00 a month internet answering machine for our land line phone, its real cost to us is $40.00/mo.
My network architecture is totally unchanged before or since the switch to to 3G verizon EVDO. My network consists of two XP computers, connected by one crossover cable to Ethernet ports on each computer, no router, and method of networking microsoft ICS. Which has proved rock solid either way, but now that we have a faster connection to feed our network, all those who is hogging all the band width arguments have gone away as I now average a connection speed or 750 mbits/sec down. Which works out to be about 20x my previous dial up speeds.
But now I have a totally new problem with the 5 GB/mo cap. And I should note, being retired, I spend a lot of time on the internet. And while my web surfing habits are basically unchanged from dial up days, my wife has seemingly gone hog wild. Even if she spend far less time on the internet.
Let me quantify just today, with just me on the host computer I used about 60 MB in 11 hours, which means that when I typically shut down about 1AM, it would work out to be be a projected 80 MB day. But when my wife got on her computer at 10 PM, we are up to a combined total of 115 MB downloaded by the combination of me and her in an additional 1.5 hours. And when my wife is likely to be on for another 1.5 hours, I get the following.
Myself alone uses 5.5 MB/hour. My wife alone downloads about 46.5 MB an hour. So if I let my wife on the internet for more than 4 hours a day, there goes more than 100% of the 165 MB a day I am allocated in a 5 GB/mo cap. Worse yet the first 5 GB are billed at the rate of $12.50/GB, any subsequent overages are billed at $50.00/ GB.
Part of my problem is I can't quantify what she uses and what I uses while we are both on. I only have two network icons on my task bar, one calibrated in bytes and subdivided into sent and received to measure the total session traffic on the host computer. But when I look at the equivalent network icon that appears on my task bar and her task bar for the client computer, its denominated in sent and received packets. And as far as I know, there is no fixed conversion factor between packet and bytes.
But since I have to pay the total Verizon bill, my inclination is to find some way to let my wife have her 165MB/2 daily allowance and no more. Once she exceeds her daily allowance, she is sad out of luck.
But then the question becomes, how can I accurately measure her daily usage to know when to cut her off.
speeds.
