Unusual & excessive data downloading

NFH

buglawton wrote: »

Intentional but absolutely dumb.

It depends on whether it's more important to you to reduce data usage or battery usage. As I have unlimited data on Orange, I prefer to reduce the latter.

DUTR

buglawton wrote: »

I have already discovered that an iPhone is not 'smart' after all when it comes to data - can be at home connected to WiFi and still uses mobile data. So I turn mobile data completely off nowadays. Android phones may be similar. Hence the existence of the data-control Android apps (sadly not avail for iPhone).

No need, on my 2 android handsets, wifi takes priority over gprs, what seems to gobble the data is automatic syncing and updates, which can be user controlled per application.

robbies_gal

just turn it off at night why do u need the wifi on anyway when youre asleep?

i turn off mobile data and wifi when im not using it so i know it wont use up anthing

buglawton

DUTR wrote: »

No need, on my 2 android handsets, wifi takes priority over gprs, what seems to gobble the data is automatic syncing and updates, which can be user controlled per application.

Yup and as Apple does not allow the installation of utilities to control this like Android does, iPhone users are stuffed (or had better be rich).

Wintermute

Quest73 wrote: »

Thanks but don't think so as the whole list has downloading at different times. I have now downloaded (via wi-fi) 3G Watchdog and Onavo (as recommended above) so hopefully I will track down the culprits.. Thanks again everyone

The timestamps on the data usage is when the data session begins, it's a "feature" of the O2 billing system, you're best to completely ignore the timestamps for data as they never really mean anything. For some reason they always end up being quite late at night, around the same time every day and quite often they'll be 00:00:00.

Here's a few days from mine;

22 Oct 11 00:00:00 mobile.o2.co.uk 34318 0.000
23 Oct 11 00:00:00 mobile.o2.co.uk 158486 0.000
23 Oct 11 21:11:08 mobile.o2.co.uk 680 0.000
24 Oct 11 00:00:00 mobile.o2.co.uk 397840 0.000
24 Oct 11 21:25:46 mobile.o2.co.uk 2069 0.000
25 Oct 11 00:00:00 mobile.o2.co.uk 60282 0.000
25 Oct 11 23:41:14 mobile.o2.co.uk 63 0.000
26 Oct 11 00:00:00 mobile.o2.co.uk 28728 0.000

DUTR

Quest73 wrote: »

Hi - I have an odd problem. My husband and I both have Samsung Galaxy S11 phones on a 500mb per month tariff. We use wi-fi at home. His usage this month from 8th November to date is about 50mb. Mine appears to have been 606mb. O2 warned me but I really do not do anything much so do not know how to stop it. I have checked my bill and it seems that the phone is downloading data when I am asleep?
These are examples.

19 Nov 11 01:01:55xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx mobile.o2.co.uk 58699 0.000
18 Nov 11 01:27:14 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx mobile.o2.co.uk 49186 0.000

My plea for help is this - how do I find out what it is and how do I stop it please? My husband's phone also downloads in the night but a tiny amount.

Thanks

Wintermute wrote: »

The timestamps on the data usage is when the data session begins, it's a "feature" of the O2 billing system, you're best to completely ignore the timestamps for data as they never really mean anything. For some reason they always end up being quite late at night, around the same time every day and quite often they'll be 00:00:00.

Here's a few days from mine;

What seems odd with what you guys have posted, is that when I use my phone it shows as WAP.o2.co.uk

the only time it will show as mobile.o2.co.uk is when I use the handset as a modem for tethering either with my netbook or with the TT satnav for traffic updates.

Wintermute

DUTR wrote: »

What seems odd with what you guys have posted, is that when I use my phone it shows as WAP.o2.co.uk

the only time it will show as mobile.o2.co.uk is when I use the handset as a modem for tethering either with my netbook or with the TT satnav for traffic updates.

It depends on how your handset is setup, wap.o2.co.uk (username: o2wap, password: password) and mobile.o2.co.uk (username: o2web, password: password) will both work exactly the same so it depends on your APN settings. If you're on an older blackberry tariff and you somehow connect up to mobile.o2.co.uk you'll get charged for some reason.

With tethering it should normally show up as modem.o2.co.uk rather than mobile.o2.co.uk, but I'm guessing that'll have something to do with how your handset is setup.

iPhones will normally show up as being idata.o2.co.uk (username: vertigo, password: password) unless you manually change the settings, even then it'll resort back to idata whenever you do a software update or reset network settings.

Quest73

Hi again - this was a bit technical for me, but to update - even with Onavu and 3G watchdog I am still having real trouble restricting the data. I don't want to completely turn it off as otherwise why have a smart phone? However, I do nothing with it during the day except have it on to get texts and phone calls (not within a wi-fi environment). I have used Onavu to supposedly restrict to wi-fi yet still apps like Facebook seem to use data. (and Onavu does not idently several apps, putting them all under a "Android OS and others" label. Onavu says I have 28 apps active, But not which ones, 3G says I have none. It's daft.

Does anyone think I should uninstall everything and start again? I have already uninstalled Amazon Price Tracker because I thought that might be a data hogger.

Thanks

gregpot2000

The program I use is called my data manager. Its free and shows you a breakdown of all your apps and how much data they have used.

daleski75

Quest73 wrote: »

Hi again - this was a bit technical for me, but to update - even with Onavu and 3G watchdog I am still having real trouble restricting the data. I don't want to completely turn it off as otherwise why have a smart phone? However, I do nothing with it during the day except have it on to get texts and phone calls (not within a wi-fi environment). I have used Onavu to supposedly restrict to wi-fi yet still apps like Facebook seem to use data. (and Onavu does not idently several apps, putting them all under a "Android OS and others" label. Onavu says I have 28 apps active, But not which ones, 3G says I have none. It's daft.

Does anyone think I should uninstall everything and start again? I have already uninstalled Amazon Price Tracker because I thought that might be a data hogger.

Thanks

You could try doing a factor reset to see if that helps fix the issue but unfortunately you will lose all apps and settings so make sure you have a list of what apps are installed on your phone so you can download them again.

A handy app is zemna backup or app list backup which rather than backup the apps themselves they backup the market links to download them again so you always get the latest ones.

Maybe try disabling the following.

Settings
About Phone
Untick auto update

Also if you use Facebook (who doesn't lol) go into the settings for that and check the refresh interval as that can be something like every 1 hour or less and also I believe apps like BBC news are set to refresh every 15 mins

It's not easy looking for a rogue setting or app which can be causing this so good luck