What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
MusicChick33
Newbie

We have 3 phones on our account. One of them is my mother's phone, and she is medically housebound. She rarely leaves the house except for the occasional doctor's appointment. She also does not use her phone for much of anything besides phone calls. How is she using almost as much data as my husband and I? I also rarely leave the house due to medical issues, but do use my phone for web searches and GPS navigation away from home. We have about the least usage of anyone I know, and yet Verizon claims we used over a gig of data this month. I looked up the usage, and it is constant little data connections for all three lines. I am posting the connections for my Mom's phone because on her line it is most obvious. She is medically homebound and rarely leaves the house. Her phone is used as a phone, and not for binging Netflix on the road. She is always connected to WIFI and does not use data. So how do all these miscellaneous little connections add up to over a gig on our 3 lines when none of us use data that much and I would be surprised if my Mom uses any at all. But there are very few spikes of actual data usage on any of our lines. And yet our bill shows we used over a GIG this month. We pay for more than that, so it isn't about the money. I want to know what they alleged data utilizations are, period. 

10/02/20192:35 AM0.00136
10/01/20196:10 PM0.00231
10/01/201912:14 PM0.00001
10/01/20199:26 AM0.00082
10/01/20199:18 AM0.00001
10/01/20198:47 AM0.00002
10/01/20195:13 AM0.00028
09/30/201911:14 PM0.00438
09/30/20199:50 PM0.00001
09/30/20198:21 PM0.00001
09/30/20197:29 PM0.00013
09/30/20196:01 PM0.00041
09/30/20194:02 PM0.00001
09/30/20192:01 PM0.00001
09/30/201912:18 PM0.00006
09/30/201912:09 PM0.00001
09/30/201911:45 AM0.00006
09/30/201911:27 AM0.00009
09/30/201911:25 AM0.00001
09/30/201911:22 AM0.00006
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Re: What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

If your mother is always connected to Wi-Fi, have you verified her phone has the cellular data connection turned off? 

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
NewOldcustomer
Contributor - Level 2

 You have three smart phones and you’re sharing one gig of data? I don’t know what your bill looks like but you might be better off financially to switch to a more current plan that offers more data for less money. I’m just guessing but I suspect you’re paying $25 per line, or maybe it’s $40 per line.  And get charged if you go over.  Bad deal. 

 As for mom‘s Data Usage, that is nothing. It’s a minuscule amount of data. 

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Re: What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
Weth
Legend

That is relative peanuts of data use.  Smartphones will send occasional data over cellular to check in.  1 gig of data shared between 3 smartphones is not compatible with 2019 base use needs.  Your only hope is to turn off cellular data on the phones or change to a more modern plan.  

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Re: What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
MusicChick33
Newbie

We do not share 1 gig of data, we share 15. But the point is that this shows us to be using data constantly on all 3 phones when 2 of us rarely leave the house and the third is only occasional. I was thinking of switching to a lower plan, but if it shows we are using data all the time even when we aren't, then we would literally have almost no data to use at all because of these random brief check in things. As for turning the data off entirely, I doubt my mother would know how to turn it on and off, and if she is at the doctor and needs to use her phone for something, I don't want her stuck not knowing what to do. 

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Re: What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
mama23dogs
Legend

@MusicChick33 wrote:

We do not share 1 gig of data, we share 15. But the point is that this shows us to be using data constantly on all 3 phones when 2 of us rarely leave the house and the third is only occasional. I was thinking of switching to a lower plan, but if it shows we are using data all the time even when we aren't, then we would literally have almost no data to use at all because of these random brief check in things. As for turning the data off entirely, I doubt my mother would know how to turn it on and off, and if she is at the doctor and needs to use her phone for something, I don't want her stuck not knowing what to do. 


 If you have three phones sharing 15 GB of data, and you always are connected to Home Wi-Fi  ( which I am assuming that’s what you mean by we are always at home)  then you need to check your Wifi/internet service.   Cellular is used when your not connected to Wifi.  You may think you’re not using data away from home, but you are.  If you aren’t aware, then there is something that is running in the background on your phones that you are not accounting for. 

  I have never budgeted data use but encouraged everyone in the family to use it freely, and we had six devices that never went over 20 gigs of data, sometimes we use half. 

 The usage that you’re seeing recorded on your account is not the problem.  Something on your phones are the problem.   

Please look in your phones settings under Data Usage and note which applications are using the most data.

On iPhones you go into settings cellular data and you’ll see the usage listed alphabetically by application.   iPhones do not reset data with your bill cycle you must manually reset it yourself. But you will still get a good idea looking at it now, to see which applications are using the most data each month. By the way you should also scroll down and look at the very bottom under services. This will list data used by Siri and location services. 

 If you have android phones the Data Usage is listed under connections, data usage. If you have set your bill cycle correctly it will show you current and past months data usage listed by application. 

   The most important take away from this is if your phones say you used a certain amount of data and Verizon says you used the same or very close to the same amount of data, then you did. 

Re: What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
mama23dogs
Legend

FYI turning off data does not disable the phone for talk and text.  

It would disable iMessage, FaceTime, picture messages, email, and other things that use DATA.   And if you are using these ⤴️  They do drive your data use up unless connected to wifi. 

Re: What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

MusicChick33, we understand the importance of making sure your family's data usage is reporting accurate information. We can understand how seeing small pockets of data usage being reported can be alarming. We would like the opportunity to further go over the details of your concern. Our fellow community leader @mama23dogs has provided some great insight based on the information you have shared. Connecting your device to Wi-Fi while you are at home is a great way to help avoid Cellular Data from being used. Most Smartphones offer a feature called Wi-Fi Assist and if this feature is enabled them your device will try to connect to the strongest available network if your Wi-Fi signal is weak. Do you know if this feature is enabled on your devices? May we have the Make/Model of your devices so that we are able to further review your device settings? 

 

SylviaT_VZW

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Re: What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
MusicChick33
Newbie

They are all Samsung Galaxy phones. One is a S4, one is a S5 and one is a S8+. The data utilization in these small bits is the majority use of our data. We rarely actively use data. I will check the settings suggested above also. 

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Re: What are these constant data utilization points on our account from?
NewOldcustomer
Contributor - Level 2

Then I can assure you, turning data off does not prevent talk and text.  Not on any Samsung.   

Look in settings, data usage, and track what the phone says is using data.   Your data use is private. Verizon cannot tell you what you’re using your data for. All they know is they get reports back from various towers saying how much was used. 

0688AF0C-5CD9-47DC-ADC7-8C98C67B5A7D.pngD4DBA8B3-61B8-4AA6-BF5E-B5F0D00DA48D.png

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