Hi all,
(First real post here. Sorry it's long)
My wife and I both got new Lumia 920s on AT&T at the beginning of November after both coming off previous smartphones. Since then, she has gone over her data limit with hardly any use at all while I haven't gotten close. First things first, I know her data limit is embarrassingly low for this day and age at 200mb/month (while I have 2gb). However, on her old smartphone (Samsung Galaxy 1) she didn't even get close to the limit most months and her data habits have not changed. Naturally, I figure the Lumia will use more data than older smartphones since there are more apps that refresh automatically and background processes and things. We've turned most of that off though in Settings. Does anyone have ideas on what could be using most of that data?
Specifics:
1) She is on WiFi more than 95% of the time, at home and at work. The main time she isn't on WiFi is when she is driving to and from work and not really using her phone. (She doesnt use the phone for directions)
2) When she is on WiFi, she usually goes to Settings and turns Data fully off too as an extra precaution. There have been one or two times where she has forgotten to do this overnight for example (though we are on WiFi)
3) She occasionally has turned Data back on to send or receive a picture SMS a few times a month, but only when she is also on WiFi. We have the Family Unlimited messaging plan.
4) She occassionally updates her Facebook status or checks a few websites, but nothing really intensive like watching videos on 4g or streaming anything or major downloads.
When looking at her usage stats on AT&T, there are a bunch of 30-50mb usages every couple days. Would picture messages use that much? On my phone, I am also almost always on WiFi and have only used like 30mb per month on my TOTAL, and I tend to browse/download/use my smartphone a lot more than my wife, so something is up.
Caveats:
1) She had not diligently gone to the Store and updated her apps while I have. I seem to remember there was some initial noise about Nokia Drive or some other apps draining the battery when left on in the background. Could something like that also be using data, or have there been updates to certain apps to help not use so much data that maybe I could have updated that she hadn't?
2) Also, could it be an issue with the phone somehow not being connected to WiFi when it isnt actively being used/does Wifi turn off when you turn off the screen/sleep? I though I remembered hearing about that and I remember seeing a Nokia "Network" update which I had but she didnt have before. Could her phone be running lots of background app refreshes even when she thinks she's on WiFi but the phone does this while the screen is off/not on WiFi?
3) She didn't immediately realize that a few apps had background tasks enabled until I went in and turned them off in the past week. There were 3-4 apps that were previously not blocked, Nokia Drive and CNN being two I recall. Again, she was still almost always on WiFi though.
4) She had two gmail accounts linked. One was set to always update. We have since changed both to Manual update. She does receive quite a few emails (mainly text, not many pictures), but again, nothing more than she previously had on her Galaxy S1 which also received emails immediately (push). Because that was Android (Google) was that integrated better and not use as much data?
I'm hoping this data usage dramatically improves after having made her take all the updates, turn email to manual, and make sure all background tasks were blocked. She also will now email pictures instead of picture messaging.
Though, in general it has been fairly frustrating since she basically is not able to use this phone as a smartphone at all without immediately going over her limit. I know the easy "fix" is just to up her plan to 2gb/religiously turn Data off in settings/watch it like a hawk/never use it, but she seriously never used that much data before. Does 4G just use that much more data or is there something we're missing?
Thanks,
Alex
(First real post here. Sorry it's long)
My wife and I both got new Lumia 920s on AT&T at the beginning of November after both coming off previous smartphones. Since then, she has gone over her data limit with hardly any use at all while I haven't gotten close. First things first, I know her data limit is embarrassingly low for this day and age at 200mb/month (while I have 2gb). However, on her old smartphone (Samsung Galaxy 1) she didn't even get close to the limit most months and her data habits have not changed. Naturally, I figure the Lumia will use more data than older smartphones since there are more apps that refresh automatically and background processes and things. We've turned most of that off though in Settings. Does anyone have ideas on what could be using most of that data?
Specifics:
1) She is on WiFi more than 95% of the time, at home and at work. The main time she isn't on WiFi is when she is driving to and from work and not really using her phone. (She doesnt use the phone for directions)
2) When she is on WiFi, she usually goes to Settings and turns Data fully off too as an extra precaution. There have been one or two times where she has forgotten to do this overnight for example (though we are on WiFi)
3) She occasionally has turned Data back on to send or receive a picture SMS a few times a month, but only when she is also on WiFi. We have the Family Unlimited messaging plan.
4) She occassionally updates her Facebook status or checks a few websites, but nothing really intensive like watching videos on 4g or streaming anything or major downloads.
When looking at her usage stats on AT&T, there are a bunch of 30-50mb usages every couple days. Would picture messages use that much? On my phone, I am also almost always on WiFi and have only used like 30mb per month on my TOTAL, and I tend to browse/download/use my smartphone a lot more than my wife, so something is up.
Caveats:
1) She had not diligently gone to the Store and updated her apps while I have. I seem to remember there was some initial noise about Nokia Drive or some other apps draining the battery when left on in the background. Could something like that also be using data, or have there been updates to certain apps to help not use so much data that maybe I could have updated that she hadn't?
2) Also, could it be an issue with the phone somehow not being connected to WiFi when it isnt actively being used/does Wifi turn off when you turn off the screen/sleep? I though I remembered hearing about that and I remember seeing a Nokia "Network" update which I had but she didnt have before. Could her phone be running lots of background app refreshes even when she thinks she's on WiFi but the phone does this while the screen is off/not on WiFi?
3) She didn't immediately realize that a few apps had background tasks enabled until I went in and turned them off in the past week. There were 3-4 apps that were previously not blocked, Nokia Drive and CNN being two I recall. Again, she was still almost always on WiFi though.
4) She had two gmail accounts linked. One was set to always update. We have since changed both to Manual update. She does receive quite a few emails (mainly text, not many pictures), but again, nothing more than she previously had on her Galaxy S1 which also received emails immediately (push). Because that was Android (Google) was that integrated better and not use as much data?
I'm hoping this data usage dramatically improves after having made her take all the updates, turn email to manual, and make sure all background tasks were blocked. She also will now email pictures instead of picture messaging.
Though, in general it has been fairly frustrating since she basically is not able to use this phone as a smartphone at all without immediately going over her limit. I know the easy "fix" is just to up her plan to 2gb/religiously turn Data off in settings/watch it like a hawk/never use it, but she seriously never used that much data before. Does 4G just use that much more data or is there something we're missing?
Thanks,
Alex
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