Wireless Data Usage Changes??

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@Lscoma wrote:

About a year ago, I received an email from ATT and congratulating me on my longtime service. In the email I was told that as a reward I was being given double data for no additional charge. What is so odd is that I NEVER went over my data limit prior to that time. Since I accepted the offer, I go over the data usage almost every month. I'm thinking that I was offered the added data because ATT may have made a change in how data is counted or something - disguising it as a gift. Anyway, I'm confused as to why I'm now always going over twice the amount I used before. Frankly, I'm annoyed...anyone else out there notice the same thing??

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Have you "upgraded" your cell phone within the last 12-18 months?  If so, it is most likely that your new phone is just using more data than your old phone.  So many new phones on the market today offer high res screens and now whenever you watch a video on your phone, it is downloading an HD version because your screen can display it, whereas your old phone screen couldn't so it would only download an SD version of the video.  That alone will cause your data to increase by 3-5 times the amount you used to use.  Another thing to consider is that newer phones support full LTE vs just 4G or even only 3G.  a 3G phone will download around 3-4Mbps, where a 4G phone can push 7-10Mbps, and LTE can push 45 Mbps or even faster.  Some streaming sites will adapt the quality of what they send to your phone pased on the bandwidth.  A faster pipe means they will send you a higher quality stream that uses more data (this is for audio as ell as video).

Another consideration is that newer devices and newer mobile phone OSes are really pushing for more "cloud based" storage.  This means that you push more data to/from the internet for jsut about everything you do.  I was running my iPhone 5 for 2 years and averaged about 2-2.5GB/month for my data usage.  A little over a year ago I upgraded to an iPhone 6, and now I use closer to 4.5-6GB/month.  I know I have changed how I use my phone a little over the last 2-3 years, but most of my change in usage stems from changes in devices, and understanding why the new devices use more data.

Do you still have the extra data?  The 6 GBS plans that were given another 6 GBS had an expiration data of about 1 year.  

Check your plan, then check all your devices to see if you are using more data than normal.