Questions about data usage #s and reports

[Fuzzy13]

I'm currently running on Straight Talk. Been on it about 2 weeks and so far so good. I'm typically not a high data user as I generally stick to the basics on a phone and gear more towards development.


Okay here is the concerns.

-My data manager is showing I've used 568MB since the 19th.
-On board data usage shows 194MB.


These numbers are data numbers even though data was OFF and Wifi was ON.

The main thing that's been running my data up so high in "MDM" is OS Services. As soon as I noticed that on 2 different occasions I used over 100MB in one task, I began digging to find out what in the hell used over 100MB OS Services in one shot.


The first was sending 3 different picture messages to the same person. Those 3 messages chewed up over 100MB even though I was on Wifi, it doesn't matter being that it was a text.


The next one. This one is the on that bothers me. This happened last night. I use Android Commander a lot for pushing files and what not as it's much easier being that I use a PC a lot.

Inside of AC, I pushed 30MB of ringtones and notifications to the system/media folder where they belong. Wanted to try some new ones out. Well I rebooted the phone so they would show up and I checked and they were all there. Well soon after I noticed my data had shot up 110MB so I began digging. Pushing 30MB of ringtones through Android Commander used up 110MB of OS Services data. How is this so? It doesn't require a connection to do this as I'm merely pushing files to the phone.

That makes no sense to me as to how that got counted as data. SO, does MDM accurately account for data used? Is OS Services something that will actually be deducted from my plans data being that it doesn't show up on the on board data usage?






Sorry for the long ass post but I wanted to try and paint the best picture I could for yall to understand. Any info,help or insight would be great. I'm coming from 2.3 straight into 4.1 and I haven't fully learned everything yet and figured out how everything works.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks


Fuzzy

 

[Fuzzy13]

anyone?

 

[Tim K]

I can only comment on your issue with picture messages. MMS messages cannot and do not go via WiFi. They only operate over mobile data.

As for the ringtones I can only guess. Is it possible you've got Google backup running or something else that is syncing these files to the cloud?

 

[Digital Controller]

I can only comment on your issue with picture messages. MMS messages cannot and do not go via WiFi. They only operate over mobile data.

As for the ringtones I can only guess. Is it possible you've got Google backup running or something else that is syncing these files to the cloud?

The first is completely true, unfortunately, with any carrier when sending MMS it uses Data, the only way to get around this is using Google Voice to send MMS because it uses your Gmail to send/receive them, which can be done over Wifi.

Otherwise, the amount of data it is recording sounds a tad bit inaccurate, is there anyway you can check the usage via Straight Talk's website or something?

 

[Fuzzy13]

The first is completely true, unfortunately, with any carrier when sending MMS it uses Data, the only way to get around this is using Google Voice to send MMS because it uses your Gmail to send/receive them, which can be done over Wifi.

Otherwise, the amount of data it is recording sounds a tad bit inaccurate, is there anyway you can check the usage via Straight Talk's website or something?

No you can't check your actual usage that they have calculated.

But nothing on the phone syncs to the cloud or via data/Wi-Fi unless I do it manually.


Does anyone know if the onboard data usage is ever accurate to whatever plan they are on? Cause those numbers are far more appealing lol

 

[mogelijk]

No you can't check your actual usage that they have calculated.

But nothing on the phone syncs to the cloud or via data/Wi-Fi unless I do it manually.


Does anyone know if the onboard data usage is ever accurate to whatever plan they are on? Cause those numbers are far more appealing lol

One thing you might check is how your onboard data usage is being displayed. For example, on my phone, where it shows my data limit it correctly displays that I want it measured between Oct. 5 - Nov 5. Underneath, however, where it shows data used, it is only measuring the last week.

You should notice two white vertical bars on your usage graph -- those determine how much data usage your phone is showing. For some reason, they seem to default to only show the last week. If you move the white bars outward, you can adjust them to show the current month's data usage instead of just one weeks.

 

[Fuzzy13]

One thing you might check is how your onboard data usage is being displayed. For example, on my phone, where it shows my data limit it correctly displays that I want it measured between Oct. 5 - Nov 5. Underneath, however, where it shows data used, it is only measuring the last week.

You should notice two white vertical bars on your usage graph -- those determine how much data usage your phone is showing. For some reason, they seem to default to only show the last week. If you move the white bars outward, you can adjust them to show the current month's data usage instead of just one weeks.

Never noticed that. Well upon changing it, it went up about 50MB to 246MB which is still nothing compared to the 726MB MDM is reporting.

If straight talk would show individual data usage for each user then this would be a lot easier. Expecially being that I've heard they like to chomp people off at around 2GB.

 

[aurora40]

Never noticed that. Well upon changing it, it went up about 50MB to 246MB which is still nothing compared to the 726MB MDM is reporting.

If straight talk would show individual data usage for each user then this would be a lot easier. Expecially being that I've heard they like to chomp people off at around 2GB.

Wait, what? So you are saying Straight Talk is showing you an aggregate of data usage from multiple phones? If so, it seems like the question of why it doesn't match the phone's reported data usage is obvious.

The data usage feature has been pretty accurate for me, within 5% of the carrier reported use in general.

 

[dhworph]

what my phone says under data usage matches what verizon says I used... but I use alot, so my error might have been +/-500MB out of 30GB or so... don't know if that error estimate would scale linearly down to lower data usage levels.

 

[Fuzzy13]

Wait, what? So you are saying Straight Talk is showing you an aggregate of data usage from multiple phones? If so, it seems like the question of why it doesn't match the phone's reported data usage is obvious.

The data usage feature has been pretty accurate for me, within 5% of the carrier reported use in general.

No, that was stated in a "General" sense. "Each user" as in individual people throughout the world using the app.

Just replace "each user" with "everyone", maybe that will make more sense if it was to confusing.