Is Data use less with Jetpack or phone?

[Zoeskliros]

I recently cut off Xfinity, & am trying to limit my internet use so I added a Jetpack BUT, I'm questioning if less data is used with my smartphone or the MiFi-

I have an older version 5510L, which is strangely slower & more unreliable than the one I had 5 years ago. I feel as though burning through 3GB of Data in 10 Days through only web browsing is crazy excessive! My signal on the device is hit or miss as well, so, would anyone have any advice or answers?

I am returning it today for something that may function better in my home, which had always pulled strong 4GLte (still does on the phones), so advice on which is the least of the data hogs while being functional with newer phones & windows 10?

Please?!?

[John_Getzke]

>  I'm questioning if less data is used with my smartphone or the MiFi-

The answer to this question has less to do with the smartphone vs the MiFi than it does smartphone vs whatever the MiFi is connected to.  MiFis can connect to home PCs which generally are not designed to be data sensitive.  If you give them access to the internet they are going to do whatever they want, with or without your knowledge.  A smartphone is generally designed to work with a mobile data network and has many more failsafes built in to help it conserve data.

> so, would anyone have any advice or answers?

If your goal is only to grant internet access to a smartphone then stick with a smartphone data plan. If your goal is to leverage the plan across more devices like home PCs or other appliances then get a MiFi so that you can leave and the network wont leave with you.

> advice on which is the least of the data hogs while being functional with newer phones & windows 10?

Windows 10 is a larger data hog than any smartphone OS.  It takes a lot more work to control and monitor data on a PC.  Smartphones don't have nearly as many ways for data to leak on you without some kind of knowledge on what is happening.

[vzw_customer_support]

Zoeskliros,

Thanks for reaching out to our customer forums. We know how critical it is to be able to manage mobile data successfully, so we'd like to give you a couple tips. John has given you some great information that you'll definitely want to take into account. In short, the source of the hotspot internet connection won't make any difference in your total data consumption. However, the device type on the other end will. Computer data usage over a hotspot connection will be higher than it will be for a mobile devices such as a tablet over the same hotspot connection. Think about times that you've accessed a website on a phone browser. Usually, you'll get the mobile version of the website. It's designed to consume less power, data, and system resources than the desktop version would. Computer programs (applications, browsers, etc) are generally optimized for speed and performance. Data consumption is never really a consideration. You'll also need to consider that Windows is going to be doing updates regularly, as will almost any other program that you launch that connects to the internet. Windows 10 in particular is hard to prevent from updating automatically, and it also talks to Microsoft's servers far more often than other varieties of Windows. The same things will happen with other devices, such as smart tvs, playstations, etc. You can still use a MiFi for all of these things of course. But a close watch will be necessary, indeed.

With regards to the equipment, I think you've already done the right thing if you felt the first unit you got was under-performing. I hope this information helps. Let us know if you have any additional questions we can assist with.

EricW_VZW
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