Here we are again in the third day of a billing cycle and I have already used 10 percent of my total data for the month. Yesterday I was at 0.54 GB, and today I am at 3.9 GB.
All automatic Windows updates are off on every device and I have added no large files to Dropbox for them to be automatically updated. Yesterday, I was connected to a campground wi-fi connection for most of the day, so I wasn't using a Verizon connection for anything other than e-mail.
In February, something happened in which 23 GB of my 40 GB allotment was gobbled up overnight on the second day of the billing cycle, which is when I learned to shut off all automatic updating and backups.
Verizon absolutely needs to develop better notifications for data usage so that when something like this happens, the account holder is instantly notified and can take action to shut down the system because it likely means someone is hacking into the connection.
I propose that Verizon allow notifications whenever 0.5 GB of data is downloaded in less than four hours.
The first warning someone can get is when 50 percent of data is utilized, which is how I found out that 23 GB was used on Day 2 of the billing cycle. But, further safeguards are needed as well. I think users should be able to select to be notified when data is utilized in increments of 5% -- not 50%, 75% and 90% as it is now.
For those of us who live and work on the road, consuming a lot of data early in a billing cycle can have disastrous consequences. There needs to be a better way for people to manage their data utilization.
