Data usage

Gershy · May 10th, 2012, 08:56 PM

Hi everyone from Sydney Australia
I have had my HTC Incredible S for about 9 months and am on a 500MB monthly plan with Virgin. Until April this year no problems. The my March bill arrived - $342! I nearly had apoplexy. When I looked at my daily usage report there were several days when I appeared to be using 50MB DAILY. Some of the days corresponded to notifications of updates which I permitted to run. Anyway I rang my provider ( Virgin) and they recommended I sign up for an extra 500MB a month as a safety net. I agreed, but still did not understand the spike in usage as my pattern of usage had not changed. I was getting emails and using the weather and latitude apps, rarely using Google and do not ugh have a facebook account. I contacted the ombudsman and they negotiated with Virgin to resolve the money problem. So for the week following that resolution I checked my data usage daily and mysteriously I seemed to have used 128MB in one week without actually using the phone for data.
Eventually I rang both Virgin and HTC ( both outsourced in the Philippines) and was advised to (a) turn off 3G unless I specifically wanted to use an app that required downloading data and (b) disable the automatic software update function ( About Phone Setting). Since I have done this my data usage has been minimal.
My question is this: by doing this I am really not using my phone as a smartphone, I may as well be using my 10 year old Nokia except for the occasion when I apprehensively turn on the 3G. The iPhone doesn't appear to have this problem. Why is the Incredible S being incredibly insidious??

9to5cynic · May 10th, 2012, 09:46 PM

First off, welcome to the forums. Secondly, I don't really know. That does seem rather lousy advice. And I can't image anything except updates would use *that* much data. I mean, googleing and emails should use a whole lot of data. Unless you are also downloading things with the browser, but then the extra data would be obvious....

Hmm... And you are right, that advice isn't very well placed considering this is a smart phone.

I don't know the specific apps, but you might want to look into apps that monitor data. I think there is one called 3g watchdog.... I haven't used them though - but I'm sure someone knows of a good one.

Sorry it's under negative circumstances, but welcome to the forums.

Gershy · May 11th, 2012, 01:19 AM

Yeah thanks for that. I can monitor my data usage via Virgin, but given my low level usage, it shouldn't even be necessary.
Love your M*A*S*H photo BTW.

Metroid Prime · May 11th, 2012, 01:25 AM

Hello and welcome to AF.

Sorry to hear about your data problem, but there is an app you can download which will monitor it and what's using data. Using this should help you figure out what's been the data hog and correct it. Look at this app and maybe it will help. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.rgruet.android.g3watchdog&feature=s earch_result
I think it could be with all the syncing with Gmail maybe, but I am not an expert.
I hope this helps and enjoy the forums.

Gershy · May 19th, 2012, 06:44 PM

Well, update on that saga . Since turning off the 3G except when I want to use internet-based apps, my data usage has plummeted to well.. almost zilch. Peace of mind has arrived, even at the expense of having to touch, er, 2 extra buttons. I did notice when 3G was turned on, those pesky update notifications come a-knocking. Updates to gmail and flash- why do they need updating very week- what is going on? But I can beat them back by turning off 3G, then a message comes up saying that the update isn't working- oh dear!- so happily press cancel and it disappears, until next time that is.