How to: Monitor Bandwidth with Tomato Firmware

“In the early days of the Internet, dial-up users were charged
based on how many hours per month they spent online. Many of us
have become spoiled in the broadband era, with “unlimited” access
the norm—measured both in time and bandwidth usage. But with
so many subscribers now using so much network capacity, the
pendulum may be swinging back toward metered services. In the U.S.,
major providers Time Warner and Comcast have both introduced
efforts to “cap” network use. In the UK, over a million subscribers
experience broadband caps, and five out of nine ISP’s offering
“unlimited” service impose caps.

“Regardless of the merits or lack thereof of metered bandwidth,
the reality is that more of us are likely to have to keep track of
our online usage. A nifty way to do this is by using a supported
wireless router loaded with a firmware, such as Tomato, which
includes sophisticated bandwidth monitoring. Auditing bandwidth
usage can be useful for any network with limited resources, or even
to help spot and diagnose errant activity (such as malware) that
may be unwittingly filling up the pipes.”

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