# Internet usage on local play?



## tjkraz (Aug 14, 2014)

Relatively new Tivo user here. About 2 weeks now. Have a Roamio Plus and one Mini. 

One of my big reasons for adopting Tivo was the stream capability. Have kids ages 11 and 13 and don't want to put TVs in their bedrooms, but don't mind them streaming a few programs to their iPads. 

Previously they were streaming over the net using apps from Disney Channel, ESPN, etc. But my ISP caps data usage (250 GB / mo) so that's not sustainable. 

While the Tivo Streaming is functionally working great, data usage really hasn't changed much. I deleted the other streaming apps from their devices so that isn't even an option. I would have expected SOME noticeable decrease in data usage. 

So with that background out of the way, my question is would Tivo Stream still be using any significant amount of Internet data even when streaming on our local network? 

Yesterday for example, kids were gone half of the day and ISP reported data usage of 15 GB. 

Between tablets, smartphones, computers, game consoles and other connected devices in the house, it's frustrating to try and track down this usage. My ISP just gives me a very basic reporting page which lists total usage month-to-date. Trying to track down specific sources of usage is frustrating. 

Local setup is Moca with a stand-alone Moca adapter in front of the cable modem, then patched into the wifi router via ethernet. 

I'm not even sure how the ISP data reporting works. Part of me wonders if the Moca setup could somehow be erroneously ticking the ISP's data tracking, even though the traffic is all local. 

Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Disconnect from the internet and report what you see when testing.


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## PCurry57 (Feb 27, 2012)

If they are streaming away from home opposed to downloading to go then yes you will use a lot of internet data.


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## tjkraz (Aug 14, 2014)

jrtroo said:


> Disconnect from the internet and report what you see when testing.


Ah, good idea.

I assume streaming will still work since all of the required hardware will still be within my local network. I'm still wondering if the extra data traffic that the moca setup is pushing over the coax could somehow be hitting my ISPs usage meter.

Maybe that's a better question: Are there any Roamio / Stream / moca users with data caps who think their 'net usage is abnormally high?

(And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting this is any sort of Tivo shortcoming. My ISPs usage graph is very rudimentary. It only updates 1x per day and doesn't give me ANY detail whatsoever.)



PCurry57 said:


> If they are streaming away from home opposed to downloading to go then yes you will use a lot of internet data.


Nope. It's all streaming in our house on the local network. In fact, on the iOS app you have to specify if you want to allow out-of-house streaming and I disallowed that on the devices in question.


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## runningduck (Nov 14, 2004)

I ran some test and do not see any significant Internet traffic while streaming to my iPad.

You might need to check if there is something else consuming the bandwidth. Some Internet routers show individual data stream statistics or show counters per internal IP address.

Another thing to check is if your PC has malware.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Sometimes the app will kick into away from home mode even when I'm at home on my local network. You can tell if it's streaming over the internet because there is a green quality indicator when you start the stream. When this happens I just click the remote icon at the top and it offers some sort of "connect" option that switches it back to local mode.


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## tjkraz (Aug 14, 2014)

Thanks for the feedback. 

I finally got my router traffic logs working. When I first posted, the traffic meter was counting ALL net traffic, not just internet traffic over the WAN port. Firmware update appears to have fixed that. 

Unfortunately it doesn't provide any reporting by IP address, but keeping the traffic meter open on my desktop is at least giving me a better understanding of our usage. 

Based on tests, Tivo streaming doesn't appear to be hitting the router traffic logs. However, I am still seeing some spikes in traffic overnight which I cannot fully explain. Other morning I woke up to a report which showed nearly 4 GB used for the day already. 

Malware isn't an issue. Outsiders camping on our wifi shouldn't be an issue. 

Between the connected Tivos, game consoles, smartphones and tablets, there is probably some logical explanation for the traffic. 

Going out of town for a couple days soon. No plans to stream Tivo remotely. I'm going to try and disable all connected devices in the house except the Tivo and see what sort of usage occurs while gone.

I guess I can eliminate the "streaming" aspect as a problem but I'm curious to see what sort of data usage the Roamio itself exhibits.


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## tjkraz (Aug 14, 2014)

Just wanted to quickly tie-up this thread. Left the house for almost 3 days with every internet-enabled device turned off EXCEPT the Tivo Roamio and the Mini. Data usage while gone was almost nonexistent. 

So that seems to put to rest the issue of the boxes themselves being any significant drain on my bandwidth. 

Subsequently I made some tweaks to other devices in the house and had a conversation with the family about the impact of YouTube and Pandora streaming for extended periods. Suddenly our usage dropped from a regular 8-12 GB per day down to 3 GB. 

Not sure what factor played the biggest role. We have a lot of Apple devices in our house and I turned off some of the features like background refresh and iCloud backups. 

Entire family still uses Tivo Stream regularly and our data usage remains low. So my fears regarding Tivo were unfounded. 

Thanks for everyone who commented here.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

tjkraz said:


> Just wanted to quickly tie-up this thread. Left the house for almost 3 days with every internet-enabled device turned off EXCEPT the Tivo Roamio and the Mini. Data usage while gone was almost nonexistent.
> 
> So that seems to put to rest the issue of the boxes themselves being any significant drain on my bandwidth.
> 
> ...


Streaming music from Pandora shouldn't be causing you to use too much data, but I could see how constant video streaming from Youtube could.


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