Monitor Your Internet Tethering usage? SurplusMeter!

I’ve only just discovered this morning that internet tethering is enabled on my Optus Mobile plan, I was pretty sure that Optus was charging $9.99 a month to have this enabled. I simply plugged the iPhone 3GS to my MacBook Pro and enabled Internet Tethering through Settings > General > Network. The MacBook Pro discovers the device and connects. You should see a blue glow on the top of your iPhone to confirm that Internet Tethering is in fact enabled.

Tested it by browsing and in fact I’m writing this entry while connected.

Now that’s all well and good if you have a massive amount of month data but not me, my monthly data included with the Optus plan is just 1.5GB a month.

We all know that’s nothing and can easily use up that bandwidth in a matter of days, even hours if you’re a heavy user.

Off to Google I went and searched for a free app that will allow me to monitor my bandwidth usage for the internet tethering so I can keep track & make sure I don’t go over because these telco’s would love that.

I came across SurplusMeter 2.0.3 from SkoobySoft – Fantastic little app which is exactly what I wanted, simply move it into your applications folder and run.

Here it is:

You must select the “Network Card” as Connection Type from the drop down if you’re using tethering otherwise you will not see any traffic on the report.

You can set the day of the month that your billing starts, set your download limit, in my case which is 1.5Gb.

It shows projected daily usage and daily allowances as well as how much you’ve gone over your quota if it happens.

I highly recommend this app to those looking to monitor their bandwidth usage, not just for internet tethering but for those with download quotas attached to their internet service.