An Internet usage meter tracks bandwidth usage for individuals and businesses to prevent exceeding limits, which can result in service degradation and high costs. It can also identify disproportionate usage and warn users.
An Internet usage meter is a type of Internet monitoring software that tells network administrators and individual Internet subscribers how much bandwidth they are using. Most Internet service plans are subject to certain bandwidth caps or limits. For individuals, exceeding the limits can result in service degradation and high additional costs. Businesses that run their own networks can also experience a slowdown or gridlock if one or more employees exceed network bandwidth limits. An internet usage meter can track the bandwidth usage of an individual computer and can also map the usage of all computers on the network.
Internet bandwidth is not an inexhaustible resource. Commercial Internet Service Providers that market Internet connections for personal home use generally have enormous bandwidth capacity, but if every connected computer tried to use the maximum amount of bandwidth, the system would slow down so much that probably no one would able to pass. The same goes for corporate settings: while a company may own its own network, bandwidth must be shared among all computers. Overusing one user can slow things down for everyone else. An Internet usage meter is a tool that can track and compare usage statistics.
Most Internet service providers try to solve the problem of limited bandwidth by limiting the amount of bandwidth that individual subscribers can hog without paying extra usage fees. Individuals sometimes choose to download Internet usage metering software programs in order to track their usage and stay within the allotted amount. Companies will also use Internet usage metering applications to identify computers that are using disproportionate amounts of bandwidth. Employees assigned to those computers will usually be subject to website monitoring and productivity questions.
Typical Internet browsing, email, and search functions take up only minimal bandwidth and usually don’t even come close to meeting your monthly quotas. It’s activities like watching streaming videos, downloading movies and music files, and engaging in bulk file sharing that take up all the space. An Internet usage meter can be used to warn people to give up these activities if they are nearing their limit, and it can warn employee business leaders that they may not be using their computers for strictly work-related purposes.
Most Internet usage meter applications are free to download and are available from a variety of web monitoring sites. Internet meters can provide network owners and subscribers with ideas about usage patterns, but usually cannot identify what, specifically, has caused the usages they record. An Internet usage meter is not Internet monitoring software, nor is it the type of tool that provides IP address tracking, identifies specific websites you visit, or monitors your network in any way. There are separate tools for these purposes.
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