Thread: How I drastically reduced monthly usage WITH BSNL NU

Hi guys,

Been lurking for a while so can't be sure whether this has already been covered or not. Don't really mean this to be a heavy content thread, and nor do i think that most of u REALLY need the advice on top of what's already available on this great forum.

I intend this as a starting point for ppl who still find it difficult to stay within their allotted BB usages from BSNL even when using the night unlimited plans. I usually ran up my tab to 4.x GB (my limit is 5 GB with Home 1000), but this month I was surprised to note that my usage was the following:

Total Send Volume(GB) 9.646
Total Receive Volume(GB) 27.44
Total Volume(GB) 37.086
Total Duration(hour) 283.34
Sum Traffic Excluding Night Unlimited(GB) 1.455:12:

My current setup is the BSNL issued UT300R2U modem with Linksys WRTG54 (basic) router. Like a lot of you, I started using Imran's and related utilities to auto reboot my modem, etc. The steps I've taken that, imo, have made a big difference are:

1. Using TST10.exe (Telnet Script 1.0) to reboot the UT modem at the appropriate times (few minutes AFTER 2 am and a few minutes BEFORE 8 am). I have the scripts set up to execute as a program with Advanced Task Scheduler (any scheduler program would work for this).

2. Using Imran's BB utility only to shut off the PC. Some of u use Imran's util. to reboot ur modems, which is great, but i could never get it to work with mine, and it has time synch issues. Another interesting fact for my system is that I will sometimes log on remotely to my desktop to check on the torrents that are running or some other reason. A remotely logged-on PC, even after logging off, doesn't seem to respond to scheduled shut downs (since it considers other users as logged on). In this aspect, Imran's is great to schedule a FORCED shut down with.

3. Disabling NIC (LAN card) a few minutes BEFORE 8 am and 1 minute BEFORE PC shutdown. I have my scheduler do this with a simple command line execution. This, imo, has probably been the biggest contributing factor since I never used to do it before. Disabling the NIC blocks any extra modem traffic from ever coming to the PC even after ur torrent program has exited or even after ur PC has shut down but LAN remains active.

I used to find it weird that even though my PC shut down at 8 am (confirmed), modem traffic was persistent according to BSNL records until 9 or even 10 am! Disabling the NIC ensures this doesn't happen. Only catch is, u gotta enable the NIC again when u use the PC, which takes a couple of minutes (can be excruciating if needed urgently!).

There it is, feel free to ask questions. I hope this "guide" does help some of u who are struggling with monthly usage caps. If not, then at least i got my thoughts and "secrets" out.

my usage:



love to see somebody crossing over 150gb/month in Home 500 plan

Originally Posted by StormShadow

love to see somebody crossing over 150gb/month in Home 500 plan

nice one storm! ru using the Home 500 plan? i bet i could hit 150 GB with mine, but nowadays I don't download as much as i used to. Not to mention the fact that some nights I myself will stay up till 3-4 am and forget to start the downloadz!

How do you manage to download so much? I can only do about 55/15GB per month. What sort of stuff do you download?

@ hplp20, what do u mean by 55/15 GB? Receive/Send volume?

I download a lot of popular TV shows, such as Lost, Heroes, Prison Break, etc. Also animated series like the Simpsons, Family Guy, etc. These are probably the heaviest volume since I download entire seasons at once, over several days' time. In addition to these TV shows, I also download a lot of poker tournament vidz (something I got addicted to in the States).

I've found that the TV and tournament shows (at least new seasons with a lot of seeders) can be downloaded blazing fast. Some of my poker tourney videos download at rates of 150 KB/s and above.

In addition to those, I DL the occasional movie, but like I said, most of my volume comes from the TV shows.

Why DL TV shows u ask? a couple of reasons. first is the fact that new seasons released in the West never release in India until at least 6 months time. the second is because some of these shows/game shows don't show in India at all! (well, Zee TV now shows poker tourneys late nights, but those are all old)

I find that obscure movies, any non-English material (incl. Hindi), and games take the longest. If one were to DL solely this material, they would never hit a high volume.

pjaveed can you tell me from witch site do you download this TV shows.

indranil, i use the search engine . searching here will give u links to where torrents for these shows can be found.

edit: mods, i wanted to pm this but couldn't. hope im not in breach of site rules..

Originally Posted by Indranil

pjaveed can you tell me from witch site do you download this TV shows.

the best site to search for torrents is torrentz.com and there are quite a few private torrents like torrentleech, iptorrents and demonoid. then there is Rapidshare and megaupload..if u have one of the premium accounts ..u can rip :P

ah ok, looks like mods removed my link to torrentz.com. ya, use that along with torrent client of ur choice.

i easily download 5GB+ every day, which will come to 150GB+ every month, have premium in both RS and MU