Sudden, Massive Data Usage

[Articguard11]

hi,

I'm not sure what happened here, but I've somehow managed to rack up an insane amount of data within 5 days, and it's very unusual for me so I'm naturally very concerned. I looked into my data usage and I'm not sure where it peaked suddenly with around 355 mb last night ? I just bought a 1 GB add-on, and it usually lasts me for 2 months. I'm stunned. If someone can look into this to see if there's a mistake, I'd be very grateful to know. Thank you. 

[jdanham]

This is great information on how PM updates the usage, however I know that on many of these dates over the 90 day "maximum" range I was at home on wi-fi. Not to mention that the cellular network in our area is 1 maybe 2 bars. It is baffling to me to see such a massive unexplainable increase. I think I will just put my phone on airplane mode until I leave the house! Why doesn't PM provide subscribers access to longer periods than 3 months??

[John_G1]

Thanks - but 'settings' for one's phone, not one's browser, right? My phone settings (Samsung Galaxy S21 FE) do not have "net and internet" or others.   However, Connections / Data Usage / Mobile Data Usage shows usage for this month, by app - but the total is far short of the 353 MB that Public Mobile says I used on July 5.  In fact the phone says my total usage for July is 48.34 MB. 

It also says "data usage is measured by your phone. This may be different from your service provider's measurements."  That seems to be accurate - the service provider thinks I have used about 10 times as much data as my phone does.

[computergeek541]

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@John_G1 wrote:

where does this screen come from, please?

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In the most current stock Android devices, it's in the settings menu. The specific menu selection is Net and Internet, SIMs, and App data usage.

[John_G1]

it looks to be exactly what I need, to see where sudden (last two months only in 6-year history of using PM) huge mobile date use is coming from. All I can find is the simple statement that on July 5, I used 383MB, plus lots of phone calls. How can I go behind that number to see where the bleeding is?

[John_G1]

where does this screen come from, please?

[John_G1]

surely none of that stuff should happen when not connected to a general wi-fi network. 

I am havng the same problem, for the past couple of months after some years with no issues. I had a day this week with 350+ MB of use - doesn't take long at that rate to go through a gig. But how to tell where that went, and why now?

[hairbag1]

@Articguard11

To make contact with a Public Mobile customer support person, go to the top of this page and click Get Help / Chat with Simon to start the process of CSA assistance. Watch the little envelop icon on top right side of page will be highlighted when they respond.

To be frank...you're best option is to continue working with the 2 Forum contributors who've made some suggestions and comments already. I'm sure they can answer you concern about unexpected, excess data consumption.

My suggestion is to turn OFF any apps that you don't normally use on a regular basis.

Also, turn off Wifi Assist.

[Articguard11]

Yeah, I know, I made a mistake. I thought I was in the DM section and I wasn’t, I tried deleting the post, but it won’t let me for some reason 🫠

[hairbag1]

@Articguard11 

in reality, this is the Public Mobile Community forum. It's populated with regular PM users who are willing to offer help to customers with PM related issues. If it requires further help, we can point you in the right direction.

[dust2dust]

They might ask the same questions. For a self-serve place you kind of have to do a bit of your own sleuthing. There have been very rare occurrences of the system taking excess data. But I haven't seen that here in a while.

[softech]

@Articguard11   for the usage showing at night, it is normal.   PM does not update the data usage constantly.  In fact, it only update it twice a day.  So, any entry you see is just a total usage between that timestamp and the timestamp of the previous entry.  So, your morning usage use see does not mean it was used in the morning but a total usage for the last 12 hours.

For your usage, you should check your phone and confirm if it was download OS update or some apps update.

If you are on Android, you can check the usage screen.  To make it useful, make sure you change the "start billing cycle on" date to match your current PM cycle date.  This can tell you which app used the data

[Articguard11]

I thought I was sending a DM to a public mobile person, my bad. 

[dust2dust · Accepted solution]

Did you do an online backup? Sync a bunch of stuff to a cloud account? Do an OS update? All on cell data? Look in your phone for its usage and nail down which app may have taken all that data.