T-Mobile / N4 Data Usage Disagree

[jaredsutter]

I switched to an N4 on T-Mobile's $30 prepaid plan two weeks ago from a GNex on Verizon. On my GNex, the data usage graphic in settings always matched Verizon's reported usage within 100MB or so. On my N4, the graphic is reporting more than twice the data usage reported by T-Mobile.

From my usage (hours of streaming Play Music each day) and my experience with Verizon, the phone's data usage report seems to be accurate, while T-Mobile's number seems way too low. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[yfan]

I have noticed the same. I see that like mine, your biggest data usage, according to your phone, comes from Google Play Music. Evidently, the phone thinks that Google Play Music is using a lot more data than it actually is (at least according to T-mobile's accounting). My guess is that it is predominantly from the fact that with caching turned on (especially if you have auto caching turned on when your phone is on wifi and charging) in Google Play Music, it caches music on your phone so that it doesn't have to be freshly downloaded when you play it and your phone is on mobile data. Play Music does make a data connection though, I think just to get minimal data about which song to play - but not the actual song, if it's already in your cache. Apparently our Nexus 4's think that connection, followed by the playing of whatever song, is actually downloading the whole song over mobile data, which it isn't.

I'm not complaining though. Whatever the reason, as long as my phone is *overestimating* data usage rather than underestimating it, I'm okay with it.

 

[CoMoNexus]

I haven't compared data usage, but I have noticed that TMO is saying I'm out of minutes when my N4's call history says I should have some left.

 

[6tr6tr]

Tmobile says that their app is usually behind and not up-to-date, but that is a big difference. I'd call them and ask how much they have on record.

 

[yfan]

Tmobile says that their app is usually behind and not up-to-date, but that is a big difference. I'd call them and ask how much they have on record.

Actually, I have noticed this trend over several days. The T-mobile count isn't stuck, it is just not rising as fast as the phone's meter.

 

[jaredsutter]

Actually, I have noticed this trend over several days. The T-mobile count isn't stuck, it is just not rising as fast as the phone's meter.

Yeah, at first I thought T-Mobile was just behind and would catch up, but I've concluded that it must actually be counting less data because the number keeps rising, but not nearly as quickly as in the phone settings. Like you said, it's not really a problem if T-Mobile says I'm using less data than my phone thinks it's using. I'm just confused because Verizon's data meter matched so closely with my other phone. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one to see a discrepancy.

 

[yfan]

I was pretty confused myself. But I am willing to bet that this has to do with the latest Google Play Music's data use and its communications with the phone's system. The carrier measurement is more accurate since all it cares about is how much data your device took from the network. Another proof of this is that with Google Play Music on, the battery doesn't drain nearly as fast as that level of data usage would predict.

 

[jc0187]

Yea, I've experienced this as well. I only have 200mb with T-Mobile. So in order to send and receive MMS I had to constantly have my data turned on regardless I was always in a WiFi area except while driving from work to home and vise versa. Well, one day my n4 had an alert icon saying my data had exceeded my data settings. I almost freaked out because it was the beginning of my rate cycle. I used the tmoble network and checked manually for data, and what it showed was that I was way way under the data limits I set. So my n4 was wrong. I don't use the data monitoring setting on my n4 anymore.