Thinking further... send the raw file(s). Or put them somewhere I can download from & send the link (but not via dm on here, because Bluesky doesn't think I'm old enough).

Might take me a long time to get around to it - so no holding your breath - but it'd be an interesting/fun little experiment.

Although I've grown to hate Virgin Media in recent years (starting with my phone line palaver), it used to be that occasional minor problems aside, I couldn't fault them. It's sad how that has changed.

(And TBH, as there was no connection issue, i'll probably lose the impetus to look elsewhere. 🤷‍♂️)

I didn't say I could do better. I could probably rise to the challenge of making it worse, though.

But seriously, there is suitably licensed music out there (some of the creative commons licences allow commercial use) - better music alone would help massively.

Quite. 😂

Although, the first thing I did when I couldn't connect to anything was do exactly that - to *their* kit, because it does need to be done occasionally. I didn't consider mine because, until now... 🤷‍♂️

OMFG. Now that I'm back online properly, I've just watched this. The 8-bit tracker tune is awful - and while making the synthesized voiceover even worse could be done, it would be a challenge.

Why, Andy? WHY? 😐

I'm going to have to move to a new ISP ASAP - but the practicalities make it difficult.

I'm thinking a way around it might be a temporary/large data purchase to use the phone while it's all sorted.

Good grief! 😲

I *hope* "current period" is a year with that data use. I doubt I use anywhere even close to that per month on all my devices combined on my normal broadband (when it's working), and that includes streaming movies.

That would equate to £10/GB - potentially £15-£20 per day for the background shit is (was) using.

I've put a stop to it now, though. 🙂

Ouch!

I've no idea what I'd pay for anything over my 6GB - but for all intents and purposes, with that background usage, if I hadn't taken notice and done something to stop it I'd effectively be PAYG on my contract very soon.

I noticed "data saver" wasn't turned on - it is now. That stops things using data in the background - and the apps that *are* permitted to do so with that on can be set as well. (Almost nothing here!)

It's all too easy to not think about this crap until it jumps up to bite.

6/6

It was the first thing I looked at this morning, and overnight (~8 or so hours) it had gone up by more than half a gig.

That's potentially over 1.5GB of *background* data per day.

Suddenly, my normally adequate 6GB of data looks terrifyingly low. 😬

5/?

Back to the mobile data. My 2GB warning went off yesterday, not long after I submitted the VAT return. I'd downloaded lots of scanned invoices and shit, uploaded them to the accounts package, and so on - so that wasn't a shocker.

But I noticed it was over 3GB by the time I went to bed.

4/?

I noticed yesterday that my phone had used almost 60GB of data over WiFi in the last month. Similar last month, more the month before, and... no idea why so much less before that.

(I can see the useage by app, but not going into that now...)

3/?

To illustrate that normal use further: August was a normal month. I was away from home quite a bit in September, and also at the end of October - and November is due to my non-working broadband.

The reason I don't normally think about this is clear; the normal month is nothing.

2/?

A fault somewhere. My ISPs status page just says I need a new "WiFi Hub" - ignoring the silly terminology, the bottom line is until they fix the problem, I have no Internet.