Why is my cell provider's calculation of my data usage 5x that of my phone?

[Scott Brooker1]

My cell provider's calculation of my data usage is 5x that of my phone

Hi all. I'm seeking some opinions about whether there is likely to be a problem with my phone, or a problem with my carrier's accounting. I'm running Android 5.0.1 on my Nexus 5. When I check my mobile data usage on my phone, it says I've used ~600MB since the start of March. My carrier's accounting says that I've used ~3GB!

I know the warning is there "carrier data accounting may differ from your device", but I would expect this to be fairly small. Five times as much data does not seem reasonable. Is it more likely that I'm using that much data somehow without my phone realizing it, or that my carrier is miscounting my usage?

Further background, if I look at the daily usage provided by my carrier, the highest-usage day is a day when I would have been connected to WIFI for almost all of the day, and hardly using my phone as I was at work. There are over 100 data transactions for exactly 10MB on that day (just an example).

Any advice/opinions appreciated.

Thanks
Scott

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: My cell provider's calculation of my data usage is 5x that of my phone

Welcome to Android Central! I agree, the discrepancy shouldn't be that huge. I would bring the phone in to your carrier's store and show them the phone's data usage stats. There's no way to falsify those stats short of doing some kind of intense hack, so they can't really dispute what the phone is reporting.

 

[Scott Brooker1]

Re: My cell provider's calculation of my data usage is 5x that of my phone

Thanks B. Diddy. I have questioned it via the call centre and they have promised to look into it. If I get nowhere I'll take it to the store and show them.

 

[MegF82]

Did you sort this out? Its just happened to me and my provider in Australia said its an app constantly trying to update. I can't take it to a shop as they don't have one and I'm on prepaid. I've tried turning off all auto updates and even deleted apps, but its still doing it.

 

[Scott Brooker1]

My cell provider advised that the phone is not capable of measuring all activity. I am not sure whether to believe them or not. They got me to call Google customer support and they took me through some steps, none of which worked. Google advised a factory reset and the problem has now disappeared, although I didn't reinstall all the apps I had before so I cannot tell if I just had a rogue one or not.

Hope you sort your issue out.

 

[Kage_]

Re: My cell provider's calculation of my data usage is 5x that of my phone

I have a 3rd party app installed called netcounter that does a good job of measuring the traffic usage. It is pretty consist with what ATT shows I have used on my line. Your carrier is right the phone can't measure every thing, but 5x usage is a bit excessive.