Excessive Data Usage - WP7

[Guink]

I read somewhere (not on these boards, and I honestly can't remember where) that if you have the phone set to check for phone updates you'll use extra data. Go to Settings > Phone Update and uncheck the 2nd box that says "Use my cellular data connection to check for updates" - you'll even see a note right there about excessive data useage. This could very well be a big part of the problem. I have unchecked mine today so we'll see when I'm away from home if it changes anything. Yesterday was my first full day with the phone away from a wifi network and I see that it used several megabytes of data. Some of that may have been from surfing, but we'll test this out and see. I have other very large chunks of data used from watching Netflix on my bus commute yesterday, but that's to be expected (fortunately, I often get on a bus with Wifi, so this won't always be an issue.) Anyway, try changing this setting and see if it changes anything.

[guste]

I did disable that option earlier on this evening. We'll see if that helps tomorrow morning on my commute.

[Guink]

Great - let us know. I won't be away from a WIFI network for an extended period of time again until I'm at work on Monday.

[SoN][c]

Hi Guste,

Well, thanks for the update. Kinda glad that I'm not alone, but also kinda wish I was so that it would be a phone defect or something that could easily be fixed.

I suspect you're having the same issue that I'm having. I dont think its facebook, because I haven't even put in my facebook info so there is no connection to FB whatsoever and I'm still having the problem. I have many of the apps you have installed too. I dont think that they are using background location/data unless you're actively using the app. Reason for this thinking is that some of them say when the last time they were updated, and when I open them up the last update is usually from the last time I ran the app.

I did find this link which is quite interesting. Apparently WiFi is preferred over 3G however in sleep mode thats not necessarily the case, this is so dumb: http://www.everythingwm.com/forum/th...le-data.36598/

BTW: I'm now in the habit of turning data off manually when I know I can connect via wifi. If I'm out and need data then only I turn it on... use it, then turn it off. How sad is that.

Hopefully this is some sort of bug that can be tweaked in the January update. I've never had issues like this on Adroid or iPhone, and might have to go back... grrr....

[SoN][c]

I read somewhere (not on these boards, and I honestly can't remember where) that if you have the phone set to check for phone updates you'll use extra data. Go to Settings > Phone Update and uncheck the 2nd box that says "Use my cellular data connection to check for updates" - you'll even see a note right there about excessive data useage. This could very well be a big part of the problem. I have unchecked mine today so we'll see when I'm away from home if it changes anything. Yesterday was my first full day with the phone away from a wifi network and I see that it used several megabytes of data. Some of that may have been from surfing, but we'll test this out and see. I have other very large chunks of data used from watching Netflix on my bus commute yesterday, but that's to be expected (fortunately, I often get on a bus with Wifi, so this won't always be an issue.) Anyway, try changing this setting and see if it changes anything.

nice! I'm going to try that right now and will report back in an hour. Great thing about telus is that they give near-real time data usage on their portal. Cant believe that checking for phone updates would use SO MUCH bandwidth though....

(I just set it to only check over WiFi.... lets see what happens...)

[SoN][c]

nice! I'm going to try that right now and will report back in an hour. Great thing about telus is that they give near-real time data usage on their portal. Cant believe that checking for phone updates would use SO MUCH bandwidth though....
(I just set it to only check over WiFi.... lets see what happens...)

OK so I enabled 3g data after making the change above and for 3 hours my phone used 17MB!!!! WHY??? I only got 8 emails during that time (none of which had attachments) and edited 1 contact thats sync'd to gmail!!!

[guste]

So... Not to kick you while you're down, but I don't seem to be using any phantom megabytes anymore. I don't know why, but other than the 2MB I used this evening on my commute, it seems to be holding steady unless my phone is lying to me (and I'm not discounting that possibility).

Just to pass on my full slate of settings:

'email & accounts'
-All content is set to download manually, except Facebook which gives no options

'location'
-Location services: Off

'cellular'
-Data connection: On
-3G connection: On
-Network selection: WIND Home (as opposed to automatic)

'find my phone'
-Save my location...: Off
-Get results faster...: Off

'feedback'
-Send feedback: Off

At this point, I'm going to leave data on all weekend and see how it goes. If it continues to hold steady and I can be sure that my own personal embee crisis is over, I'm going to turn services on one at a time, to see what happens. Eventually I'll find the leak.

[intogamer]

So... Not to kick you while you're down, but I don't seem to be using any phantom megabytes anymore. I don't know why, but other than the 2MB I used this evening on my commute, it seems to be holding steady unless my phone is lying to me (and I'm not discounting that possibility).

Just to pass on my full slate of settings:

'email & accounts'
-All content is set to download manually, except Facebook which gives no options

'location'
-Location services: Off

'cellular'
-Data connection: On
-3G connection: On
-Network selection: WIND Home (as opposed to automatic)

'find my phone'
-Save my location...: Off
-Get results faster...: Off

'feedback'
-Send feedback: Off

At this point, I'm going to leave data on all weekend and see how it goes. If it continues to hold steady and I can be sure that my own personal embee crisis is over, I'm going to turn services on one at a time, to see what happens. Eventually I'll find the leak.

sounds good...I'm holding off on buying one of these because I also plan to get a limited data plan

[PhilPS]

I have had an have an optimus 7, unlocked and moved to Fido for about a week (maybe 10 days). I am on WiFi by default, but I am out of WiFi quite often, and with Camera to Skydrive enabled, and 7 days mail (I've just recently changed it to 30 days), I am using ~ 120MB.

While away from WiFi, likely my highest concentrations of bandwidth usage are ActiveSync (Exchange/WP7 Outlook), web browsing and the occasional Marketplace download.

I have tethered a couple times on 3G -- but more to see that it works than anything else.

[guste]

So in my ongoing quest to nail down the leak, I've had the location option set to On as of this morning, with absolutely no impact on data usage.

One other quirk is that I used 2MB of data at two points on the weekend, when I was on Wifi... I don't know which application it was, but it seems something is up in that regard.

[SoN][c]

I've done quite a bit of testing over the weekend and its starting to look like my Yahoo(Rogers) IMAP email account is the culprit. It seems as though each sync uses approx 1 - 1.5MB. Since it was set to check every 15 mins, this would account for my 3-5MB/hr of data usage!!

I also have a GMAIL account but it has a setting not available for Yahoo to deliver messages "as they arrive", which is probably some sort of push notification instead of IMAP polling every 15 mins with Yahoo(Rogers). In my testing with GMAIL, it used minmal bandwidth.

Even so, why in the world would each sync with Yahoo use 1+ MB??? It makes no sense.

This isn't 100% confirmed yet, but this seems to be the direction things are pointing.

Why doesnt the Yahoo(Rogers) account have a "as delivered" option? Only GMAIL does... (but they are both IMAP).

The Yahoo server being used is: winmo.imap.mail.yahoo.com:993:1

Bizzare...

Anybody else seeing this?

[SoN][c]

OK, so check this out. I did some WiFi monitoring while manually syncing each email address. The results seem to support my post above.

See the attached image. I first sync'd the Yahoo mail account, then sync'd the GMAIL acount 4 times in a row (few seconds wait in between), then sync'd the Yahoo mail account again. You can see the HUGE discrepancy between bandwidth usage when syncing each account.

Since they are both IMAP, I'm wondering WHY??? What would cause this...

[guste]

That's really odd, SoN][c... At least you've found the potential culprit for your excessive usage. Can you check the usage with hotmail as well? I thnk that might be my MB hog, but I'm unsure. It's great to know that Google's gmail usage is so low, as that's my primary account, whereas hotmail is my spam clearing house and online signup for anything address.

Also, the problem with push e-mail is that I believe it uses more battery. Oh well, that's the price we pay. Anyway, very interested in what hotmail will look like.

[SoN][c]

That's really odd, SoN][c... At least you've found the potential culprit for your excessive usage. Can you check the usage with hotmail as well? I thnk that might be my MB hog, but I'm unsure. It's great to know that Google's gmail usage is so low, as that's my primary account, whereas hotmail is my spam clearing house and online signup for anything address.

Also, the problem with push e-mail is that I believe it uses more battery. Oh well, that's the price we pay. Anyway, very interested in what hotmail will look like.

Cool. And can you try a Yahoo email address to see what you find?

[guste]

What software are you using to get that data?