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DIscrepancy Between Orbi Traffic Monitor and ISP's Reported Bandwidth Usage
Is anyone else noticing a discrepancy between what the Orbi Traffic Meter reports versus what your ISP (specifically Comcast) is reporting? Before I complain to Comcast I was hoping to see if anyone ...
It does appear to be working as expected with the latest firmware, or close enough within fault tolerance. Monthly, Yesterday, and Today records seem to fall within acceptable expectation.
April:
Orbi - 610GB
ISP - 588GB
Tap - 540GB
I expect the Orbi to have the highest record since it should actively track every bit of data running through it at full line rate.
I expect the Tap to have the lowest record since it it limited to USB 2.0 Bus speed (Raspberry Pi) and therefore will not fully record any traffic exceeding ~300mbit/sec.
I expect the ISP record to sit between the Orbi and Tap as a general guideline due to the previously mentioned reasoning as well as being on an expected slight delay.
I've been tracking bandwidth consumption daily according to Comcast's meter and the Orbi Traffic Meter, and the difference if any. Once I get at least a week's worth of data, I'll post results.
I'm still working to incorporate a reliable bandwidth meter on a network tap I've installed between the Surfboard Modem and Orbi
Router. Wireshark seems to be too detailed and BandwidthD did not seem detailed enough. Going to try Darkstat next.
Finally worked out a reasonable low-profile bandwidth monitoring solution:
- Dualcomm ETAP-2003
- https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EWVFAY/
- Connected inline between modem and router
- Gigabit interfaces
- Raspberry Pi 3 B+
- https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BDR5PDW/
- Gigabit interfaces, but on USB 2.0 Bus so max speed of around 300 mbit/s
- Connected ethernet to router for normal access
- Option to use WiFi instead, but also using for Pi-Hole DNS filtering and Unbound DNS server
- TP-Link USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
- Connected to Monitor port of ETAP-2003
- Interface set to promiscuous mode
- Running vnstat - https://humdi.net/vnstat/
- Nice and simple, cli based, low cpu, network traffic monitor
Only issue with using a Raspberry Pi for monitoring bandwidth is the USB 2.0 Bus limitation for wired ethernet (both built-in and USB adapter) which maxes around 300 mbit/s. My current ISP tier is 400 mbit/s downstream that boosts to almost 500 mbit/s. It's uncommon to hit that high of bandwidth for any significant period of time, so not likely to skew results too terribly, but still something to recognize.
Capturing bandwidth utilization starting again now...
Sounds interesting, can you post a picture of it as well as any initial results?
Initial results are varied as expected, but a new month just started and hopefully get some legit data now. I've been tracking changes as reported by both my ISP and Orbi Traffic Meter starting about a week ago. I picked an arbitrary starting point for a baseline and have measured the differences over the last ~7 days. While running the latest firmware, initial results show similar values recorded by both with a ~3GB discrepancy opposite of the original thread starting situation (Orbi now shows higher usage than ISP) with some back and forth from day to day.
Router Firmware Version
V2.3.1.44https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1o5DLhMMG4NNP9dSz5jUfrnaTe7TG0Nze-3Op7eASWWg/edit?usp=sharing
I am also using my network tap bandwidth monitoring solution, however I while I was expecting the Orbi Traffic Meter to reset this morning at midnight, I was not expecting the value for "Yesterday" to clear when the value for "Last Month" does not clear (screenshot attached). From memory and for most part, the Orbi and Network Tap seem to be reporting similar results; will clarify with data tomorrow.
As of right now, stats for today:
Network Tap: 3.43GB
Orbi Traffic Meter: 3.177GB
But with a grain of salt since its a moment in time during a 24 hour period of recording.
More time brings better results... looks like the new firmware seems to be working better, but there's not enough evidence to claim this was the initial underlying issue.
Comparing Orbi Traffic Meter to both the Raspberry Pi running vnstat and Comcast's app, the numbers appear to match. There are slight discrepancies due to the beforementioned RPi network interface speed being limited to the USB2.0 bus (~300 mbit/s). If the Orbi reported lower numbers than the RPi, then it would be an issue; since the Orbi shows greater values, it's inconclusive, but not unexpected.
Just upgraded from V2.3.1.44 to V2.3.1.48 and the traffic meter did not reset.
In my opinion, absolutely a good thing. Someone previously mentioned in this thread about having the traffic data disappear upon firmware update. I do appreciate that the traffic meter data persists.
Good to hear.
Enjoy then. :smileywink:
It does appear to be working as expected with the latest firmware, or close enough within fault tolerance. Monthly, Yesterday, and Today records seem to fall within acceptable expectation.
April:
Orbi - 610GB
ISP - 588GB
Tap - 540GB
I expect the Orbi to have the highest record since it should actively track every bit of data running through it at full line rate.
I expect the Tap to have the lowest record since it it limited to USB 2.0 Bus speed (Raspberry Pi) and therefore will not fully record any traffic exceeding ~300mbit/sec.
I expect the ISP record to sit between the Orbi and Tap as a general guideline due to the previously mentioned reasoning as well as being on an expected slight delay.
Great information and data. Looks like it's working, at least better than prior FW versions.
Thanks for posting this. :smileywink:
