HTC High Data Usage

[tinaj78]

Hopefully someone here can help me.  I do not download/stream videos/music and I do not use many apps or have my apps set to automatically update.  I have the 200 MB plan and my bill has been under that.  However this latest bill, I had used up my data 5 days into the plan.  At the end of the billing cycle I used 700 MB.  If anything I used my phone less during this bill period.  AT&T can only tell me to buy the next higher data usage plan, but can't tell me what's going on with my phone.  I can't be the only this is happening to?!  Help!!

[redpoint73 ACE - Wizard]

First off, there are several HTC phones carried by AT&T, so it would help if you mentioned which one you own.

HTC phones do a good amount of data synching in the background, automatically, for the weather app, news, stocks, as well as auto synching Gmail and other email.   But I'm not sure if this would account for 700 Mb in 5 days.  You can try turning off the auto update on these items to see if it helps,  in Settings>Account & sync.

[MrSteve]

Or make sure you didn't have your phone sitting on a table and someone didn't pick if up to have some internet fun.

[OrangeSockDude]

If you have a lot of apps running in the background, that could be using a lot of data. Especially streaming programs like Pandora. Every so often, make sure there are no programs running while your phone is idle. Any running program has the potential to burn up data.

If at all feasable, you might wanna up your data plan to the 2GB option. Smartphones in general can eat up a lot of data.

[Jeremy_Legend]

Doesn't matter if it's an HTC or Samsung lol. Android does ALOT of background syncing, which covers email syncing, data syncing for clocks, syncing for FB/Twitter, and various other system/OS reasons, including checking for updates on a schedule. Best bet to avoid overages is to completely disable auto sync, and set it to manual.

[tennben07]

This happened to me at the beginning of August.  I requested an investigation and they were unable to find the source of the problem and I have the 4gig plan.  I have never used more than 2 gig, and have the excess in case i need to use the phone as hot spot, but that has not happened.  They were not very helpful, but my usage has been so low since I got my phone, the idea that I would use 5 gigs is ridiculous.  Did you ever figure out what happened?

[Evandela ACE - Warrior]

Hi there,

HTC smartphones have a tendency to use data in the background. This seems to be the primary case here.

In addition to that, the phone reverts back cellular data when put to sleep mode (not in use). You will have turn off the synching and have Wi-Fi running even when the phone is not in use.

-Evandela

[tinaj78]

I don't know that I ever really got an answer from AT&T, but they did end up helping me and not charge me overages.  This was after speaking to 3 reps and 1 salesman though.  The best help was from a rep that I talked to through a contact us link on at&t's website.  I think one of the months of high use was due to an e-mail that was failing during the send process and it kept trying to send the e-mail.  One good tip I received from a salesman was to turn off the phone every few days.  I think this is a good tip because if some rouge application is running without your knowledge it will be stopped at that point.  Good luck and keep trying to get help from at&t, it will work eventually! 

[Evandela ACE - Warrior]

Glad to hear you had a good experience with online support!

-Evandela

[aparla]

The post above really helped solve my issue of a high data usage spike. My phone burned through over 3 GB of data in two days! Reason was an email that was failing to send because of a 20MB video attachment. It must've kept sending and sending without notice or an auto-stop. I used a Data Manager app to find which app was drawing the unusually high data, pinpointed the data draw from the mail app, and then deleted the email from the Outbox. Lesson of the story: be careful sending videos or large files via email on your Android. PS. AT&T was extremely helpful and did not charge me overages due to the error.

[leovsmith]

The battery cover on the HTC Inspire must be down TIGHT or you will not have an antenna for WiFi! I sent in one phone, had a factory reset several times before a factory memo was sent to stores and techs, who never read it!

[Loamer]

I'm having the same problem! I recently moved to the mountains where I don't have any service, so the phone is off....however, as soon as I go down the mountain and turn on the phone to make calls and check my email the data has gotten out of control. 1-2gigs of data in a 24 hour period.  Called support and they were unhelpful...advice was to increase the data plan from 2 to 3 gig, which I went ahead and did. The additional 1 gig of data was consumed in less than 24 hours..  Took the phone to the store and they suggested an app killer ap to make sure nothing was running in the background; used that to no avail. Just took a trip to Michigan and the same issue happened, more than 1 gig of data used in a 24 hour period. This was even with the phone connected to wifi for at least 8 of those hours. I took the phone back to the store and the tech confirmed that there were no apps running and all of the push notifications and automatic syncs were off. They couldn't determine what was happening and put me on the phone with customer support, who also didn't have any ideas. They offered to refund the last two data overage charges....I've had 5 in the past 30 days. The store tech did a hard reset of the phone, but now three days later and my first trip down the mountain since the visit to the store and I'm showing 800mb of data use. I've had the phone for 14 months and this was never a problem before...I averaged 1 gig of data a month. Now it's 5-6 gigs. Frustrated and very ready to abandon the smartphone craze.