Apple wants to alleviate some of those issues, by suggesting that users should bring their Macs in to their local Apple Store (via Computerworld), and use the free Wi-Fi connection provided by the store to download the update. That Apple, a company known for wanting to make thing easy for consumers is suggesting such a clunky solution, suggests that it’s well aware of the broadband problems facing a subset of the population and it can’t afford to ignore them.

Obviously, this solution really only works for users with portable Macs, since lugging a 27-inch iMac down to your local mall may be a tad inconvenient, but it still might be the best option for some Mac owners come July, when Lion is set to be officially released to the public.

It may even be worth the inconvenience to some. If you’re stuck in a remote area, your connection might be spotty at best, and probably doesn’t offer blazing speeds. The Lion download from the App Store is designed to be stopped and started as much as needed in order to get the job done, but OS buyers aren’t going to want to take a few days over the course of a week to get their hands on their purchase.

Even if you have a solid connection, limited bandwidth plans might affect your ability to get Lion. The system update download is 4 GB, which is actually fairly small, considering that it holds an entire operating system. But 4 GB represents a significant chunk of some throttled home internet plans. Rogers in Canada, for instance, offers an entry-level Ultra-Lite internet plan that only allows for 2 GB of monthly usage, so you would technically have to wait two months to complete the Lion download without incurring overage charges. Even the next step up only gets you 15 GB, so Lion represents a full quarter of your monthly allowance with that plan.

Volume customers like businesses and colleges will get an installer via single download that they can then use on multiple computers, but for consumers, the only upgrade path seems to be purchasing through the Mac App Store. That means you can buy it once and have it available to all your machines, but you may have to download it to each in order to get it to work. Apple could make the downloaded file transferrable via flash drive or local network connection machine-to-machine to make it easier for customers to upgrade multiple computers without using more bandwidth, but it’s not clear whether the company plans to do that yet.

Does the prospect of a mandatory 4 GB download affect your decision to upgrade to OS X Lion, or is this just a marginal problem affecting a few fringe customers?

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Weighing in at just over 4 GB each download, this update will likely be a major contender with Netflix for internet bandwidth.  Especially as Apple’s 54 million Mac users begin to upgrade.  While priced the same as OS X Snow Leopard, this cat is no slouch.  With over 250 new features, Mac users will be more likely to want to update sooner rather than later.

What will be interesting this time around is how one performs this download-based upgrade. While users have gotten familiar with the upgrade process of the disk-based distribution, the Mac OS X upgrade path will likely be a little different; requiring enough free hard drive space for the download, the upgrade process, and the larger OS foot print that will likely result.  At a time when Mac users are opting for the faster yet smaller SSDs, extra hard drive space, like network bandwidth will be at a premium.

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1. Watch your bandwidth usage at least once a week and plan accordingly.

AT&T has promised accurate and easy to use bandwidth monitors, and it’s up to the customer to check their usage. In our tech-crazy household, we checked our old cable ISP’s meter once a day, but most users can probably get by with once a week. Watch for Internet spikes and, if you see one, use these tips to figure out what’s up and prevent an overage for that month.

Unlike AT&T mobile voice plans, any unused bandwidth doesn’t carry over month-to-month. That means that if you haven’t used all your bandwidth by the end of the month, it’s time to go use it. Unfortunately, everyone else has the same idea at the end of the month, so often, you’ll notice a slowdown as traffic usage increases.

2. Turn off software auto-updates.

Software updates are handy and often increase reliability of your system, but with large updates taking up 500 MB or more, it’s time to be careful. In a household with a large number of systems, one major release can take many gigabytes. Turn off auto-updates by going to the Apple Menu, then System Preferences, and then un-check “Check for Updates”.

If you want an update right away, instead of using Apple’s built-in updater, go to http://support.apple.com/downloads/ and download the updates manually on just one system and then copy them to all the necessary computers in your household.

While iOS apps are relatively small, updates in the App Store for OS X are not. Be careful of these updates and only do necessary ones mid-month. Wait until the end of the month, and use your leftover bandwidth for the month, if you have any.

3. Avoid a lot of HD videos

Whether it’s YouTube, Netflix, Hulu or even iTunes, most video providers give you the option of HD picture quality while viewing. Before caps, you would choose the highest definition your connection could handle. No more. While a few videos won’t make a difference, when the entire household watches everything at 720p, you start reaching your cap quickly. Carefully consider each video and determine whether you truly need top quality and advise everyone in the household to do the same.

4. Beware file synchronization software.

As a big fan of DropBox, I love being able to sync files between computers both in my house and between home and office. Whenever you use DropBox, SugarSync, iDisk or other services, anytime a file is changed the bandwidth meter is running. That presentation you are working on might only be 20 MB, but each time you save the file, that 20 MB is uploaded and steals bandwidth. If you’re good and save every five minutes, within an hour, you’ll have used 240 MB of bandwidth. Four hours of work, and you’re reaching a gig. Ouch.

Instead of working on a live document within a sync folder, consider saving it to your documents folder and copying it to your sync folder only upon the completion of work. You’ll still have the benefits of the file being stored up in the cloud, but not in an instantaneous (and bandwidth sucking) way.

5. Seriously reconsider your online backup strategy

I’ve written about various online backup services, but whichever one you choose, that first backup you do is a large one! Because the caps consider both download and upload, a moderate backup could quickly fill your bandwidth allocation.

When I started with online backup, I specified smaller folders and a slow upload speed until close to the end of the month. Once I knew how much bandwidth I had left, I added folders and increased the backup speed until the first of the new month, and then began the cycle over again. Sure it took quite a few months, but it also meant I didn’t get dinged with overage charges.

Starting over, I probably would have taken up CrashPlan’s option to send them a copy of my hard drive to do the initial backup. Those who already did an initial backup with an online service should be fine unless they add or change a large amount of data. These people will have to accept additional bandwidth charges each month if they keep using AT&T.

6. Scale down your usage of VoIP and webcams.

These services can be fun, exciting and really useful for collaborative work efforts. Apple’s heart-tugging commercials using FaceTime to bridge the gap between families costs bandwidth. Consider using text when actually hearing someone’s voice isn’t required and consider using video only when absolutely necessary and for a minimum period of time especially with the HD-quality desktop FaceTime.

When doing a “virtual” visit back home with voice and video, start with a video chat so you get that initial warm and fuzzy and then scale back to voice to continue the conversation. The bandwidth you save may be your own.

7. Watch for bandwidth vampires.

Many devices in your home use your Internet connection, even when you may not be aware. Security systems, DVRs, and Blu-ray players all use data when online, and game systems will use bandwidth while you are playing games online. Some of this use may be minor, but you still need to be careful.

Enough of these devices, combined with a high bandwidth month elsewhere, and a few quirks can push you over the edge. For example, one month, our TiVo was caught in a loop and kept downloading its updates over and over again, and it cost us an extra $20 from our local cable ISP. We didn’t even notice the problem right away because the update was at night. That is, we didn’t notice until we got our cable bill! Both TiVo and the cable company were unforgiving.

8. Careful with those torrents.

Torrents are a popular way of quickly downloading large files over the Internet containing both legal and perhaps questionable content. When downloading a file, your system will also upload at the same time. When you have a complete file, you “seed” it to other systems and you act as an ad hoc server for the file. It’s common courtesy to seed for a while so others may download. Reconsider how long you seed. Leaving a torrent open overnight can use a lot of bandwidth. Most torrent clients allow you to slow down or stop your seeds after a period of time. If possible, per tip 1, wait until the end of the month to do your torrenting, and especially seeding.

9. Close those remote connections.

Remote connection software like LogMeIn, GotoMyPC, Timbuktu and even Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are handy ways of telecommuting and getting work done. Often we get lazy and leave a connection open because we want to be able to start our work instantly and want to avoid the hassles of authentication and firing up applications. Not only is this insecure, but an “always up” connection can suck your bandwidth if left open 24/7. Always remember to log out when done.

10. Secure your Wi-Fi connection with a good password.

There are so many good reasons to secure Wi-Fi, but it’s more important now than ever before. Neighbors may accidentally connect to your Wi-Fi network, and their use of your connection counts against your cap. A bad neighbor may even choose your network over their own because they want to keep under their own cap!

Yes, these tips are annoying, frustrating and extremely miserly. An average light user of AT&T’s service will most likely be fine, for now, and not need to use all these tips (expect for #1). These tips are for “the rest of us” who live in multi-device and multi-kid households and are used to using technology to the fullest. Without some careful planning, you can go over your bandwidth allocation and scratch your head wondering why.

Hopefully, these restrictions will ultimately be seen as a failed experiment to control consumer behavior and extract revenue. As I mentioned before, Apple needs to come out with a public statement against caps, as they are inconsistent with Apple’s long-term iTunes and cloud business strategies. As a user, you should let AT&T know your opinion as well and ask them to remove these odious restrictions. Until such times, these tips should help you manage your bandwidth budget and keep your bill reasonable. Be sure to leave your own bandwidth management suggestions in the comments.

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Bellaria and Liebovitz didn’t specifically mention AT&T by name, but it seems fairly obvious who they’re talking about in the FCC blog post last week, especially given that the iPad so far only has one official carrier in the U.S.:

With the iPad pointing to even greater demand for mobile broadband on the horizon, we must ensure that network congestion doesn’t choke off a service that consumers clearly find so appealing, or frustrate mobile broadband’s ability to keep us competitive in the global broadband economy.

The blog post also recalls a time not too long ago when AOL’s unlimited internet usage plan caused connection and service problems, and how that time mirrors our own:

The congestion problem circa 1996-97 revealed an intense latent demand for Internet access.  Similarly, wireless network congestion today reveals intense demand for wireless broadband.  Widespread use of smartphones, 3G-enabled netbooks, and now, perhaps, the iPad and its competitors demonstrate that wireless broadband will be a hugely important part of the broadband ecosystem as we move ahead.

Finally, Bellaria and Liebovitz leave off with the conclusion that AT&T and other mobile broadband providers must expand their spectrum offerings to ensure that a similar congestion problem doesn’t happen again. No doubt, AT&T is taking steps to galvanize its network (which it knows is in trouble already) against the demand increase it has to have anticipated as a result of the iPad’s introduction, but will it be enough?

This problem is one that affects the fundamentals of mobile communication in this case, unlike before with AOL’s home Internet access issues. Even though it doesn’t make as much sense from a profitability perspective, AT&T has to make every effort not only to anticipate demand, but to over-prepare for the iPad’s release. If there’s one lesson the telecom should’ve learned from its ongoing iPhone usage problems, it’s that half measures will only continue to exhaust the patience of its subscribers.

I realize that a just-in-time approach to bandwidth probably makes more financial sense, but surprise everyone by taking a slightly longer view, AT&T. Presumably the next-gen iPhone will be available on your network, too, as an exclusive or otherwise, so factor that into the estimates of what you’ll need to provide for the iPad’s launch. Stay just one step ahead of the game instead of two steps behind and maybe you can go some of the way towards improving your terrible reputation.

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So, it’s a bit disjointing when a few errant notes are played out of tune. If you’ve managed to survive this disaster of a metaphor this far, you know I’m talking about Bad News. A few numbers-heavy reports this week present us with news that, if not entirely bad, is at least disappointing…

According to Electronista, NPD Group reported this week that the Blackberry Curve — of all things! — kept the iPhone 3GS from the title of first place handset in this summer’s smartphone handset sales in Northern America. Verizon’s “Buy One Get One Free” deal is said to have been the culprit; it not only offered two handsets for the price of one but also lowered the average selling price of a ‘feature phone’ handset from the same period the previous year ($88 down to $85). The iPhone 3GS and the older 3G took second and third spots respectively, which is not too shabby considering they were only beaten-out on price.

Devious Droids

More recently, Verizon’s wily ways have proven (again!) to be bad news for Apple’s smartphone. In its BrandIndex report last week, YouGov announced that Motorola’s Droid had a loyalty score of 29.3 among younger men, easily beating the iPhone’s score of 22. Why is Verizon to blame for Motorola’s success? YouGov say that loyalty scores for Motorola remain largely unchanged, so they attribute the success of the Droid to Verizon’s cunning ad campaign that has very openly criticised AT&T’s spotty 3G coverage and poured scorn on the iPhone, decrying its closed software platform, low-resolution camera and lack of multitasking ability.

Might not sound so bad, but consider that just prior to Verizon’s ad campaign, the iPhone’s loyalty score was running at a high of 48.1! It seems obvious that Verizon’s advertising was hugely effective; irrespective of whether or not the Droid is a superior platform, Verizon managed to significantly influence customer perception.

Hungry Hungry Handsets

It’s not all bad news, not really; according to a recent study conducted by AdMob and reported by Hardmac, the iPhone has captured 50 percent of the world’s 3G network bandwidth. Other mobile OS’s are trailing far behind it seems, with Symbian taking second place with 25 percent share. Android takes third place with 11 percent and RIM and Windows Mobile fail to make double digits.

I said it’s not all bad news, but the carriers might disagree with me. They’re suffering at the hands of smartphone-wielding customers and their bandwidth-hungry handsets. AT&T has been gradually upgrading its 3G network to try to cope with the added strain of millions of data-hungry mobile devices but it’s an expensive upgrade that will take years to complete. But, still — nice to know we iPhone users are being a nuisance and shaking things up a bit for The Man!

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As a responsible Mac user, I usually feel immune from most Internet threats…except for one. Using my Mac exactly as Apple intends it to be used sometimes renders my Internet connection virtually unusable for up to a month, and costs money to fix.

Could this happen to you? It depends on whether your Internet provider has a bandwidth “metering” policy (or “cap”). These caps are one of the most controversial topics for Internet users in 2009, and can put a significant crimp in your Internet use. Recently, Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY), who represents the Rochester area, introduced the “Broadband Internet Fairness Act” (H.R. 2902) (PDF). Massa got involved soon after Time Warner Cable unsuccessfully used Rochester as a test market for metering. Under this bill, the FTC would have veto power over such caps and thus allow them only under certain agreed-upon scenarios.

In my hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, the standard level of cable Internet service has a limit of 3GB of bandwidth per month. Overage is charged $2 per GB. Downloading a single movie from the iTunes store will blow through an entire monthly limit, and even the cable company’s most expensive “premium” service only allows 50GB of bandwidth. In 2009, that’s not really much bandwidth at all.

Once you’ve hit your limit, you have to severely restrict usage until the next month, or face a large bill. Your Apple TV remains stale without its new content, your iMac stops downloading podcasts, and your iPod weeps because it’s sick of the same old music you had last month.

Apple is the leader in multimedia content creation; new Mac users are always pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to buy from the iTunes store, or create their own content. A common question we get in our local user group is “I’m not sure what I did wrong, but all of a sudden I have a substantial overage bill from my cable company.” Of course, the user did nothing wrong, other than subscribe to a few podcasts, and perhaps download a new Apple software update and buy some shows with iTunes! The Mac is also blessed with great online backup services like MobileMe, yet when our user group did a presentation on backup strategy, I had to warn novice users to be careful lest their backups end up costing them an arm and a leg in bandwidth overage fees!

While on the surface this appears to be an isolated issue with a few providers, it is not. Bandwidth metering is a growing threat to cable Internet users in many cities. The American Cable Association (ACA) has come out in support of bandwidth caps, and the former chair of the ACA, Patrick Knorr, who implemented bandwidth caps in Lawrence, stated in multiple interviews that flat-rate Internet pricing is an “unsustainable” business model.

Unfortunately, using the Internet normally with bandwidth metering is also unsustainable. When Mac owners are worried about downloading movies, doing backups or performing system updates, that hurts the Apple brand. Apple is continually innovating new ways to make the Mac OS the best Internet operating system, creating a whole ecosystem with iTunes, MobileMe and iLife. All of these great products rely on the ubiquity of the Internet. When Internet providers start making normal Internet use an expensive proposition, Mac users lose.

Apple should lead the way and come out against bandwidth caps. Given that many of the offerings on the iTunes store actually compete with cable TV, Apple should be vigilant that cable companies do not use bandwidth metering as a way to stifle alternative ways of viewing content. Additionally, Apple should add a bandwidth meter to the Airport routers; that way the bandwidth use of entire households can be tracked. If bandwidth caps are inevitable, Apple can arm the consumer with data to monitor their usage and dispute discrepancies with their ISP.

Apple could be an ally for consumers (even the “PC guy” in the commercials would be helped!), while at the same time standing up for its own brand and vision of consumer Internet use. If you disagree with the idea of bandwidth metering, make sure your voice is heard by giving customer feedback to your own Internet provider and writing your member of Congress. I had better end this article now…bytes and bits equal dollars and cents for me, unfortunately!

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This post covers two of three key programs for managing bandwidth: iftop (a command-line utility) and SurplusMeter (a GUI tool). The third utility – lsof (another command-line utility) – will require a dedicated article in-and-of itself.

How Much Am I Consuming?

SurplusMeter is a small tool from the fine folks over at SkoobySoft with one mission: to show you how much bandwidth you are consuming with the option to enter any known caps to ensure you are not over your limit. You can download SurpluMeter directly from their site. It is a PPC binary compatible down to OS X 10.3.9. For those who want to live life on the wild side, you can grab the source code and compile it yourself. I have built an OS X 10.5 compatible Universal Binary version which you can download via this post. No matter which way you decide to go, it is important to copy the application to your local volume as it runs an agent program – which runs in the background collecting bandwidth data – that will make it difficult to remove mounted volumes if you keep it running.

The main view of SurplusMeter is fairly straightforward. You can set which day to start the monthly tracking period on and specify your known bandwidth cap – which can also include upstream usage. Monitoring can be paused if you know you will be moving between networks, the collected data can be reset and you can even choose which interface to monitor via their “English” names vs OS X short device names (e.g. “Ethernet port” vs “en0“). For my example, I did a short sample of bandwidth on my AT&T 3G ExpressCard, hence the PPP modem selection. If there were hiccups during program execution or you know of other bandwidth usage on your connection not emanating from your Mac, you can add bytes to the current data collector.

Similarly, you can also remove bytes if you were measuring data on an interface that moved between networks.

SurplusMeter is kind enough to store its data in ~/Library/Application Support/SurplusMeter/surplusmeter_data.plist in a very human- and machine-readable format (a well-annoted Apple plist) so you can do what you like with it:

In general, it is a great, special purpose utility to have around.

What’s Going On Here?

SurplusMeter tells you that you are using bandwidth, but does not provide any further details. This is where tool number two – iftop – comes into play. You can grab a pre-built package of iftop (“interface top”) from AFP548.com or grab the source and try your hand at building it (you may need to download some support libraries). Users of various “ports” tools should be able to find iftop in one of the repositories.

Where the command-line tool top provides a mechanism for determining what processes are consuming precious system resources (in a very similar fashion to the Activity Monitor application), iftop does something similar for network usage on a particular interface.

You will need some more technical information to run iftop successfully. First, you will need to know which network interface you want to monitor. To find out which interfaces you have on your system, open Terminal.app and run the command:

ifconfig -l

My output from that shows:

lo0 gif0 stf0 en0 fw0 en1 vmnet8 vmnet1 ppp0

Interface en0 generally is equivalent to “Ethernet” and en1 is usually equivalent to your AirPort card. ppp0 would refer to most modems, including 3G cards. Additional interfaces may be related to a VMware or Parallels install, your local firewall interface or other local types of network devices.

With Terminal.app open, run iftop -h to see what the command line options are for the tool:

Synopsis: iftop -h | [-npbBP] [-i interface] [-f filter code] [-N net/mask]

   -h                  display this message
   -n                  don't do hostname lookups
   -N                  don't convert port numbers to services
   -p                  run in promiscuous mode (show traffic between other
                       hosts on the same network segment)
   -b                  don't display a bar graph of traffic
   -B                  Display bandwidth in bytes
   -i interface        listen on named interface
   -f filter code      use filter code to select packets to count
                       (default: none, but only IP packets are counted)
   -F net/mask         show traffic flows in/out of network
   -P                  show ports as well as hosts
   -m limit            sets the upper limit for the bandwidth scale
   -c config file      specifies an alternative configuration file

For this example, the most useful options are “-i” to let us choose which interface to monitor and “-P” to show which ports are in use. The tool requires elevated privileges to work so you have to run the following to start your view: sudo iftop -P -i ppp0 (again, replace “ppp0” with “en0” or “en1” or whatever interface you need to monitor).

You should see something similar to the following screen upon successful execution (minus the annotation):

The main part of the display lists, for each pair of hosts, the rate at which data has been sent and received over the preceding 2, 10 and 40 second intervals. The direction of data flow is indicated by arrows, <= and =>. So in this example, where I started iTunes just after kicking off iftop, we can see that:

• 166.129.237.160 (my local machine) made a series of http (web) requests to Apple servers
• some of Apple’s servers do not resolve from IP addresses to host names
• the average transfer rate over 40 seconds is between 0.2 kilobytes and 9 kilobytes per second

After quitting iTunes and running for a while, then letting it sit “idle” (not actively doing network activity), you can see that the pattern of usage can change dramatically.

While iftop can let you see more of what is going on, it cannot tell you which applications or processes are causing the usage. You can infer quite a bit (i.e. http traffic is most likely coming from your browser – but this is not necessarily the case as shown by the last screen), but finding out core details is where lsof can be of real value and will be covered in our next installment.

While I have presented a free way to monitor bandwidth usage, Guy Meyer has a set of tools – Net Monitor & Net Monitor Sidekick which do something similar but are not free (the Sidekick program is in beta which is expired so I was not able to test it).

If you are using any of these or similar tools to monitor bandwidth utilization, drop a note in the comments to share your insights with TAB readers and keep an eye out for our post on lsof!

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