SwallowING up all quota before not coming at the end of the month

[Alyalan]

I obtained a pre paid plan (automatic payment via the bank)consisting 1GB. Before finish the one month, I consumed all quota. What shoud I do?

[AE_Collector]

Last summer, (prior to my switch to PM and 5Gb for each of my phone and my wife’s phone), I had 1Gb of data per month and July and August spent at our cabin without internet/wifi access there....was brutal! I had to be very disciplined. So first day of my new month of data I had to send an email from my laptop. Hooked laptop to my cell phone hot spot and wrote/sent the email. As I was finishing that up I started getting data threshold warnings on my phone. What the.... I raced to turn off the cell phone hot spot. By then just over 75% of my 1Gb was gone and it wasn’t even noon of day 1. I determined that my laptop saw wifi and proceeded to upload hundreds of pictures to the cloud. 

Terry

[ladybearbc]

1. Turn off cellular data for the apps that you don't need running 

2. Either turn off background app refresh off or set to wi-fi

3. Disable automatic downloads

These steps are crucial - and have to be done on the phone itself

took me a while to realize that there were a gazillion settings for even the simplest apps - solitaire etc

[darlicious]

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@AE_Collector wrote:

People who haven’t had cellular data previously who have only used free wifi or wifi on their home internet account frequently have no idea how much data they are going through! It can come as a shock when you get a cell data plan. It takes a lot of determination (and skill) to use as little data as possible while getting what you want to do done!

Terry

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If you're a heavy user of data you need to monitor your data usage over WiFi and mobile over your 30 day plan to get a good idea. I have data saver on and have used 175 mb of mobile data in 20 days and about 4.1 gb of WiFi on my phone and just under 10gb on my tablet. I think after my rbc  promo is over I can safely downgrade to the $25 plan even the $15 until summer when we start camping again.

[AE_Collector]

People who haven’t had cellular data previously who have only used free wifi or wifi on their home internet account frequently have no idea how much data they are going through! It can come as a shock when you get a cell data plan. It takes a lot of determination (and skill) to use as little data as possible while getting what you want to do done!

Terry

[Alyalan]

Thanks a lot to everyone. The information provided by you is amain and very helpful. 

[darlicious]

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@tsparkle21 wrote:

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@LindaB wrote:

Some great suggestions above. Just to help looking forward. I am not sure what phone you are using I am on an apple device. In the celular settings on the phone I turned off the ability for pretty much all of my apps to use cellular data. Hope that helps

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Just an FYI - if you turn off cellular data entirely you will not be able to receive picture messages. I was told that your data does not go into this though - even  on my line with only talk and text, I still had to leave it on to get non-text text messages. 

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This is true...i had a data block on my phone for years. When I made a simple plan change the agent removed for some reason....i only discovered it's removal once I started to receive picture messages rather than an undownloadable blank message.

[tsparkle21]

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@LindaB wrote:

Some great suggestions above. Just to help looking forward. I am not sure what phone you are using I am on an apple device. In the celular settings on the phone I turned off the ability for pretty much all of my apps to use cellular data. Hope that helps

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Just an FYI - if you turn off cellular data entirely you will not be able to receive picture messages. I was told that your data does not go into this though - even  on my line with only talk and text, I still had to leave it on to get non-text text messages. 

[LindaB]

Some great suggestions above. Just to help looking forward. I am not sure what phone you are using I am on an apple device. In the celular settings on the phone I turned off the ability for pretty much all of my apps to use cellular data. Hope that helps

[torontokris]

My advice don't use YouTube or speed tests. Both sick down data. If you must use YouTube put it on a much lower quality like 144 etc just letting a how to video play in full quality isn't worth it and drains data. Same with speed tests they download and upload large files to test the data speed.

[darlicious]

This data conversation got me interested in my actual mobile data usage....last month way more than usual but I had just switched and spent most of August camping....finally with a phone that didn't need to roam to get service. Total used: 1.67gb/5gb So far this month on 2 plans....

2mb/250mb (10 days) and 39mb/5gb (7 days)  I most definitely have too much data....maybe

@Alyalan  should be hot spotting off me...reduce my bill as a reseller! Lol  I think once my promo is over I will re-evaluate my higher priced plan...you know...for the pure economics of it. 

[tsparkle21]

If your goal is to stick to your current plan, there are several things that you could do in order to make sure that you are utilizing your data efficiently.  

0. Try to connect to wi-fi whenever possible

1. Turn off cellular data for the apps that you don't need running 

2. Either turn off background app refresh off or set to wi-fi

3. Disable automatic downloads

4. Turn off wi-fi assist

5. See which app is using the most data and then try to use it only when you're connected to wi-fi

6. Download when connected to wi-fi, so you don't have to stream when on data

7. Change settings to fetch mail instead of push

[ilikepm]

I am on the same $25 plan with 1 GB data, and the way I manage my data usage is that I know how much data I need for critical stuff that I do everyday. For the remaining data, I 'set a data limit' on my phone, and stop using the data for anything other than the critical stuff once that limit is reached. Hope this helps! 🙂

[will13am]

@Alyalan , I have a colleague in the same plan as you and he went through the same experience.  His intention was to ensure data was available for mission critical stuff and use some sparingly for non important stuff.  In total, he wanted usage containment within the 1GB.  Initially, he was using mobile data like it was home internet and got usage warnings half way through the plan cycle.  He took stock of where the usage was going and made adjustments.  After a couple of months, he was able to get into the routine.  While learning how to manage his usage, he went cold turkey when data was running out.  You might want to consider this approach or you will end up needing a plan with more data as @darlicious suggests.

[darlicious]

I think it's obvious that you originally did not choose the right plan to suit your data needs. I can't tell if you are on the $25 plan with500mb+500mb=1gb or the $35 plan 1gb with no auto pay bonus of 500mb. Especially if you are on the $35 plan for $5 more you would get 4.5gb (+500mb bonus on autopay) for 5gb. This should suit your needs....i don't use much data usually less than 1gb but I'm on that plan just for the pure economics of it.

[ApatheticFloW]

Also make sure your using wifi where and when you have access to it and perhaps you won't run out  but if your surfing the web, listening to music online or streaming vids then you'll "swallow up" all your data in no time.

Otherwise do like GR stated and purchase more data that's what pm would prefer mind you.

[GR · Accepted solution]

@Alyalan  you can either purchase a 1 gb data add on for 30$ or a 200mb add on for 10$, add ons Will roll over every month until used up!   Or you can switch plans now but you will have to pay the new price of the plan and forfeit what's left of your old plan. Also if you want to renew now on the same plan you have you'll need to message the moderator_team and ask them to renew it for you because you can switch to the same plan you have in order to renew early