Home Forums Networks & Cross-Platform Networking Wanted: An app to check SuddenLink monthly cap

SuddenLink just increased, at no cost, my Internet speed to 50 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up (from 30/2). But in the process, they capped my monthly allowance to 250 GB.

While I don’t foresee a time when I will exceed this cap, I would like an easy way to monitor such (logging in and checking via the SuddenLink site is a bit wearisome).

Ergo, does anyone know of and or have experience with an app that will monitor/display the data in real time? My searches have yet to bear fruit.

(My thoughts about SuddenLink capping users is a topic for another day. )

Doesn't SuddenLink have a user-accessible monitor/log on usage so that you can track same?

(Sidebar: When my ISP switched ownership, that function disappeared and the new ownership decided all usage would be "unlimited until we get the usage feature up and running". That was 3 years ago and they still haven't fixed that problem, so I'm getting a lot more usage for a lot less.)

I had the same need when AT&T started capping my DSL at 150GB per month.

If your router can be configured to respond to SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), you can do as I did and install NetUseTrafficMonitor. I use an Apple Airport Extreme, which can indeed support SNMP. An important advantage of collecting the statistics from your router instead of locally on the Mac is that it captures traffic from your other devices (iPhones, iPads, other Macs on your network) as well. Your ISP is also going to be counting total traffic, so that's what you need to monitor too.

I won't say it's the greatest program out there, but it gets the job done. It's in the App Store for $7.99. (It has a few annoying UI glitches, which is why I don't endorse it enthusiastically.)

I've since upgraded to Uverse, which raises the nominal data cap to 250GB per month, a limit which AT&T claims they're not enforcing (on Uverse).

What I've found is that 250GB is a LOT of data. I never come anywhere close to using that.

I finally divined the SuddenLink site map. Much to my surprise, I have access to Monthly, Daily, and Summary (current) data. That these data had (even) been accumulated was part of the surprise (I wonder what else they know).

While I am still interested in an app that tracks & maintains such, now that I discovered that within the past year, my monthly rate never exceeded 106 GB, and that the NetUse app does not allow a trial, I'll put this issue to rest, at least for now.

Many thanks, guys, your counsel most appreciated.

WARNING: The currently shipping Airport Extreme and Airport Time Capsule — the tower shaped models — do NOT support SNMP and cannot be used with NetUseTrafficMonitor. If you have an older Mac mini shaped Airport Extreme or Time Capsule Airport Utility 5.6 is required to turn on SNMP and the Airport Utility that has shipped with the last three versions of OS X cannot do that. Unfortunately I had already paid my $8 on the App Store before I found this out.