How can I check my BT broadband data usage?

These days, almost everyone is on an unlimited broadband connection, where you can chomp through as much data as you like. Still, aren’t you occasionally curious as to how much data your family is burning through on a monthly basis? Here’s how to check your broadband data usage if you’re a BT broadband customer.

Check BT Broadband data usage: method 1

This method is the simplest way to check, but it will only work if you’re still on a BT broadband contract with a fixed data cap.

1. Go to bt.com and click on the My BT section
2. Log in with your BT username and password
3. Click on “View package”
4. Now click on the “Billing & usage” tab at the top of the page
5. Scroll down and click the “View usage” button

If you’re on an unlimited account, BT will (rather unhelpfully for the inquisitive customer) point out that “you don’t have to worry about usage. As your data is unlimited, we’ll never charge you extra for it.”

Instead, we need to interrogate the BT router to find out how much data your home is hammering through.

Check BT broadband data usage: method 2

The instructions below are for the BT Smart Hub, but other BT routers have similar facilities.

1. Open the BT Smart Hub manager by typing http://192.168.1.254 into a web browser or by clicking on our link
2. Click on Advanced Settings and then Broadband
3. At this point, you’ll be prompted for the router’s admin password – you should find this on the card in the back of your router or a sticker on the base of the router
4. You should now see a screen that looks something like this:

The Data Usage figure shows how much data (in megabytes) you’ve downloaded since the router was last rebooted, which is shown in the Connection Time setting above.

In my case, it’s been almost 23 days since the router was rebooted, during which time I’ve downloaded 565,023MB of data (around 565GB) and uploaded 18,944MB (around 19GB).

That means as a family, we’re downloading around 25GB of data per day, which, given I work from home and we use Netflix/catch-up services like they’re going out of fashion, seems about right.

Now read this: Which BT Hub do I have?