Data useage

[Gilberts]

My son just told me he can’t recieve texts because his data is all used up.

I get that i message uses data..but there is no way he should be through it..most of the time the phone is sitting dead or in his backpack.

I checked..and data is regularly used just after midnight…and I know it’s not either child at that point..if they were gonna get out of bed and play on a device it would not be their phone…..

[JL9]

Android for life lol Apple is good at being very proprietary which usually burns through money and this one example of that if you aren't careful with settings, etc. 

[softech]

@Gilberts the usage around midnight you see on the Usage History is not really the amount of data he used at the time.  PM only updates the data usage twice.  What it means for any data usage line there is the total usage between the timestamp of that entry and the timestamp of the previous entry 

You should start tracking the usage on the phone as well.   i

Is he using an android or iPhone?

iPhone has a data usage counter but it only works well if you reset the statistics at the beginning of each PM cycle 

Android is easier, It has a Mobile date usage page as well

 You can always go back and change the cycle start date to match the current Pm cycle start date Nd you can tell how much he used according to the phone record

[dust2dust]

Ah Apple. Turn on SMS and MMS in imessage settings then turn off imessage. That way the phone will use standard texting. Not that old timey instant messaging system that they use in imessage that requires the internet (wifi or cellular data). They would need to turn on cellular data for MMS but the MMS itself won't take out of the data bucket. The phone might though.

Perhaps he did some cloud backups. Perhaps OS and app updates. Perhaps wifi assist is on.

[cookiemonster2]

Is anyone sending your son messages while he is not connected to wifi? If they are receiving incoming iMessages, that could be a factor to the data usage.

You could also check and see if the wifi cuts out and defaults on their data when they are using it.

[Yummy]

Yes, if you have apple iphone and use imessage it uses data.

Better to use 'standard', not proprietary SMS system.

If he never turns off his phone then most likely some apps will take advantage of Internet and use data (updates, etc.).