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Excessive data usage

We just switch to verizon 13 days ago. We have 3 iPhone 5 and got 6gb of data. Today we went over our data plan......I looked on our detailed bill, and notice data was used at 5:58 and 11:58 in the morning and evening on most days, couple of those day that was the only data used. Most of those times it used very little data, (.00001gb) but one time it used 2.5gb at one time.. I called verizon to find out what could possibly be using that much data, and how to avoid this problem (most of the time we use wifi), they said that social media uses a lot of data. Really!!! I can not imagine social media using 2.5GB at one time (not to mention using wifi EXCEPT those specific times in the morning and night). My last phone was a iphone and I never used 2.5 GB in a month with my last phone company, not to mention 2.5 GB one time and then be told it was probably social media!!! I would love to understand and figure out what I'm doing or what is causing this, if not this is gonna be a LONG two years.

Comments

Mom2320

We are having the same type of problem. My daughter had in iphone 4 and used around 2gb of data a month. I got her an iphone 5 for christmas and right now just a little half way through the billing cycle we are at 13 gb!!! At first I thought it was because she had to get all of her apps on her phone again etc...but that was last month. She isn't doing anything any different with the iphone 5 than she did with the iphone 4. I do not have a smarthphone myself and I have no idea what is going on??!!

jagdoran

I too am having a data issues as was langoria49. I am extremely vigilant of my usage and am about to go over my 6G. Something going on here and I'm about to investigate other services and I will eat the contract if necessary. Been with these people for over 15yrs. Is this any way to treat a long time customer? I don't think so. jagdoran

unknown

It seems this is an issue with Iphones. Especially Iphone 5s. Unfortunately Apple seems to think you must use mobile data for everything. And it seems to think all their apps need to constantly access the network. So you have to go in your settings and disable all that junk.

1Bijou

In March of 2013 I purchased a jetpack 890L with a 4 GB data plan from Verizon. I used it when I traveled and it worked very well. In Dec 2014 I saw a huge data usage of 12 GB. I had a hard time believing this as back in July 2014 I ran three laptops at a meeting without a spike. Just recently while on a trip (2-19-15) I briefly checked a few emails one evening & the data usage was 2.06628 GB. The next morning I opened a few more emails & the usage was 0.81292. I checked a few more the following evening and used 1.46931 GB for a total of 4.348 GB used in three brief sessions. I don't have any games on the laptop, windows was not doing any downloads, no video or pictures were opened and my hot spot is always turned off when not in use. What happened?

Weth

Did you look at the phones to see what apps are using the data? You can do this by going to Settings/Cellular and then scroll to the bottom. You can see what apps are using the most data. You can reset everything to zero and watch.

Also keep in mind if you are going from 3G phones to 4G/LTE phones, it has been shown with real world use that you will generally use 2 to 2.5 times more data with the faster network. The reasons are several and even if you "do the same stuff"

Social networks can and do use loads of data. All the loading of images, and there is one site that preloads videos that is known to eat up lots of data. The video data is used whether you watch the video or not.

Finally, the times that are reported on the log are not the time the data was used, but the time the data use was reported. This can be delayed by several hours. The best way to look at this is look at the time on the log just prior to the reported data use and understand the data was used between those two time points. It also is not unusual to get miniscule data use like 0.00001 GB used. This is not what is putting you over and is normal maintenance function of the cellular network.

Bottom line, the reasons for data use are many fold. There may be a small number of phones that are inappropriately eating data up. However, the vast majority of "How did I use that much data" questions on this forum are actually the users using the data and not understanding how to find what is using data or how much data certain things can use.

dso1986

This is baloney.

I'm finally switching services.

But This was my experience.

My 65 year old Mom's phone was getting charged data usage rates of 10- 14gb a month. wierd cuz she has no apps downloaded and barely uses the internet.

We switched out her phone and we were still getting these charges.

We LITERALLY LEFT THE PHONE OFF FOR TWO WEEKS, we could do this because she stays at home and has a home phone and really doesn't need to use the smart phone for it's smart phone capabilities.

STILL GETTING CHARGES. (how do i know? I checked the verizon wireless website to see what activity was happening on the account)

Finally just ended up cancelling the data plan on her phone and getting her a flip phone because i was tired of calling in every freaking month spending 10 hours trying to get the bill fixed.

There is something wrong, and Verizon needs to fix it.

And the worst part is they treat you like a liar.

Terrible.

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