Please tell me if you'd rather I start a new thread instead of posting to this older, but appropriate one.
Here is my experience with 4G and how much more data it uses over 3G.
I got the Samsung GS3 when it first came to the US. I was already on Verizon with my Motorola Droid. When the GS3 came out, Verizon's new data plans had just started too. I did a ton of research and mapped out the data usage of all of our 4 phones and chose a plan that would cover us with a little room to spare but not too much that we were wasting money each month. I figure if we start going over a few months in a row, that I'll raise the plan.
At this point I had already read a number of threads on various sites complaining about 4G users noticing increased data usage, so I knew to keep an eye out for it. The first thing I noticed on the GS3 when using 4G is that there a lot of dead spots for a signal in my area (a major metropolitan area supposedly fully covered by 4G). I stream music from the internet while I drive and noticed that the signal was constantly dropping and the stream would have to rebuffer and start back up. I found an app that let me force my phone back to 3G and the problem cleared up instantly.
During the first year and a half of having this phone limited to 3G, the data usage on it had been very predictable. I've known in advance when we were going to go over the plan because of expected usage: traveling, home internet being down, etc. But, recently my phone was updated to 4.3 and everything went FUBAR. I finally have it back to some sense of normal, but one of the things that 4.3 did was to take away the ability to force off 4G. My data usage has almost tripled since.
Yes, there are people that believe (and apparently can't be convinced otherwise) that because you can get data faster that you will use more. I'm here to tell you that this is not the case for me. I NEVER watch videos of any kind on my phone -- I have computers and other media devices for that. I have ZERO games on my phone. I do not skype (etc.). I use my phone for text chat (free messaging on my plan) and seldom ever send images, reading books downloaded for kindle app, streaming music, map and gps on occassion, checking my google calendar, accessing documents on gdrive, and sometimes phone calls. All of these activities are used the same amount now as I have been for the past year and a half. I seldom browse the internet, again, I have computers for that -- 95% of my internet usage is streaming music. And the site that I get my music from was designed and written by me, so I know exactly how much data it is consuming. I offer 2 bandwidths: 40k and 192k, and I make my phone only pull from the 40k stream. I use to also display a web page on the phone showing the song titles coming up on the screen while streaming, but since being forced onto 4G I've only done that once or twice. So, I should be using less data than I was before, but instead my phone data usage, according to Verizon, has tripled.
I totally get why more data might be consumed by utilizing services that can provide higher quality if your phone can accept faster data. I totally get that some people might do more on their phone now because they can do so in the same amount of time it use to take. But I do not fall into either of those categories. Using 4G is definitely causing Verizon to show almost triple the amount of data I have always used.
I know that some of the data usage is another issue I've had with the 4.3 update. From time to time, I'll notice that the phone is NOT on WiFi when it should be. Luckily those times were when the phone was idle (not streaming or being used).
What I'm getting at here is this: Is anyone else noticing that their average use of their phone has caused an excessive increase in their data used as reported by their carrier? I've been all over the verizon forum, mac rumors forum, etc, looking to see if anyone has started a class-action against either google or their carriers about this. What I really want is to put my phone back down to 3G to save on my data plan, and to not have the constant dropping of signal as I drive. But, if I can't do that, I shouldn't be charged for triple the data.
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