Usage depleted overnight. All updates set during free time.

Good morning Lea,

Thank you for reporting back, we appreciate it, this is very helpful. Since you mentioned Facebook, if you haven't already done so, turn off auto-play for the videos in your timeline: https://community.myhughesnet.com/hughesnet/topics/how_to_disable_autoplay_videos_on_facebook Auto-playing videos are also commonly found on news sites, which, unfortunately may not provide an option to turn this off, so be mindful of that.

However, as Charles suggested, using browser extensions can help prevent unwanted videos/images from loading. Even if auto-play isn't disabled, there's no considerable spike or large amount of usage for that hour. (Ideally, I want to have longer testing periods to have more accurate results, but I understand you have more important things to spend your time on than troubleshooting.)

The next step is to re-connect your router, but only have your computer connected to it. Please also turn off the wifi on any known wireless device you have that could connect to your network (iPhones, etc.). As Gwalk900 wonderfully explained above, adding a wireless network into the mix can greatly complicate troubleshooting, so we'll do our best.

The purpose of re-adding the router and only connecting the PC is to see if the router itself is having an effect on usage. If we see a considerable increase in usage in another test hour, we can investigate from there. Please also tell us your router model so we know what exactly we're working with, thanks.

As Charles also explained, HughesNet certainly works with routers, and we discuss routers in our FAQ here: http://www.hughesnet.com/index.cfm?page=FAQ 

We also have a list of recommended routers: http://www.hughesnet.com/indexx.cfm?page=dspWirelessRouter

To recap: Disable auto-playing videos if you can. Try Charles' suggestion to use blocking extensions. Disable wifi on all your wifi devices. Reconnect your router and only the PC. Then take the before and after screenshots of the Status Meter for your test hour of usage. If you can do more than an hour, that would be better.

Thanks,
Liz