How to Manage Your Usage

There are many ways to generate significant Internet usage. Below you will find the most common activities that can cause you to exceed your free usage limit, and tips on how to reduce your usage.

Turn it Off

Turn your computer off when it is not being used. Many reasons for excessive usage occur without your knowledge when your computer is left on.

Downloading Videos and Accessing Streaming Video sites

Downloading movies and videos can consume a large amount of bandwidth. For example, downloading a full-length movie will consume approximately 2-3 Gigabytes of usage. Watching streaming videos on sites such as YouTube use less bandwidth than downloading videos, but if you are streaming video for long periods of time, the bandwidth can add up quickly.
Reduction Tips:

• Check the size of a video before downloading and monitor the number of videos you download each month.
• Keep track of how much time you spend on streaming video sites. Monitor your usage online at nwtel.ca to check how much of your monthly limit you have used before downloading large files.

Peer-to-Peer Networks

Downloading and uploading files from peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, such as BitTorrent, KaZaa, Morpheus, Gnutella, and BearShare, use a lot of your monthly limit. These programs share files from your hard drive to other Internet users, possibly creating excessive usage without your knowledge.

Reduction Tips:

• Limit your use of file sharing programs. These programs create a large amount of traffic (usage) when downloading and sharing files.
• If you use P2P networks, turn off file sharing when possible and close any file sharing program when you’re not using it.

Viruses

Viruses often send mass emails from your computer without your knowledge.

Reduction Tip:

• Northwestel offers business customers a PC Protection Plus service that serves as your first line of defense, to keep hackers out and stop them from implanting viruses on your computer.
• Make sure you have recent anti-virus and anti-spam software installed on your computer.

Spyware and Adware

Spyware gathers information from your computer to share with advertisers or other agencies. Adware allows advertising banners to pop-up on your screen. It is not always obvious if you have spyware or adware on your computer.

Reduction Tip:

• Make sure you have anti-spyware software and pop-up blockers installed on your computer. There are several programs that block pop-ups and remove spyware, such as Lavasoft’s Ad-aware and Spybot.

Large Email Files

Sending lots of emails or large email files generates a significant amount of usage. Emails with photos or other files attached are generally large emails.

Reduction Tip:

• Before sending large email attachments, compress them to reduce their size. You can do this by checking if your operating system has file compression capability, and if not, obtain a file compression program such as WinZip or Stuffit.

Significant Web Surfing

If you visit lots of websites, you will increase your usage.

Reduction Tip:

• While web surfing usually does not create excessive usage, you can still reduce the amount of usage this generates. Increasing the size of your web browser cache allows your computer to access files from your hard drive instead of the Internet.

Hackers

Hackers can access your computer and then use it in fraudulent ways, which can create excessive usage.

Reduction Tip:

• Add an anti-virus program to protect yourself from hackers. If you think a hacker has already hacked your computer, contact the computer vendor.

Online Gaming

Gaming significantly increases your usage.

Reduction Tip:

• Keep track of the amount of data transfer if you’re playing games online.
  Check your usage regularly.
  

Non-Encrypted Wireless Router/Network

If you have a wireless router/network that is not password protected, someone may be accessing it without your knowledge.

Reduction Tips:

• Make sure your wireless router/network is password protected. Your router’s user manual will tell you how to password protect your Internet service and guide you through the configuration settings necessary to password protect your router/network.