Ready to get control of your spending on mobile Internet? Then it is
time to get Download Meter, a new application to measure and track traffic
- the amount of data your device transfers from and to the Internet
while surfing websites, watching YouTube, checking email, researching
maps, or playing online games. Measuring traffic allows you to control
your expenses on your connectivity by not exceeding the limits of data
you can transfer for free per your cell phone plan or traffic allowed
by your WiFi plan. You can also estimate your needs in traffic before
traveling abroad and estimate your expenses.
This application even allows users to define a monthly traffic limit.
"Daily" and "Weekly" types of limit are also supported (use them if your plan gives you the
same amount of free traffic every day or every week).
It will also compute the amount of remaining free traffic for the current
period (month or week). Additional features recommend how much free traffic can be used
today by dividing the amount of free traffic remaining in the current
month by the number of days remaining and using the result as a daily
limit. The program will also display the percentage of free traffic
consumed today and in the current month. The amount of traffic
consumed today automatically resets every day in the early morning,
and the amount of traffic consumed in the current month resets on a
day defined as the beginning of the month.
In addition, this application allows you to create and operate any number of
"counters," which are an advanced way of tracking traffic beginning with a
particular moment of time. Several counters can function
simultaneously, be set on pause, or reset entirely and allow you to
compute the amount of traffic consumed by a particular application or
the traffic consumed at a given location. Counters are effective tools
because you can, for example, account for traffic consumed by
watching YouTube, all traffic consumed while you are at work, or
even all traffic used by reading emails only on the weekends.
Several special counters are available that make tracking traffic
easier than ever.
In addition to measuring
mobile Internet traffic, Download Meter tracks WiFi traffic,
which is useful when you are visiting cafés or restaurants that have
traffic limits in their free WiFi network (as in some Eastern countries).
Features:
Works with any carrier (iPods are supported too!). Requires no login/password to your carrier's site.
Does not require Internet connection to get traffic usage statistics (works even in Airplane mode) because it gets information on traffic from the device, not a carrier; this means it won't cost you anything to view current traffic consumed, even while roaming in a location where traffic is very expensive.
Allows you to create and operate an unlimited number of "counters," which are an advanced way of tracking traffic per application or by period of time.
Suggests daily traffic limit and computes the current day's traffic automatically.
Calculates remaining traffic for current month/week and day, displays
traffic consumtion in percents, and notifies using different colors
when limit is about to be exceeded soon
or has already been exceeded.
Allows to adjust consumed traffic for today or this month/week to match
traffic amounts reported by your carrier.
Stats on the screen are updated every second.
Measures traffic in real time with up to byte precision.
Separates traffic into incoming and outgoing, Wi-Fi traffic and mobile Internet traffic.
Includes a complementary introductory tour on the use of the application that is run on the initial start of the program.
This application is the only one that allows a user to measure WiFi traffic.
On first use, Download Meter runs a quick introductory tour of the
application. It explains how to use daily and monthly limits in detail.
That tour can be re-enabled using the Settings utility, which will allow
you to access the "show tour at start" setting.
Advanced Use of Download Meter - Measuring with Counters
Traffic is measured by counters.
To track your traffic usage, select the tab at the bottom of the
screen that corresponds to the connection type you need to
track - i.e. WiFi or GPRS/3G/EDGE.
To create a new counter
tap '+'
To reorder or delete a counter
tap Edit and then click
Done
To rename, pause, or reset a counter
tap it, make changes and then tap Done.
To display total traffic instead of incoming traffic only,
tap the counter and place a checkmark on the item with
↓ for incoming,
↑ for outgoing, or ↓↑ for total traffic, and then
press Done.
Standard counters
Three counters are created automatically.
since boot
amount of traffic since last reboot or power-on of device.
all time
amount of traffic since since running Download Meter for the first time.
since prev. run
amount of traffic since previous run of Download Meter
These counters cannot be deleted; however, you can rename
them or move them to the bottom if you do not need them.
Tips
To measure the traffic of the current month, run Download Meter on
the first day of the month and create a new counter by tapping
'+'.
During that month, the counter will show you the traffic of the
current month. At the beginning of the next month, you can reset
that counter or pause that counter and create a new one.
If you wish to measure the traffic since the current moment
(e.g. since the beginning of your trip overseas or arrival at
a café where free WiFi is limited), just create a new counter.
For most accurate measuring, try to reboot your device as seldom
as possible. Run Download Meter right before rebooting the device or powering it off.
Do not forget about counter "since prev. run"! It is very useful
to measure traffic between two moments in time (e.g. to measure
traffic generated by a certain game) by just running Download Meter at
that moment and looking at the value computed by the counter.
You will find this program very useful if you use YouTube, Gmail, Yahoo,
Twitter or Flickr.
The current version of the manual for Download Meter is available here.
Dreaming about tracking internet traffic on your Mac? Search no more - ProteMac Meter can do this and even more!
