Testing Verizon on Data Usage

BroodsSexton

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A couple months ago my monthly data usage increased substantially and I am now pushing up on data limits each month. Nothing notable changed in my habits. And when I look at the breakdown of how data is being used (in my account), it doesn't make sense.

Is there a way to verify Verizon's data usage stats? They must make a lot on overage fees. I wonder if their data is accurate or misleading.
 

johnmd20

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A couple months ago my monthly data usage increased substantially and I am now pushing up on data limits each month. Nothing notable changed in my habits. And when I look at the breakdown of how data is being used (in my account), it doesn't make sense.

Is there a way to verify Verizon's data usage stats? They must make a lot on overage fees. I wonder if their data is accurate or misleading.
Same thing happened to me. I use Verizon. I turned off automatic downloads for people in my office(4 people, including me, use my mifi) but that didn't change anything. I went from 8-9 gb a month to 16-18, and it happened overnight.
 

JerBear

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Do you have WiFi assist enabled?

EDIT: and does the days usage the phone reports match Verizon's numbers?
 

RG33

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Same thing just happened to me in March. I went from an average of 5.3 GB used per month (on the 3 phoned on my plan), to 23 GB used this month! I called them and they said most of it came from one day, March 16th that used 18 GB. I have no idea what the hell it could possibly have been, but ultimately it is costing me $95 additional dollars (moving my plan to the 25 GB per month for March only, and then back to my srandard 6 GB per month). The customer service girl was very helpful, and this saves me $150 in charges had I just left things the way they were and paid the overages, but I thought something shady was going on.
 

cutman1000

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Same thing happened to me a few months ago, but I fixed it.

I turned off all automatic downloads, made it so apps only update when I'm connected to wifi, and installed an ad blocker (Purify). I haven't had a problem since.
 

mt8thsw9th

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Are you using Facebook and have it set so videos auto-load? Shutting that off shaved a couple GB from my data usage. It's a completely unnecessary feature which is active by default.
 

derekson

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Purify should save you a ton of data, especially if you read stuff in Safari more than in apps.
 

BroodsSexton

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I'm installing Refine to see if
that helps (I'm a cheapskate so don't want to pay $1.99 for Purify unless someone tells me it matters). I am so skeptical of this. I do surf a bit but don't really use much media on my phone, which makes me think something's going on.
 

Omar's Wacky Neighbor

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My wife has gotten Nearing Your Data Limit notices from VZW three out of the last four months. She doesnt use her phone all that much away from wifi, and my monthly usage is well below hers (and I use my phone a lot, compared to her). At first she thought it was using Wayze as a GPS on a few 250 mile trips, except her data usage as per VZW for GPS/nav was very low (when we're together, we always use my phone or the kids for Wayze, since the rest of us all have unltd data and she doesnt, and my usage was again very low for GPS/nav). Weirdest was a 288mb DL on Mem Day Friday: problem is, we were checking into a hotel in VA at that very time so there's no way she would have been DLing anything.

And a buddy who added a business phone recently on VZW has also gotten notices, and he's never come close to any serious data usage on any other carrier in the past.
 
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BroodsSexton

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Yeah, I'm still having issues. My wife is having the same issues--barely uses her phone for anything and Verizon says that she's using it for social media. She doesn't even have any social media accounts. I'm pretty sure there's something there.

Part of me wants to file a lawsuit against them, because I bet there are a lot of people affected by improper data measurement practices.
 

Rooster Crows

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I've been having similar issues. I've had the same GB plan for ipad mini and iphone, and all of a sudden @ 3 months ago, i kept getting these overage notices, although my usage hadn't changed. I've uncreased the GB plan twice, and continued to get the messages. Thinking of moving - any other observations welcome.
 

zenter

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You guys are certain ALL background downloads are disabled on mobile data? Not only app updates, but also podcast and music subscription downloads, pushing content (like Amazon video) to device, etc? My mom had this issue on att, and it was related to other apps downloading. But she has android - not sure if iPhone has analogous granularity of settings.
 

Omar's Wacky Neighbor

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Almost forgot, the other issue was not receiving texts when she shut the data off last week, after she got the overage notice. When I turned her data back on, about a dozen texts from the evening before came in all at once. We were escalated to the third of cust service on that alone.

Of course VZW tried to pass the buck and tried to blame Apple, then told her that she probably needs to upgrade her phone.
 

zenter

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Of course VZW tried to pass the buck and tried to blame Apple, then told her that she probably needs to upgrade her phone.
Far be it from me to defend any carrier, but they're probably right in this case. iMessage is very very likely responsible. iMessage is on by default on iPhones and doesn't use SMS with other iPhones. SMS is the only text messaging protocol that isn't metered as data. iMessage (which is glorified AIM) is metered as data, as is traditional MMS.

IOW, your wife's family/friends' iPhones try to send the message over Apple's iMessage network (internet) first, and if they recognize your wife's phone as an iPhone, do not hand that off to the carriers. When your wife tries to send messages, they try to go out as iMessage first, and then fall back onto MMS, and finally SMS.

You should be able to change the default on her phone so it only uses SMS, BUT then group chats and other things (seeing when someone is typing, etc) will not work.
 

bohous

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Add me to the list that has seen a data usage bump the past few months. We have actually gone over limit the last 2 months. We even rolled our data plan back about a year ago because we never approached the limit. We had 4 lines at 10gb and rolled it back to 6gb. We always use a bit more this time of year with road trips, vacations etc but the increase has been dramatic. We drove to TN back in April and it pushed us over by 2GB. It's mostly my wife's phone which we use to podcast quite a bit when we road trip. One difference is we used to stream via Stitcher but use the Podcast app more now. From what I understand the difference between DLing and Streaming is insignificant so not sure that's it. I just changed some settings from the advice above along with other tips I have found from some Googling and will be interesting to see if it makes a difference.
 

BroodsSexton

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Far be it from me to defend any carrier, but they're probably right in this case. iMessage is very very likely responsible. iMessage is on by default on iPhones and doesn't use SMS with other iPhones. SMS is the only text messaging protocol that isn't metered as data. iMessage (which is glorified AIM) is metered as data, as is traditional MMS.

IOW, your wife's family/friends' iPhones try to send the message over Apple's iMessage network (internet) first, and if they recognize your wife's phone as an iPhone, do not hand that off to the carriers. When your wife tries to send messages, they try to go out as iMessage first, and then fall back onto MMS, and finally SMS.

You should be able to change the default on her phone so it only uses SMS, BUT then group chats and other things (seeing when someone is typing, etc) will not work.
OK--I'm trying this.
 

SumnerH

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Also both Apple and Android will try to sync photos your linked account by default. Make sure they're configured to do that only when you're on WiFi.
 

zenter

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Yeah, Android has an option where you can fully disable background sync on mobile data. Not sure if this is an option for iOS.
 

JerBear

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Have you confirmed what the device thinks it's using for cellular data? It's not perfect but both android and ios have metering built-in.
 

johnmd20

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My usage is officially off the charts. I noted earlier that three people in my office use my mifi, as do I, but in May, without any significant video downloading or streaming being done, I clocked in at 24GB's total. My plan is for 20GB. Going to 30 doesn't pay, my overages are less than what it would be to bump it to 30.

My wife, on her own plan, had to bump up her data, too, because she's been going over since March. Something changed. I'm not sure what it is and I really don't have the inclination to find out. At first I thought it was my assistant's phones because when they connect to my mifi, they are considered on "wifi" so I'm sure they do downloads. But if that was just the case, my wife's usage wouldn't have gone over. Also, at the end of 2015, I was regularly using less than 10GB's total a month. Now it's over 20. Nobody changed their phones in that time.

It's a mystery. Verizon wins.
 

Omar's Wacky Neighbor

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Far be it from me to defend any carrier, but they're probably right in this case. iMessage is very very likely responsible. iMessage is on by default on iPhones and doesn't use SMS with other iPhones. SMS is the only text messaging protocol that isn't metered as data. iMessage (which is glorified AIM) is metered as data, as is traditional MMS..
Thanks for the info. When I mentioned this to my wife, she said the VZW rep had indeed explained that to her. However, many of the texts in question were definitely sent out from Android phones, which I guess is part that was confounding the VZW rep.
 

zenter

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Thanks for the info. When I mentioned this to my wife, she said the VZW rep had indeed explained that to her. However, many of the texts in question were definitely sent out from Android phones, which I guess is part that was confounding the VZW rep.
Gotcha. This is easily (but not briefly) explained.

Those messages may have been sent via MMS. iMessage follows the priority sequence: iMessage -> MMS -> SMS. On all phones, once a thread is established, it dumbly continues in the same protocol. Indeed, because of the prevalence of iPhone and group messaging (only iMessage & MMS do this), Android messaging apps have started defaulting to MMS as well (annoyingly).

Putting it into the real world:
1) You send me (Android) a text from your iPhone. iMessage will see I don't have an iPhone and then try to send it via MMS, assuming you have data. (If you don't have data, it will then fall back to SMS.)
2) We exchange a few messages. Now we have a conversation thread going, all of it in MMS.
3) Three weeks from now, I send you a message. The usual way is finding an old thread and sending a new one. Messaging apps do this automagically for you. So, I send my message and it continues to be in MMS format, regardless of whether you or I want it that way.
4) You don't receive the MMS message until data is restored.

iMessage has made the whole process a real PITA on both sides because 1) it's a proprietary protocol and 2) the protocol handshake only happens when you start a thread.
 

mt8thsw9th

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My usage is officially off the charts. I noted earlier that three people in my office use my mifi, as do I, but in May, without any significant video downloading or streaming being done, I clocked in at 24GB's total. My plan is for 20GB. Going to 30 doesn't pay, my overages are less than what it would be to bump it to 30.

My wife, on her own plan, had to bump up her data, too, because she's been going over since March. Something changed. I'm not sure what it is and I really don't have the inclination to find out. At first I thought it was my assistant's phones because when they connect to my mifi, they are considered on "wifi" so I'm sure they do downloads. But if that was just the case, my wife's usage wouldn't have gone over. Also, at the end of 2015, I was regularly using less than 10GB's total a month. Now it's over 20. Nobody changed their phones in that time.

It's a mystery. Verizon wins.
Did you turn off wifi assist?

Settings>Cellular>Wifi Assist (at the bottom).

If your mifi connection is iffy, odds are it's causing wifi assist to kick in and use cellular.
 

SumnerH

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Gotcha. This is easily (but not briefly) explained.

Those messages may have been sent via MMS. iMessage follows the priority sequence: iMessage -> MMS -> SMS. On all phones, once a thread is established, it dumbly continues in the same protocol. Indeed, because of the prevalence of iPhone and group messaging (only iMessage & MMS do this), Android messaging apps have started defaulting to MMS as well (annoyingly).

Putting it into the real world:
1) You send me (Android) a text from your iPhone. iMessage will see I don't have an iPhone and then try to send it via MMS, assuming you have data. (If you don't have data, it will then fall back to SMS.)
2) We exchange a few messages. Now we have a conversation thread going, all of it in MMS.
3) Three weeks from now, I send you a message. The usual way is finding an old thread and sending a new one. Messaging apps do this automagically for you. So, I send my message and it continues to be in MMS format, regardless of whether you or I want it that way.
4) You don't receive the MMS message until data is restored.

iMessage has made the whole process a real PITA on both sides because 1) it's a proprietary protocol and 2) the protocol handshake only happens when you start a thread.
What you get billed for varies by carrier, too. Google Fi considers text MMS messages to be texts and doesn't count them toward your data plan.
 

johnmd20

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Did you turn off wifi assist?

Settings>Cellular>Wifi Assist (at the bottom).

If your mifi connection is iffy, odds are it's causing wifi assist to kick in and use cellular.
I'm confused. My mifi connection is excellent, it's never a problem.(unlike those dark days of 2013 and 2014, when it usually didn't work in the middle of the day) But regardless, it's a mifi using a cellular connection to enable people to use it. If I turn off wifi assist, I don't think that will accomplish anything.
 

mt8thsw9th

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How do you know without trying? I find wifi assist pretty pointless anyhow. There's never been a time where I've wanted to use cellular data when I've been using wifi.
 

johnmd20

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How do you know without trying? I find wifi assist pretty pointless anyhow. There's never been a time where I've wanted to use cellular data when I've been using wifi.
Because whether or not I'm on wifi assist, it's all data because it's a mifi.
 

mt8thsw9th

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Because whether or not I'm on wifi assist, it's all data because it's a mifi.
I'm not just talking about yours, but your wife's extra data. It's a good habit to get off of wifi assist anyhow. Your big bump in data correlates with the release of iOS 9 and wifi assist.
 

johnmd20

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I'm not just talking about yours, but your wife's extra data. It's a good habit to get off of wifi assist anyhow. Your big bump in data correlates with the release of iOS 9 and wifi assist.
Well, my wife and I both use a Galaxy S7 edge. So it likely isn't iOS9 related. :)
 

Omar's Wacky Neighbor

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Activated my old Siii on vzw mvno TotalWireless: 5gb for $33.xx/month. Uses vzw towers and just went to 4g lte a couple months ago. I'm carrying both phones for the next month to compare service.
OK, so the coverage and price difference have even my wife convinced we should port everything over to TW. (minor issue: a dumb/basic line for my MiL costs the same as a data line, as opposed to VZW's $10 charge)

AND, TW is now offering 16gb iPhones at reduced prices. No contract or ETF to get the sale price, BUT it's locked to TW until the phone has been on a TW plan for 12 months: 5s, $150; 6, $400, 6+, $500. No 6s yet.