Internet data caps can be frustratingly tough to track
Data caps — restrictions on how much data you can consume on your Internet connection — remain about as popular with consumers as the traditional four-hour service windows of cable operators.
But while having to stick around your house from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. can get in the way of work or running errands, at least you can see where you stand by looking at the clock. That’s not the case with the data caps imposed by a few broadband Internet providers.
While the three major U.S. ISPs enforcing data caps will report your total use, they won’t identify which apps or sites maxed out your quota. And calculating that info yourself remains an exercise for techies.
The result for many users is the Kafka-esque scenario of being found guilty without knowing the particulars of their offense.
You’re most likely to run into this problem at AT&T, thanks to its lessgenerous allowances. Subscribers to its DSL only get 150 gigabytes a month, while those on its faster U-verse fiber service get 1 terabyte for speeds up to 300 megabits per second (users of AT&T’s gigabit service, available in a minority of U-verse markets, get un- limited service).
The company charges $10 for an extra
50 GB; U-verse users can pay $30 extra for unlimited or get that for free by signing up for AT&T’s U-verse or DirecTV video service.
At Comcast, residential users get 1 terabyte, after which they can pay $10 for another 50 GB or $50 extra to switch to unlimited.
Cox, meanwhile, allows 1 terabyte on all its plans, then charges $30 for an extra 500 GB or $50 additional for unlimited data.
All three firms provide data gauges that track your overall consumption. But they won’t call out specific sites or apps that used an outsize amount of data. That’s theoretically possible with specialized router software, but none of those providers offers such tools. For instance, while Comcast’s xFi app can limit when a device has Internet access, it doesn’t keep tabs on that device’s data consumption.
In general, streaming video and online backup are the top data users. But the major sites in each category don’t track your total data usage there, either.
Netflix advises that HD video uses up to 3 GB an hour, while Ultra HD can eat
7 GB per hour. The cloud-backup services Backblaze, Carbonite and Mozy show how much data you have archived on each one’s servers — but that figure won’t reflect bandwidth used.