How do I track my data usage?

rvgrammady wrote:
I have AT&T uverse internet service. My box thingy is a 503INV black box with green lights.. as you can see I'm a real tech savy grandma..

I use my laptop with wi-fi.

I want to know how much "data" I use monthly. I was told to get "data/internet" software for my laptop. also, my box should be able to tell me via the "software" that should be installed on my laptop. ??? Have no idea what any of this means.

Help...

I want to know as I will be doing more traveling and need to know what type of internet service I need but I have to know my usage to give me info to see what options I have.

Thanks for the imput...

That is the AT&T way of saying switch to Verizon! With Verizon very easy process to know data usage. Plus they both text and e-mail me at 50%, 75%, 90% and 100%.

My AT&T Sierra unit for internet shows how much I am allocated and how much I have used. That is close to being right. However, you can dial up a AT&T 4 digit number and it will indicate your exact usage. Plus AT&T will text you when you get close to going over your purchased amount. Verizon has basically the same thing on their Jetpack for internet. I find that when paying for GBs, guess FCC thinks that is in our future. I make sure my home page is bland and block ads and not on a news web site etc. I find I use much less time per month. JMHO

If I click on the internet WiFi icon in the task bar, the one that shows the signal strength, a list of available internet WiFi signals appears. Now if I click on my WiFi it displays the gigabytes used since it was reset. I use Windows 8.

At the risk of sounding smart alecky, it doesn't make any difference. About your only practical choice for mobile internet is cell phone/ smart phone and you probably won't use the net mobile the same as at home. We have two iPhones with ATT and have rarely used over a GB a month. Once 3GB. ATT can probably tell you if you call them. ATT mobile has a text nuber that will send you your mobile data and minutes use whenever you want. ATT has many new plans starting at 250MB and then 1 GB increments we don't full time and have WIFI at home and work so use the cell data very little.

NetWorx is a utility I learned about here on rv.net. Seeing as you're not very tech savvy, you'll probably want to get some help installing it on your laptop and a quick walk-through of how it works.

Please keep in mind that fixed Internet access is much cheaper and faster than mobile Internet access. You may have to change your computing habits when you hit the road.

In most cases "the box thingy" should tell you. To connect to the box, I am going to assume your laptop is Windows and not a Mac. I apologize if I sound like I am speaking French. Click on the Start button in the bottom left of the screen, click on Run. Type in cmd and hit enter. This will bring a black box up on the screen. In the box type ipconfig. This is going to spit out a whole bunch of garbage (your network settings). Look thru the list for a line that says Default Gateway. it should have an IP address that looks like 192.168.1.1 (or similar). When you find that number, open up your web browser and put the number in the address bar at the top and hit enter. This will (hopefully) take you the a web page used to manage and monitor the "thingy". I would save the link as a Favorite/Bookmark for later. If it asks you to log in, you may need to dig up the instructions booklet and look for the login and password information. Once you login there will probably be a status page that will tell you how much data you have used.