What is causing my phone to use so much data?

[dmill80]

Any ideas on what might be eating up my monthly data? It seems like my data is disappearing way too rapidly every month. I am using Pageplus, and up until now, I was going with the 500 MB plan. I kept running out of data, so this month, I chose the 1 GB plan. I've only had the plan about a week, and already my phone has used over 350 MB of data. I try to mostly use the internet and apps on my Wifi at home. And I have really been trying to avoid using Apps such as Pandora on the 4G network. The only thing I can think of that "might" be draining my data is:

1. Location Services -- I tried turning that off most of the time today when I was away from my Wifi, and I "think" it might have slowed my data consumption down some.

2. Apps running in the background -- I went through a bunch of my "non-essential" apps and turned off the automatic notifications. Don't really see how they'd be using that much data, but thought I would try it anyways.

Anyways, as I said, I just can't understand how I could use over 350 MB in a week when I haven't been using game or music apps on the 4G network....the most I really have been doing is maybe occasionally check Facebook and emails, or read a news article, but I have been keeping that to a minimum.

Am I on the right track? I previously was using a Droid Incredible 2 on Pageplus, and it seemed like I could listen to Pandora some at work, and still have data left at the end of the month. Not anymore. Are there certain apps that run in the background that really suck up data? Any other ideas?

 

[moheeb]

Go to settings --> data usage and check which application is eating your data.

Check also the settings of google play, maybe you set it to auto-update, which will update your apps even if you are not on wifi and this will cause the problem. To check if you set google play to auto-update, open google play --> settings --> auto-update apps and chose "do not auto-update apps"

 

[jevalladares]

You're on the right track, take a look at the widgets on your homescreen, if you have samsungs summary or brief widgets they use a lot of battery, to fix that issue on The home screen I only have app icons and of course the weather eidget with location services on. And as Moheeb said look at the apps consuming if its the EUR Daemon, then it because of your widgets.

 

[dmill80]

I checked my data usage just now and it shows as follows:
.03 GB Pandora
.02 GB The Weather Channel
.01GB for 48 other apps

Don't know for how long of a time period this covers.

I checked Google Play settings, and it is set to update apps only on Wifi.

I am also noticing that my phone has a problem staying consistently connected to my home Wifi. It disconnects and reconnects a lot, and did so today when I was working on my front porch listening to Pandora. But, I thought Pandora usually stopped playing songs when the Wifi disconnected.

 

[dmill80]

Also, as far as widgets go, I have the weather / clock widget on my main home screen, Google Calender widget (main side screen), and a small Pandora widget on a main side screen. Maybe I should get rid of that widget?

 

[dmill80]

I see now how to check my data back to last week when my plan began. From May 2-9, it seems Youtube and The Weather Channel were the biggest culprits. I try to use Youtube only on WiFi, but I'm guessing either (A. I forgot to turn WiFi back on when I came home or (B. WiFi disconnecting is the problem. I'll have to keep an eye on that.

As for the Weather Channel, I turned off the "Follow Me" option (Location Services) for that app. Kind of a pain, but it seems like it is eating up a lot of my data when I am away from home.

 

[dmill80]

By the way, thanks for the input so far, and any additional tips are welcome!

 

[jevalladares]

Check your WiFi settings and also disable smart switching, when the phone detects a weak signal it uses your mobile data. Also try adding a range extender to your WiFi network to improve coverage.


Erasmo

 

[moheeb]

By the way, thanks for the input so far, and any additional tips are welcome!

when you enable auto location update with apps like weather channel, the app will download a lot of data which includes images and sometimes videos. Most of the apps are generating revenue from ads and the first thing that will be downloaded is the content of these ads. These ads will be displayed to you while navigating these apps, starting the apps or exiting these apps. Sometimes the ads will be downloaded and will not be displayed.

If you see any ads while you are not using the WIFI, then try to disable these apps or limit their usage.

Regards,