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I need internet usage of computers on my network. Can ISP provide me with a detailed internet usage of individual computers in my network?

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    "Detailed internet usage" is too vague. What exactly do you want to know? How much data is being transferred by each user? What sites are being accessed by each user? Be specific. Jul 9, 2013 at 9:39
  • You could use something like PRTG to create a packet sniffing sensor for the switch port that connects to your router/firewall. This would give you detailed information on internet traffic based on source, destination and type. You could get the same information from NetFlow, J-Flow or sFlow if your switch or router support any of them.
    – joeqwerty
    Jul 9, 2013 at 13:55

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Your ISP almost certainly cannot break down usage by individual computer if you are connecting to your ISP through a single router using NAT (as most household routers do).

There are two ways of differentiating between computers on a network for traffic accounting purposes: source IP address, or MAC address.

A MAC address is only distinguishable on a single Ethernet LAN (local area network). Once traffic passes through a router the MAC address is stripped off and there is no way of recovering this information.

A source IP address survives routing however it is stripped off when passing through Network Address Translation (NAT). Most ISPs only offer one external IP address to home customers and it is for this reason that NAT is used by most household routers.

Once your ISP receives your traffic it has had all MAC addresses and source IP addresses stripped. Thus all your ISP knows is that traffic has originated from your router.

Some ASCII diagrams to illustrate:

   ________
   |      |  MAC survives
-->|SWITCH|-->
   |______|

   ________
   |      |  MAC stripped
-->|ROUTER|-->
   |______|  IP survives

   ________
   |      |  MAC stripped
-->|ROUTER|-->
   |W/ NAT|
   |______|  IP stripped
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  • This doesn't answer the question.
    – joeqwerty
    Jul 9, 2013 at 13:51
  • 1
    actually, this do answers the question. Either all computers are connected through the router to ISP and then ISP has no idea what happens inside the network. Or the whole infrastructure is served by ISP (including all routers and switches). Then ISP can potentially do it. The question itself is bad formulated and it's not possible to answer more precisely. Jul 9, 2013 at 15:46
  • To be more specific, I have a wireless internet connection through a dongle which is connected to a router and that in turn connects all the 20 computers. The internet usage is exceeding the assigned download limit of 200 gb. Would like to know the internet usage(data being transferred) of each ids for the previous month. Jul 9, 2013 at 21:49
  • 1
    @JefferyThompson there is no way of discovering in retrospect how much each computer used. You can only start monitoring internally from now if you put a monitoring solution in place now. And let me re-iterate: your ISP cannot do this for you as they cannot differentiate between the computers.
    – PP.
    Jul 10, 2013 at 6:31

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