# Skype / Bandwidth Usage Question



## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

I'm not a Skype user at all, but I'm trying to help a friend figure something out. His fiancé's 76 year-old mother has been using Skype frequently to talk to her sister in Egypt. We don't (yet) know how many hours per week she spends on Skype.

She just received an hefty bandwidth-overage charge on her most recent ISP bill, something like $45 or $50. Is it possible that her Skype usage could be responsible? The ISP plan she is on has a 20 GB down / 10 GB up monthly cap. Apart from using Skype, she just does basic e-mail & web surfing with her (Windoze) PC so I don't see how else she could have gone so far over her monthly cap.

Any ideas?


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## DBerG (May 24, 2005)

What's her ISP?


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

Videotron cable.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

assuming that Skype uses 32kbps audio, and a person is talking on Skype non stop for a whole month (and exhaustion doesn't kill them), that's t0GB of bandwidth there. At a more reasonable 2000 minutes a month, I'd say that's 480MB up + 480MB down. Could they be using video as well?


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

She's not using video at all. My friend and his fiancé are going over there for supper this evening and will check out the PC. If the culprit isn't Skype, I wonder what the heck could have pushed her way, way over the monthly cap. This is a Windoze machine after all so I wonder if it might be infected with a zombie trojan or something. Or could someone be piggybacking on her account somehow? I'm just glad it's not my problem...


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

Wasn't her Skype usage. Nosiree.

My friend found her machine was infected with 150+ viruses, trojans, and all kinds of spyware. Yep, it's been a spam zombie for a few weeks, hence the bandwidth cap overage.

Spybot, Ad-Aware installed. Norton AV brought up to date.

I said she should just get a Mac Mini as this will no doubt happen again if she sticks with the PC.


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## VNJ85 (Feb 24, 2006)

Show her how to check her monthly usage via the videotron website.

https://www.videotron.com/services/secur/en/votre_compte/ConsommationInternetInput.jsp

this way she can detect early signs of overuse and stop it before she gets charged.


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## mac_geek (May 14, 2005)

The Doug said:


> Wasn't her Skype usage. Nosiree.
> 
> My friend found her machine was infected with 150+ viruses, trojans, and all kinds of spyware. Yep, it's been a spam zombie for a few weeks, hence the bandwidth cap overage.


And here I was thinking for sure that she was a closet Bit Torrent fiend...


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