Public service announcement - Speedtest uses your data

[Gatman]

I know this is probably obvious to a lot of people, but I thought I'd make a post to point it out as a warning. I just left Verizon and had an unlimited plan so I never paid much attention to what was using my data or how much I used. I've activated my N5 on Straight Talk and wanted to test out the AT&T LTE speeds and ran three speed tests on my phone on Monday afternoon. Got about 16.7 to 17.7 mbps down and 6.3 to 6.8 mbps up. Sweet. One test was on HSPA and was slower.

I happened to check my data usage this morning and have used 198mb of data in the two days since I got the phone. 150mb of that data was used by the Speedtest app.

Since many folks might be coming from an N4 and are getting LTE for the first time and are likely anxious to see how fast it is, keep in mind you're using data running those tests! The last thing you want to do is get 1) throttled for going over, or 2) charged extra for going over, depending on how your plan works.

Have fun,

Gary

 

[bjacks12]

That seems abnormally high. When I run speed tests, it uses 6-10 Mb's on average, so 3 tests should have been about 20-30 mb.

 

[Crude]

Something less obvious is that checking your voicemail on Verizon uses minutes.

 

[Shotlimesalt]

I know this is probably obvious to a lot of people, but I thought I'd make a post to point it out as a warning. I just left Verizon and had an unlimited plan so I never paid much attention to what was using my data or how much I used. I've activated my N5 on Straight Talk and wanted to test out the AT&T LTE speeds and ran three speed tests on my phone on Monday afternoon. Got about 16.7 to 17.7 mbps down and 6.3 to 6.8 mbps up. Sweet. One test was on HSPA and was slower.

I happened to check my data usage this morning and have used 198mb of data in the two days since I got the phone. 150mb of that data was used by the Speedtest app.

Since many folks might be coming from an N4 and are getting LTE for the first time and are likely anxious to see how fast it is, keep in mind you're using data running those tests! The last thing you want to do is get 1) throttled for going over, or 2) charged extra for going over, depending on how your plan works.

Have fun,

Gary

It's true. lol Seeing LTE for the first time is like seeing a boob for the first time..

 

[mttfrog13]

That seems abnormally high. When I run speed tests, it uses 6-10 Mb's on average, so 3 tests should have been about 20-30 mb.

He didn't mention how many times he ran the test.

 

[Gatman]

It's true. lol Seeing LTE for the first time is like seeing a boob for the first time..

OMG...I was riding up in the office elevator when I read that and completely laughed out loud. Everyone in the elevator turned and looked at me.

Good thing I wasn't drinking coffee - it would have shot out my nose for sure!

Thanks,

Gary

 

[Gatman]

That seems abnormally high. When I run speed tests, it uses 6-10 Mb's on average, so 3 tests should have been about 20-30 mb.

I went back and I only have 3 tests in my history and I'm certain I didn't delete any of them. Your post got me thinking and I did a little digging.

I checked Speedtest's website to see if they disclosed the amount of data sent or received, and it turns out it is variable, depending on a quick test to determine your connection speed. Below is from their website:

Your computer downloads small binary files from the web server to the client, and we measure that download to estimate the connection speed.

Based off this result, we choose how much data to download for the real test. Our goal is to pick the right amount of data that you can download in 10 seconds, ensuring we get enough for an accurate result but not take too long.

So, based on that, maybe someone can review my math. I got about 17mbps for my speed, which if I divide by 8 would be 2.125 megaBYTEs per second. If the test was supposed to last 10 seconds, that should have been about 21.2 megabytes. For three runs, that should have been about 60meg of data downloaded (rough estimate). The upload was about 1/3rd as fast, so say another 20meg for that just roughing it, comes to 80megs of data total.

So 150MB does seem on the high side, but I'm not sure what the dealio is. But my phone is telling me 150MB of data use on Speedtest. I do recall the one HSPA test seemed to take longer than the LTE ones, but beyond that I don't recall anything really unusual.

Nonetheless, I think the original purpose of my post is still valid...if you're on a limited plan, don't waste a big chunk of your bandwidth on Speedtests.

 

[Rxpert83]

Heres the deal... the faster your data connection, the larger the "file" it attempts to download in order to get an accurate test.

Running speedtest at 60MB/s is going to use significantly more data than running it at 20, 10, 5 MB/s ect.