Excessive Data Charges question

**BrendaLR** · 01-26-2013, 02:21 PM

I had 13,228 KB of data on my usage bill for 1 transmission and I had only sent 1 Gmail email that day which had no attachments or inline pictures or URL in the body. Nothing out of the ordinary, only a few sentences of text, in fact I should have sent a text instead. AT&T's website says the average email is approx 20KB in size. My email was billed at 13MB's! Normally I only use about 4-50 MB total in a month and this month I went over 300 MB's incurring an additional $20 and don't know why. I only have SwiftKey keyboard, Adobe Flash Player 11.0, Evernote, Gmail, Jewels Star, Ubuntu One Files and Wallpapers HD installed. I don't stream video or music. Anyone have any ideas of what I can do other than stop emailing and do more texting?
Thank you!

**paul-c** · 01-26-2013, 02:23 PM

Might be a good idea to get a bigger data plan, so you don't have to worry about going over your limit and getting charged for overages.

Sent from my Sony Xperia P

**BrendaLR** · 01-26-2013, 03:03 PM

That's what AT&T said, but I'm not using my phone any differently than I have been for the last 6 months and 5 of the 6 months I only used 4 MB each, the 6th month is somehow 303. Are your emails 13MB's in size?

**paul-c** · 01-26-2013, 03:17 PM

I don't really send a lot of emails, so I don't keep track of what size they are. My thoughts on the data plans are that things are purposely left vague so that it's harder to keep track of it. That's why I just go with the 3gb plan, so I don't have to think about it.

Sent from my Sony Xperia P

**YourMobileGuru** · 01-26-2013, 09:34 PM

Originally Posted by BrendaLR

I had 13,228 KB of data on my usage bill for 1 transmission and I had only sent 1 Gmail email that day which had no attachments or inline pictures or URL in the body. Nothing out of the ordinary, only a few sentences of text, in fact I should have sent a text instead. AT&T's website says the average email is approx 20KB in size. My email was billed at 13MB's! Normally I only use about 4-50 MB total in a month and this month I went over 300 MB's incurring an additional $20 and don't know why. I only have SwiftKey keyboard, Adobe Flash Player 11.0, Evernote, Gmail, Jewels Star, Ubuntu One Files and Wallpapers HD installed. I don't stream video or music. Anyone have any ideas of what I can do other than stop emailing and do more texting?
Thank you!

Were you roaming by chance ? Even though there is no fee for it phones still roam sometimes. Data billing isn't always shown on the bill the day it occurs and this happens more often when roaming.

Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Android Central Forums

**pazzo02** · 01-28-2013, 08:56 PM

Originally Posted by BrendaLR

Anyone have any ideas of what I can do other than stop emailing and do more texting?
Thank you!

Disable mobile data and only turn it on when you need it. You can make a home screen widget to switch data on/off.

**binxiboo** · 01-29-2013, 12:03 AM

I had 910mb used in one day but only used the phone for a couple picture messages, two emails and maybe five minutes on Facebook using AT&T on a Samsung Galaxy S2. I have a 4gb data plan and have never came close to it normally using maybe 1g in a month because I'm generally on WiFi. That day, I was not on it and no roaming. They said it was a phone issue and are sending a refurbished warranty replacement. There are a lot of these issues it seems.

Sent from my HTC One X using Android Central Forums

**natehoy** · 01-30-2013, 02:00 PM

Which phone are you using? Many Androids with more recent versions of the operating system can break down what application is using mobile data so you can better manage your plan.

I know Google Currents and their magazine application were using up an astonishing amount of data on my Nexus 7 (which I didn't really care about as it was on WiFi, but I disabled them because I had no interest in them).

**binxiboo** · 01-30-2013, 04:53 PM

The Samsung GS2. It was found to be a phone issue and replaced. AT&T was very quick about this issue. Now all looks great just as my HTC one x does.

Sent from my HTC One X using Android Central Forums

**Voliam** · 03-09-2013, 07:53 AM

Curious, I had a similar problem a couple weeks ago where my phone gave a low battery alarm in the evening of two consecutive days. I never got one before, so the second day I investigated and found Dolphin browser was using data all day in the background (draining battery and eating data). Never happened before, but I decided to set data restrictions on dolphin as insurance.
In settings you can set a threshold warning to alert you when reaching your data limit (more insurance).

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