First let me state that I am not a conspiracy theorist but I want to tell the story of what recently happened to me. So I was proudly holding onto my grandfathered unlimited plan on Verizon, refusing to upgrade my phone (Razr Maxx) to not lose it. After several conversations with in-store employees I was convinced that my average usage was about 2.4gig/month having maxed out at about 2.8gigs one month. I was on a shared minutes plan but the other user barely ever used their data and their situation doesn't really provide to the story. I decided that getting a six gig plan would be sufficient as our combined previous usage was usually 4.x gigs/month and this would leave us with significant buffer.
I got the Samsung S4 (great phone btw) and from that day forward my usage jumped up. Within THREE days my phone alone used nearly two gigs of data, with the max being 1gig in a single day. This is what my phone showed and it was verified by usage data on Verizon's website. I did notice that this phone had a much more solid 4G connection than my Maxx did but my habits didn't change. For some reason my phone started updating apps while I was at the store so there was significant Google Play data but even after I removed that the amount of usage was insane. I started comparing app by app using the data stored on my old phone and found that every single app on my S4 had used between 1/4 and 1/3 of the normal monthly usage just within three days. So for example, if I normally used 500mb on Facebook within a month previously I had used 150mb in three days. So if I were to expand that out to month that means I would use 1.5gig on Facebook alone. Every app was behaving the same way.
Not really liking what I was seeing and being within my 14 days I decided to cancel my plan. Because I liked my phone I just bought it outright and went back to my unlimited data. Low and behold my previously solid (albeit limited time) 4G data is no longer solid and switches down to 3G regularly within similar areas.
Edited to add this part. Sitting next to a coworker that also has an S4 on Verizon he is sitting at a solid 4G while I am on 3G.
I will not give my opinion on what is going on here because I don't want to influence anyone but I wanted to share my story as a warning to anyone thinking of switching.
Please feel free to share your stories or if you think I'm crazy.
I got the Samsung S4 (great phone btw) and from that day forward my usage jumped up. Within THREE days my phone alone used nearly two gigs of data, with the max being 1gig in a single day. This is what my phone showed and it was verified by usage data on Verizon's website. I did notice that this phone had a much more solid 4G connection than my Maxx did but my habits didn't change. For some reason my phone started updating apps while I was at the store so there was significant Google Play data but even after I removed that the amount of usage was insane. I started comparing app by app using the data stored on my old phone and found that every single app on my S4 had used between 1/4 and 1/3 of the normal monthly usage just within three days. So for example, if I normally used 500mb on Facebook within a month previously I had used 150mb in three days. So if I were to expand that out to month that means I would use 1.5gig on Facebook alone. Every app was behaving the same way.
Not really liking what I was seeing and being within my 14 days I decided to cancel my plan. Because I liked my phone I just bought it outright and went back to my unlimited data. Low and behold my previously solid (albeit limited time) 4G data is no longer solid and switches down to 3G regularly within similar areas.
Edited to add this part. Sitting next to a coworker that also has an S4 on Verizon he is sitting at a solid 4G while I am on 3G.
I will not give my opinion on what is going on here because I don't want to influence anyone but I wanted to share my story as a warning to anyone thinking of switching.
Please feel free to share your stories or if you think I'm crazy.
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