Mouse will be gone for a while

[Straf]

We get broadband through our telephone lines. Even where it's fibre, the last journey from the cabinet to the house is down copper. Although cable to the premises is slowly being rolled out.

[Mark Oliva]

I know I would never share my connection

Neither would I. When my neighbors have wanted help like that, I invite them over to my computer room and have them do their thing on my machine with me sitting behind watching.

So your neighbour use a phone line for his internet? I heard it was slow as hell and that was a few years ago (likely more than 10 years).
At least he has unlimited capacity.

??? We have glass fiber up to the distributor boxes and copper from there to the house. I have flatrate (non-metered) VDSL at a nominal 100 MBit/S download/40 MBit/S upload, real rates 93-94 MBit/S down, 32-33 MBit/S up. There's nothing in the Internet that I can't do almost immediately.

[Mouse]

Yes - I'm too trusting by far, and I never seem to 'see it coming', but I would rather lose a bit of broadband by being momentarily over-generous, than let any strange man into the flat where I live alone

As Straf says - most of our BB is wired in the UK, though a lot take advantage of Sky these days. Its just cheaper that way. I'm lucky in that I managed to get a deal on my mobile BB that costs a whole lot less than wire deals. No line rental, you see

[Ilanthar]

Did someone said chocolate ?!!

OK, time to cook.
And welcome back, Mouse, I'm glad your issue is solved .

[Mouse]

Thank you Ilanthar

I'm sorry, but the chocolate pine nuts are MINE!

[rdanhenry]

It's possible that the use of your broadband was inadvertent. It could have been the result of his computer being used by malware. Which is just another issue with trusting someone else with your password: you don't have to just trust their honesty, but their vigilance.

[Mouse]

Or even the way he has it set up?

I think I once caught my machine trying to automatically log onto a local free (and highly insecure) BB service when my own was running badly. I had to turn off 'roaming'... or something. I can't remember now, but it was a setting that I had to manually change from the default to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

Don't worry. I had thought of that possibility. That's another reason I haven't said anything but only changed my routine

[Darknessgear]

A little late to the party but welcome back!
Even in the short time I've been here its evident you're the heart of many threads, so I'm glad everything has worked out.

I had a similar situation to me once in Uni, you can often go into the router settings and block any users outside of your comp and devices, and run a guest WiFi for the mates when needed.
Also, I don't know if this has been already said but if there are a lot of different WiFi signals in your area or you see quick dips in connection during peak hours, but if so, it might be a good idea to change the WiFi channel to something less popular - there are a few guides online if you need this.

[Mouse]

Thank you, Darknessgear

I think all is well for now, but I will remember your comments for future reference