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Hey everyone,
Last month I gave a TP2 as a gift to a relative of mine, who is not the most tech savvy. Now, after having been in use for a month, my relative complained about an unsually high phone bill. So I checked it out, and it turns out that the phone used just short of 400 MB in a single month!!! The itemised bill showed that the phone sent or received several megabytes (usually around 4 MB) during times, when the noone was using it (like the middle of the night, 5 in the morning and so on).
The following services were enabled on the phone, that potentially use data:
- Automatic downloading of weather data
- Push notifications for Windows Live Hotmail (
- Windows Update
- Windows Customer Feedback Program
I've now disabled all of the above. Nevertheless, I have to say that blocks of 4 MB without actual use seem pretty excessive. I get push emails on my phone with Google Mail and I never have any more than a couple hundred kilobytes a month. And things like the Customer Feedback Program shouldn't use any data at all (if i recall the dialog explaining the service correctly).
Does anyone have any idea what could be the cause of all this? I actually feel bad for giving someone a phone that causes an astronomical phone bill without having been used excessively. Do you think my relative has some chance of getting at least part of the bill refunded?
Thanks for your input.
Easy.
Just delete the t-mobile setting under connection.
Or change the server to epc.1tmobile.com
Done!
Thank for the input, but I'm sorry to say that that does not actually apply in this case. It is a generic HTC Touch Pro 2, bought in Germany, running on the E-Plus network. Deleting the internet settings all together is not an option, since the phone is supposed to be able to go online (eg. to check stock quotes).
What I'm really wondering is:
- What, out of the services I mentioned, would use up such rediculous amounts of data for no aparent reason?
- How much data do other users see, who do not go online with their phone all day long?
PS: I forgot to mention that Google Latitude was also engabled at some point in time, but was then disabled on account of the fact that it does not update the location when the phone is in standby, and is thus, utterly useless.
Is there some kind of data service on that line? Is this a prepaid line or a post paid(monthy bill). The bill for this overage shows what? Does it show a charge per mb?
A program like SPB wireless monitor can report usage split between which applications are using the data. I don't know whether the trial version would be good enough to get to the bottom of this, but even paying for the full version would be worthwhile if it saves the big bills.
I agree that this is a very large amount of data for the phone to be using by itself!
Did you use Google Maps?
Edit: If not, I would definitely install spb wireless monitor.
xanthene said:
- How much data do other users see, who do not go online with their phone all day long?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I go online with Exchange push, Gmail every 4 hours, Hotmail push, weather, web browsing, facebook, upload pictures, etc
and my monthly useage are around 100-150MB on average.
User who are not go online with their phone all day would be much less than my usage.
Check if she has websites set to push during those times.
Hey everyone,
The phone is on a prepaid plan, but it shows you very exactly how much data was used when.
By now I am fairly confident that the problem lies with Windows Live and Hotmail push notifications. I have in the meantime reactivated the Windows feedback thing (after all, we all benefit from the information I submit to MS ) and have not noticed any additional data charges. I have disabled automatic updating of weather data, but syncronized once manually and was shocked to find that it used a whopping 1.2MB!!! Absoulutely rediculous.
I have not reenabled Windows Update, but since there are no updates available anyway, I fail to see how that might cause as much data as was used.
Which only leaves Windows Live as the culprit. What I fail to see is how it managed to use up so much data when downloading E-mails. Even newsletters, which arrived on the phone too, rarely have more than a hundred or so KB.. and that includes pictures, which the phone does not download automatically.
Well, I'll install the SPB Monitor and let you know what my findings are.
xanthene
PS: There are no push pages set up
I 100% agree with you about the SPB Wireless monitor.
The new version of SPB wireless monitor is great. It will break down which programs are using what data amounts, which connections are being used and will even give a chart showing these things. You can view daily, weekly and monthly. It monitors USB, MMS, GPRS, and even WiFi but all you want is the gprs.
A weather program that uses 1.2 megs is rediculous. I use Weatherpanel (free) it updates once an hour including radar images for 3 cities and it uses about 400k per day!
It is a necessity on my Kaiser and if and when they bring the HTC to North America it will go on that as well.
Do you have facebook sync set up up? When I had it set to auto sync on the 2.1 beta I use on my Touch Pro it was blowing through data and battery.
She may have used less than the bill shows...some carriers round up on up on the data use/cost.
Thanks again for all your input, the matter is basically settled now. I've disabled data connections on the phone, preventing it from accumulating such rediculous charges without reason. Now the data connections just have to be manually turned on before going online - which isn't really an issue considering how little the phone is being used to surf around the net.
SPB Wireless Monitor obviously shows next to no data, on account of the fact that data has been turned off. I used it to read two news pages once and SPB reported 2.5MB. Again, pretty rediculously high amounts for some news. Looks like Opera isnt the most efficient browser. I should benchmark it against Skyfire and Opera 9.7b with Turbo when I have some time.
Regarding the units that get charged: data gets counted in increments of 10 kilobytes, which is more than fair on a prepaid plan.
Facebook sync is turned off.
I guess the matter is settled. Weather uses way more data than it should, and the only other service that I haven't tested yet is Hotmail Push. The cold, hard process of elimination clearly blames Hotmail.
Thanks for all your input.
Hey there,
I am thinking about jumping in the cold water and picking up a WP7 device, despite all the missing features that I enjoy right now on my iPhone...I just need a bit of fresh air
But there's an important question for me that I couldn't find any reliable info for: Can anybody tell me how much background data traffic WP7 produces, compared to iOS or Android? That is, with eMail- and Facebook accounts activated.
I read somewhere that one user had around 16 MB of traffic in 3 hours without even using the phone actively... I guess something was misconfigured on that guy's device (maybe debugging was turned on), but anyway, I would love to hear some reallife facts about this.
Reason I'm asking is that I only have 300 MB of data included in my mobile contract - after that I get throttled to GPRS speed. It would suck to have those 300 MB eaten up by background tasks.
If anybody can give me an estimate, I would be glad!
what i've been doing is app downloading through zune desktop over whilst on wifi. i'm pretty crazy with the news on my phone and all that, and just after 4 weeks of having my phone, i've used just under 400mb.
this is without youtubing (tried 1 clip, looks pretty horrid), but i have viewed quite a few full desktop websites on my phone because they didn't have a mobile version, and i did try and download a game or two here and there.
i'd say that it is doable. i use the maps quite frequently as well which chews a bit of data.
but yea i reckon if it was put to a challenge to me i could easily keep it under 200mb. but i set my phone to rapid fire pretty much and it's still good. i have 1.5GB of data on my plan as i wasn't sure how much i'd need... after close to a month i can tell you now... i don't need that much. could get away with 500mb, but aye good to know i have it and if/when tethering kicks in, i know i can use my phone.
Let's get this into perspective, gentlemen.
A page of an average novel has 30 lines of 12 words per line. The average word is 6 letters plus a space. If a book has 300 pages, that means the average novel is this big;
300 pages x 30 lines x 12 words x 7 characters = 756Kbytes.
I have a data plan of 500MB per month. This means I could theoretically download enough text to make this many novels;
500,000,000 / 756,000 = 661
So let's get this straight. In terms of emails, even with text attachments, facebook updates, etc etc, I can download the equivalent of;
661 books / 30 days = 22 books per day
Now I admit that adding images and video into the mix throws these figures out, but if we're talking about the kind of background network traffic that drives WP7's facebook integration, email etc., I think we can safely say that I'm unlikely to run out of data in a month.
In fact I'd be surprised if WP7's background downloading even amounted to a single novel per day, let alone 22 of them.
Jim, you're right about that - the actual expected amount of background traffic (push notifications, facebook/email updates, calendar-synchronization etc.) should hardly do any difference.
What I was more worried about are things that go on under the hood without the user even noticing - maybe the marketplace does something in the background as well, maybe Windows Live is showing some strange behaviour, sending a lot of stuff without any obvious reason, etc. - you never know with a new OS, they have their quirks. That's why I wanted to double check before I dismiss that topic from my list.
But thanks already for your answers, both of you! I guess phantom data traffic is the least of my problems anyway, should I decide to switch to WP7
Sneets said:
Hey there,
I am thinking about jumping in the cold water and picking up a WP7 device, despite all the missing features that I enjoy right now on my iPhone...I just need a bit of fresh air
But there's an important question for me that I couldn't find any reliable info for: Can anybody tell me how much background data traffic WP7 produces, compared to iOS or Android? That is, with eMail- and Facebook accounts activated.
I read somewhere that one user had around 16 MB of traffic in 3 hours without even using the phone actively... I guess something was misconfigured on that guy's device (maybe debugging was turned on), but anyway, I would love to hear some reallife facts about this.
Reason I'm asking is that I only have 300 MB of data included in my mobile contract - after that I get throttled to GPRS speed. It would suck to have those 300 MB eaten up by background tasks.
If anybody can give me an estimate, I would be glad!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got 250MB a month on my contract and by the look of it with 2 Exchange Accounts set to as items arrive, some light browsing and a few app downloads, I will be using under 50MB in a month. I do connect my phone via WiFi when it is charging overnight which brings it down slightly. Also I disabled OTA updates so it only checks over WiFi and when connected to my computer.
Wow....so with 3GB of data the world is my oyster
Thanks t-mobile *huggles phone lovingly* "mwah mwah mwah"
Here's the thing, there isn't a lot of background data flow moving as far as I know. The facebook status updates in the People hub don't update unless you move to the "Whats New" page.
I have Exchange, Hotmail and Gmail all set to "as items arrive", I've downloaded a bunch of apps and games, constantly check twitter, facebook and AP Mobile, I've even watched a couple of episodes of Family Guy through Netflix instant view and so far I've only used around 650mb - 750mb. Oh, and I hardly ever use wi-fi. My wife has a BlackBerry Torch and with what she does, she's actually used around the same amount as me.
I don't, however, have background reporting enabled, but I disabled that because of battery concerns.
My point is, don't even worry about it.
word is the initial setup uses a lot of data...you can always turn the 3g off over night and use wifi only. scale back the amount things you intergrate into the phone or up you plan...i couldn't imagine not having an unlimited data plan these days.
I have a t-mobile contract, there is no REAL limit of data I can use. If I use 80% of 1gb(800mb) t-mobile will send me a text informing me i've used 800mb. There is no consequence of using this much data but as with all fair usage policies they will warn/throttle me if I use EXCESSIVE amounts(id say 5gb a day or something insane like that).
I use my phone for web browsing, email, marketplace, weather live tile and ive used 250mb in a month. Obviously if I don't download apps that figure can be halved.
In answer to your question: 0mb if you turn off usage of 3g/hsdpa.
As someone mentioned before; the default WP7 UI will only download data if you request it(view contacts "what's new" for example). Custom live tiles such as the Weatherbug tile that updates every 20min would use minuscule amounts based on the fact its only downloading a weekly weather forcast.
I'd suggest you get an "unlimited" internet plan and then see how much you use in a month and gauge what plan would be best for you after that.
Hi
Wonder if you guy's can help. Just got a sim free defy and have noticed it seems very data hungry from the off.
Installed a data app and its saying im using 5 mb + a day.
What is it doing, to use all this data all i seem to have done is put my location in the weather app thats built in, logged on to my face book and thats about it. oh and set up my o2 email account.
Cant seem to find how to limit the size of email download in the accounts.
How can i monitor each individual program and find out which ones causing the problem.
Dave
doliver55 said:
Hi
Wonder if you guy's can help. Just got a sim free defy and have noticed it seems very data hungry from the off.
Installed a data app and its saying im using 5 mb + a day.
What is it doing, to use all this data all i seem to have done is put my location in the weather app thats built in, logged on to my face book and thats about it. oh and set up my o2 email account.
Cant seem to find how to limit the size of email download in the accounts.
How can i monitor each individual program and find out which ones causing the problem.
Dave
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you could try setting up something on 'data manager'
Whats everybody else's usage average out each day only asking cause its my works phone sim and don;t want to get stung for data usage.
Today it's 2,76MB, though I've used 1,39GB over the last month.
I have 3GB included in my contract. couldn't care less about traffic ...
but if you want absolute control install droidwall and see what connects to the internet.
doliver55 said:
Whats everybody else's usage average out each day only asking cause its my works phone sim and don;t want to get stung for data usage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An Android phone was a mistake if you're looking to avoid heavy data usage.
my average is about 30 mb on weekends (out of wifi range) and like 2 mb on weekdays as I'm on school holidays and moslty always in wifi range
[UT] X-RAY said:
I have 3GB included in my contract. couldn't care less about traffic ...
but if you want absolute control install droidwall and see what connects to the internet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cheers for the droidwall tip, seems a good way of restricting a lot of things
I also observe that Android sometimes produces traffic without an order to do so. 3gwatchdog counts the traffic and shows the origin-applications, some are just google or motoblur stuff but without any option to deactivate traffic or updates or whatever they're doing.....
mrt3k said:
I also observe that Android sometimes produces traffic without an order to do so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course, the OS is designed to be used with an always-on data connection.
If you don't have one of those, an Android phone is not a good idea.
I do have unlimited traffic, but a speed limitation after 200 MB to 64kbit/s which isnt fun anymore.
Thats the problem of the big ans usually good providers in Germany, even the highly priced agreements have that little traffic included.
Thus, I think it should be possible to deactivate useless data traffic even in Android, mh? There should be some options that deny traffic usage in general and also for single apps. (btw. I tried droidwall, but some apps tunneld the firewall and produces traffic anyway!)
mrt3k said:
Thus, I think it should be possible to deactivate useless data traffic even in Android, mh?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are ways to completely disable data usage but I'm, not sure it's possible for individual apps.
But, like I said, if heavy data usage is a concern, Android is not the right OS for you.
Ignore Step666 his talking crap, android is a good OS even if ur not connected all the time, (I dont even use 3g connection, I mostly use only wi-fi) ..not everyone hangs on facebook all day or needs those weather widgets and stuff like that... really depends on a user.
but if u have a problem with heavy data usage i can help
-first a program that will help u monitor your usage (u can also reset counters monthly) - try traffic counter extended, there are also other apps that help u limit how much data u can transfer over wifi/cell
-second i think droidwall is the app u are looking for
(its a firewall for Android. This is for users that don't have an unlimited data plan. It allows unrestricted WiFi access, however it blocks all access over the cellular network unless you add the application to the whitelist.)
Also, try disabling auto sync on the power control widget.
Peglezn said:
Ignore Step666 his talking crap...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I'm not.
The fact you're having to install third-party apps to prevent the phone from automatically connecting to the internet merely proves my point - it is designed to be used with an always-on internet connection.
there was a third party app called DROIDWALL...it allows you to block all the unwanted apps from connecting with internet.. and yes it allows only specific apps to be blocked..
yeah use droidwall, its easy - set it to "white list (allow selected)" then select the google system apps and the apps you like to have internet access, any new apps you install wont get net access unless you add it to the white list, making it easy to manage.
you can also restrict wifi and/or 3G per app.
nice for apps like notepad that somehow need internet access.
Thanks for your ideas.
I did already use Droidwal for some time, but it did not function properly.
I blocked certain apps and for some time I blocked all apps, includig system apps. And what happened? There was data usage by any program, at least the traffic counter showed traffic usage. Thus, it seems not to block really what I set to block. :-/
Thx for the tip with Droidwall! Works great
mrt3k said:
...Thus, it seems not to block really what I set to block. :-/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to apply the rules manually... Did you try?
What do you mean by "manually"? You can manually set apps to white- and blacklist, yeah, or what u mean?
Hello Guys,
I have an HTC Desire, and I am located in Lebanon, we don't have 3G networks yet and a 50MB data plan cost us $10/month. for a Desire, the 50MB on GPRS can be consumed in 6hours even if I keep killing running services using a "Task Manager Killer" application, to give an Idea, I have a nokia E72, I keep GPRS running continuously, I use Whatsapp all the time and I consume less than 10MB/month, while on the Desire if I use Whatsapp and I keep killing apps all the time I am online I consume 10MB in 3hrs.
is there a way to disable all the services from starting unless I request it to? like making the Android behave like a Symbian regarding online updates and running services.
Regards
NAB
Either you are use whatsapp really a lot or killing the apps is doing more harm then good. Have you ever tried installing a app to monitor data usage and see were the data goes? I would suggest 'Network TrafficStats Lite'.
can I move from Froyo to Win Mobile 7?? on my Desire
Hello,
I have just been told that I can reflash windows Mobile 7 to my Desire, and that would consume less Data than Android, a friend who had an Imate did the testing with windows mobile 6.5 and then Android 1.5 (I guess) and android consumed more data when it was connected online. so what do you guys think?
a stock mobile 7 (i didnt know anyone had ported it to desire.....) would use less data as there arent many things on it that use data, syncing, weather, emails etc.
but then you have defeated the purpose of having a desire in the forst place! believe me, windows 6.5 was awful, if 7 is a bit better it still wont be as good as android yet.
plus if it is possible to put windows 7 on android it will be very buggy and only for testing at the moment......so probably wont be very useable. this would prevent data use of course
I've got a fairly limited data plan, so I try to keep an eye on data usage.
The built-in 'Data Usage' meter is very useful, but it also show some inconsistencies. For example (see the attached image) yesterday it claimed that I used about 10Mb of data, but also no apps used data during this period.
The total data appears roughly consistent with what my operator says (Sunrise, Switzerland), but I'd like to know what application was responsible, so that I could disable it.
I'd love to run Wireshark, or something similar to see what's going on here, but I guess that's impossible on a non-rooted device.
Is this a known problem? Is there anything I can do to limit this behaviour?
Device details: Stock Galaxy Nexus, running 4.0.1.
I tried switching 'Mobile Data' off altogether, and that appears to stop the data flow.
As soon as I turn it back on, however, I'm up to about 1Mb/hour 'background' seepage, that doesn't show up as any specific app.
What is the normal background data rate for things like Google services?
I tried to 'reverse tether' the device so that I'd be able to sniff the data coming through my Linux computer, but apparently the device needs to be rooted for that to work. (Something to play with over the weekend...)
Bump
Does anyone have any ideas?
Try Network Counter from mapeapps in the Market. It provides a per app breakdown...
danger-rat said:
Try Network Counter from mapeapps in the Market. It provides a per app breakdown...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll try that!
i have a 500mb data plan and last month the network said i hit the limit whilst the phone said I'd only used 430mb. using 3g warchdog to monitor this month......