Will a weak signal increase data consumption?

[mikeyb_____]

Does weak signal increase consumption of data? my average signal strength at home is 2 bars. My internet connection is via a jetpack. Im going through 6 gigs and check email, ebay shopping, and a little news reading. nothing else. Any suggestions?

[Weth · Accepted solution]

I have seen no personal or published evidence that a weak signal increases data use.

I will quote our resident best expert in the network devices John_Getzke​

"What does make a difference [in the amount of data use] is the personal device connecting to the VZW device.  For example smartphones tend to be much more data efficient than desktops and laptops.  Full PCs are not built with the same amount of care for metered data connections as mobile devices like tablets and phones.  Its much easier to consume data on a PC without paying much attention.

The best way to confirm what is consuming your data is to setup a data usage monitor.  Something like Glasswire for PCs is a good place to start.  There are many other options out there depending on your comfort level."

[John_Getzke]

> Im going through 6 gigs and check email, ebay shopping, and a little news reading. nothing else.

Keep in mind that your VZW bill accounts for all the data that is being consumed on your connected devices, not just the traffic that you are aware of or actively doing.  Passive data like automatic updates, backups and whatnot also count against you and you may have no idea it is occurring.  6 GB does not sound like the result of casual email and web browsing, I'd bet there is a better explanation and its tied to some kind of an update or large download.

Check out Glasswire or another data usage monitor for your VZW connected devices.  Try to capture the data usage from the machine and cross reference that information with the Unbilled Data Usage reports from VZW on the website each billing cycle.  Without some kind of record to account for what is going on its going to be your word against VZW, but VZW does have logs to verify their billing process.

[vzw_customer_support]

Mikeyb!!!!!, I definitely understand your concerns. Let's check to see what is causing the usage. Please click here: http://vz.to/1TBhOtY for the data utilization tool and tell me what it says.

_VZW
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