What defines a data session?

[frankybabyd]

Hi,

I'm thinking of switching to PM, but one thing I'd like to understand is how PM defines a data session.  According to the fine print, data sessions are rounded to 10 Kbytes. 

If one data session is active as long as your phone is connected to the 4G network, then this isn't a big deal.

However if PM defines a data session as every time an app gets something from the 4G network, (i.e notifcation from any app, email being downloaded, etc..) that is a different story.  I'm sure that many apps download small amounts of data (smaller than 10Kbytes) and if every access to the 4G network is considered a "data session", that would eat up your data usage a lot faster than if data was rounded to 1 Kbyte.

Anybody have the answer to this?

Thanks,

Francesco

[deltatux]

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@frankybabyd wrote:

Hi,

I'm thinking of switching to PM, but one thing I'd like to understand is how PM defines a data session.  According to the fine print, data sessions are rounded to 10 Kbytes. 

If one data session is active as long as your phone is connected to the 4G network, then this isn't a big deal.

However if PM defines a data session as every time an app gets something from the 4G network, (i.e notifcation from any app, email being downloaded, etc..) that is a different story.  I'm sure that many apps download small amounts of data (smaller than 10Kbytes) and if every access to the 4G network is considered a "data session", that would eat up your data usage a lot faster than if data was rounded to 1 Kbyte.

Anybody have the answer to this?

Thanks,

Francesco

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Hi @frankybabyd,

Very interesting question, I think a lot of people, including current Public Mobile customers are wondering too. Seeing how WhatsApp and Hangouts messages may cost less than 10 KB per message sent or received, this can add up when it gets rounded. This is of course just text. However, the metric may not be accurate seeing how there's overhead for SSL/TLS encryption as well.

I think only PM staff like @Mansi_G, @Moid_I and @Jeremy_M can provide us with the details on how this works.

[frankybabyd]

Hi Luddite,

Yor are correct in your math. 

I guess only someone technical from PM could really answer this. 

However, if people that are using PM keep their phones running normally with all their apps getting notifications and downloading whatever it needs (other than updating apps on cellular data) and these users see similar data usage numbers as reported by their phone as what is in their data usage listed in their PM account, then I guess it isn't an issue. 

It really depends how a data session is defined and how apps and the phone's OS communicate over the network that affects this.  100000 iterations may seem a lot, but when running software, 100000 of anything can be done in no time, lol..

Thanks for the reponses from everyone.

[vrance]

Hi, when I checked my usage history, I do not see the charge per session as described. I see how much data used in the background, and the data consumed in that slot. May be this is the session discussed here. It should not be per app data usage, but the slot when multiple apps are accessing the data, and total data used in that slot.

[Luddite]

While waiting for someone who actually knows, I found this reference: Data sessions on your mobile | Evan Smith and based on this article I guess a session lasts as long as you have cellular data "on", at least 1 push notification "on", and are within range of PM towers.

[Saman]

I'm not sure what it is either, but I can tell you the data usage measured by my phone is consistent with what is shown online in my account. So it hasn't been an issue for me.

[imm1304]

Hey @frankybabyd, thats an interesting question.  I doubt any fellow community members could authoritatively answer this question for you, may be the community managers can chime in.

However, I can share my experience with you.  I have not experienced any excessive background data depletion issues in almost 4 months that I have been with PM.  Also, 10kb per session would allow for roughly 102.4 such background notification session for 1MB of data consumption.  At this rate, I would estimate approximately 30MB of data in a month for such activity.  This is assuming 1MB of data per day which would allow for 102.4/24 hours = 4-5 notification/email download sessions per hour.  I am just trying to provide some rough estimates to give you an idea.. I could be wrong.. judge for yourself.  

[vrance]

Hi @frankybabyd, you can disable the background job to access the data in iphone or android.  One common setting is disable "app store" or "play store" so that you only update your app when u have wifi.  Those information can be checked by the setting.  Normally other background jobs consume very little data.

[Luddite]

Someone may know the exact answer but I can tell you it has not been an issue with me. I have a very low data plan (1 GB/90 days) and have seen very little usage when I travel using cellular data. If I got the math correct, that is presumably because 1 GB would equal 100,000 such sessions. @chukdefatey ??