Since mid-September customers' data usage increased drastically, and has remained high for extended periods. After investigating a number of cases, we have discovered that the release of the IOS10 update for Apple devices has played a minor part, but Windows 10 updates are the main data consumers.

The Windows 10 Anniversary rollout(s) has become a complete disaster, resulting in endless loops of download attempts, which happens to consume a lot of data. We have found that the rollout mechanism that Microsoft has used, is flawed in that the updates normally 'trickle' as a background download and notifies the user only once these updates are ready to install, but this time, the downloads are consuming 100% of your available bandwidth, resulting in very-slow internet access for the rest of the devices connected to your network.

In order to alleviate some of the congestion caused by this update, on the TrueWAN wireless network, we have decided to restrict the speed on the bandwidth specifically for the Windows 10 update download. This will ensure that customers' connections are not flooded, and will give customers a chance to identify abnormal use and take appropriate actions to avoid high data bills.

Windows 10 no longer offers the option to turn off Windows update downloads which have become larger (up to 7Gb each) than previous operating systems updates which go up to 7Gb each. A user may be unaware of the Windows update download in the background and once they switch their PC/notebook it might result in the update failing and having to download again. Corrupt updates can also cause the Windows operating system to crash and Windows has to be repaired or reloaded.

Here is a helpful self-help link for Windows update problems:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/3066844/windows/20-fixes-for-a-windows-10-update-meltdown.html