9 ms·

Hundreds of Verizon customers are battling data over-limit fees

98 points by 0x7fffffff 10y ago

haimez 10y ago
Erm... Terrible article.
DiabloD3 10y ago
Bad article, but if Verizon is significantly lying about data usage, well, the FCC is going to crawl so far up their ass it's going to look like that scene from Alien when this is all over.
- Johnny555 10y ago
  And if they are caught doing something illegal, they'll face a few million dollar fine so the FCC can show how tough they are, while Verizon will keep a hundred million dollars in ill gotten profits.
  - godzillabrennus 10y ago
    And a few hundred poor people will go to jail for unpaid bills while no charges are brought against Verizon employees. #merica
    - nrb 10y ago
      You cannot be jailed in the US for debts other than unpaid taxes.
      - vthallam 10y ago
        The credit score/ratings would be doomed when verizon sends the unpaid bills to external collection agencies.
      - michaelmrose 10y ago
        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-d-romero/the-return-of-the-debtors_1_b_8220964.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-d-romero/the-return-of... 1 strategy is to pull the debtor into court repeatedly and hope they fail to show up once so they can be jailed for failing to appear. Repeatedly missing work can also put the poor person in danger of losing their job as well. Fake threats of jail or other impossible consequences aren't unheard of either.
      - a-no-n 10y ago
        You're so incredibly naïve. Just one example: look at states which charge overly-prosectured minorities parole fees (often for unpaid tickets and other civil matters) and reimprison them if they are unable to pay these extortionist taxes.
      - icantdrive55 10y ago
        Just make sure to show up for an asset examination. It's the one thing you need to show up for. The judge usually just fines you, but can arrest, at least in CA. I had to show up for one, and my judgment holder didn't show up, and the judge fined him $200.00, even though I told the judge I didn't lose money by comming to court. If you ever find yourself in this stressful situation, you have a lot of rights.
      - schreiaj 10y ago
        Massachusetts you can be. That's the only one I know of off the top of my head.
  - theandrewbailey 10y ago
    And whatever fine the FCC (or other government agency) gives them will not be sufficient to teach Verizon that this behavior is unacceptable.
    - saretired 10y ago
      Yup. The FCC fined Verizon $1.35 million for using supercookies without users' permission, which is unlikely to change the behavior of a company that paid its 4 top executives over $40 million in total in 2015.
ceejayoz 10y ago
This is a horrible article. > "My son, like most young adults, is pretty phone savvy so I was sure he knew what to do." That sort of statement is never a good sign. > "Shinn insists her late husband's phone isn't used for anything other than looking at phone numbers of missed calls or dealing with incoming calls. How, she asks, is her late husband's phone using data?" It's checking an email account or something? > "When he reaches his data limit each month, he immediately shuts off his data. Yet every month for the last four months, his data exceeded his limit. The totals: 6.00900; GB 6.00200; GB 6.01100 GB; and 6.00400 GB." The "you're over limit" is probably not sent at the exact femtosecond you go over it? > "Verizon insists that many customers' problems hinge on the infamous "Wi-Fi Assist" button, Van Dinter said. With iPhones, this is automatically "on" under the iOS9 operating system, which was introduced a year ago." Verizon's probably right. I saw my data usage go up dramatically with that. > Why are people's phones using data in the middle of the night when the phones aren't being used and are turned off or are on do-not-disturb? Because do-not-disturb prevents alerts, not usage, and phones check email etc. 24/7. > If the times of the data pings aren't necessarily accurate and are really only within a six-hour window, how is it that the phone call time stamps on my bill are accurate to the minute? Verizon says data is tallied and reported in chunks. Because phone calls aren't data usage.
- tushar-r 10y ago
  >The "you're over limit" is probably not sent at the exact femtosecond you go over it? What if the phone is shutting the data off automatically? Like the Data Usage settings on Android?
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    The article cites "6.00900; GB 6.00200; GB 6.01100 GB; and 6.00400 GB". Even if the phone's handling it, a megabyte or two could easily be explained by the occasional dropped HTTP request that Verizon sees but the phone doesn't count.
ikeboy 10y ago
An entire article with numerous anecdotes, and they couldn't mention the one simple way to check data usage on the phone? Both Android and iOS let you see exactly which apps used data, although only Android lets you break it down by period; iOS you'll need to "reset" then use it for a while. Those anecdotes are pretty much worthless without that information. I'm surprised the Verizon statement didn't mention to check that.
- foobarqux 10y ago
  > iOS you'll need to "reset" then use it for a while. Which is idiotic, but still not as idiotic as iOS's lack of automatic data usage alerts.
  - copperx 10y ago
    Not idiotic, just completely against Apple's interests.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      This comes up often. Why is it against Apple interests?
      - dalore 10y ago
        More menus, buttons, options, configuration etc. Apple in minimalism. Don't make me think etc. Ideal world wouldn't have data limits, so they don't put in data limits as they design for the ideal world.
        lostlogin 10y ago
        This is an argument I can understand. It usually turns into some sort of weird conspiracy theory about telecos being in cahoots with Apple.
- croon 10y ago
  As a non-American always buying non-rebranded and unlocked phones, this was my first thought as well. But if I put on my tinfoil hat, how much crap has Verizon put on their phones? I'm not sure how likely, but it's not impossible to either have an app use up your data, or alter the data stats. In any other case, I fully agree with you.
prklmn 10y ago
iOS wifi assist feature at work here most likely...unless Verizon is making up usage, which wouldn't surprise me
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  Wifi assist plus Facebook's auto-play videos, I'd wager.
  - crottypeter 10y ago
    Maybe the connection speed has gone up and as a result facebook (and other video services) serves HD where it used to serve low-res video. This would explain why the user behaviour doesn't have to change but the data usage does.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  I must ask - has anyone here seen WiFi Assist actually use appreciable amounts of data? I've never seen it use more than a MB or two a month.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    That's going to depend heavily on your personal wifi. I have a decent number of dead spots in my house, and I'm frequently in the back yard where reception is poor. It'll switch back and forth frequently with assist on in those situations.
    - kalleboo 10y ago
      So if you watch a video, it'll do that all over mobile data? Since I've never seen it use much, I always assumed WiFi Assist was just used for stuff like timely push notifications.
      - ceejayoz 10y ago
        Yep. Wifi assist switches you to a cellular connection more quickly if your wifi connection is poor. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296
unclebucknasty 10y ago
Been getting slammed with Verizon overages lately myself the past several months. Habits haven't really changed but suddenly my wife and are each using roughly 3X more data. Used Android usage features and, sure enough, it shows roughly the same as Verizon. And most is Web data. Still, something seems awfully fishy. I wonder if Verizon's Web gateway or similar could be the problem? I need to do some comparisons with Wi-Fi to check whether page sizes, etc are the same. Otherwise, maybe a Chrome or other update? Anyway,something has absolutely changed--literally from one month to the next--starting a few months back.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Johnny555 10y ago
For what it's worth, my usage reported by Verizon is typically within about 5% of what my phone reports. I just double checked and right now Verizon says I've used 2345MB and my phone says 2.26GB.
- gregrata 10y ago
  That's 2.35 GB vs 2.26GB - how is that 5%
  - Lazare 10y ago
    Is this sarcasm or...? The difference between those two numbers is 0.09 GB. 0.09 is 3.8% of 2.35, or 4.0% of 2.26, so whichever way you look at it, it would be correct to say the difference is "within 5%".
    - ars 10y ago
      He read it as 5% of (like 2 is 5% of 40) instead of within (i.e. accurate).
    - fenomas 10y ago
      GP probably missed the "within".
    - dmckeon 10y ago
      The difference is even smaller if GB are power-of-2 Gibibytes: 2345MB is 2.29GB.
      - Flimm 10y ago
        Verizon could be using one definition of GB and the phone another. (One more reason to use the unambiguous MiB, GiB units.)
delinka 10y ago
I recently got two iPads with a data plan on Verizon. I'm absolutely paranoid about overages. First thing I did, right out of the box, was pick through all the data-related settings. Wifi assist? No thanks. I'm paranoid enough about it that I turn cell data off unless I'm on the road. Thus far, three months in, I can say I'm not dissatisfied with the service. I'm not thrilled about the data rate, but the "competition" sells the same thing at about the same price.
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  Data is always off on my phone, unless I need it. Not only does it save the data plan, it does miracles for battery life.
  - SparkyMcUnicorn 10y ago
    I need my web fed notifications.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    My phone would be near-useless without data on - 100% of my messaging (like with my wife) is over data. I wouldn't get server alerts, urgent email etc. I'd rather disable voice/sms service than data service. But I've also never had issues with overages. I use maybe 2-3 GB/mo, on a cheap MVNO plan where I have 6 GB/mo with rollover. Since I never use up the 6 GB, I effectively have 12 GB/mo in case something goes crazy or I need to tether. When I tether I get super-paranoid though, since macOS has no concept of "this is an expensive connection" so it will happily download gigabytes of Photoshop updates. Little Snitch is useful for these occasions - just whitelist the software you need & trust (email, messaging, browser)
    - voltagex_ 10y ago
      Don't worry, Windows has the "metered connection" setting but it's nearly useless as no third party apps respect the setting - Dropbox and Chrome both updated over LTE today.
davidf18 10y ago
I have been a Verizon customer for about 4 years since the iPhone 5 came out. My data usage sometimes varies a great deal depending if I'm out of town or not. I always check a couple of days before the end of my billing cycle and I can increase the plan for that month. Now the plans have larger bin sizes and it easier keeping to one plan. Because of my methods I would frequently receiving "over data" text messages as a warning. Also if one installs the Verizon iPhone app you can use a widget so I see my usage daily when checking the weather and schedule and so on. I also recommend buying the omnistat app that shows you data consumed real time.
- matwood 10y ago
  I would recommend not using Verizon.
  - function_seven 10y ago
    I've tried T-Mobile and AT&T. Both carriers were substantially worse than VZ for mobile data speeds and dropped calls. Not just a little. Tremendously worse. The LTE on them was slower and more intermittent than VZ's 3G coverage. The switch back to VZ from AT&T (after just 3 months) cost me hundreds of dollars, and was still worth it. (Thankfully T-Mobile had a weeklong trial program that saved me from going through with that switch) VZ gets away with higher pricing and abusive customer support because their network is unmatched in my opinion. My experience is obviously anecdata, and I don't live in a densely populated city, so that may be worth noting.
    - matwood 10y ago
      Cell phone service is a conversation where anecdata matters. The carrier you have must work in the places you visit. Unfortunately for you, that only seems to be the most customer unfriendly one, Verzion. Where I live TMO data speeds are much faster than both ATT and Verizon (we have tested in the office with people on different carriers). TMO service is also better than Verizon where I live, and if you travel overseas at all nothing beats TMO. The best part of this is that all of the big carriers are improving their networks like never before. Hopefully sooner rather than later, network coverage will not be a competing point.
SamReidHughes 10y ago
I get 50% and 75% warnings from Verizon in both text message and email, so I haven't had to worry one bit about exceeding my 1 GB limit.
- blawson 10y ago
  AT&T does something similar - 75% and 90%. I learned the hard way it can't be relied on to be timely! I received a 75% warning on a Friday night from them, continued to use data (some streaming), and never got the 90% warning, until Monday morning when I received about 20 text messages saying I had used 90%, then 100%, resulting in the automatic purchase of 1 GB more, then 75%, 90%, etc. Even with their credit for the misunderstanding it still cost me > $150 for that lesson.
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    This is by design.
joelmbell 10y ago
I know this sounds a bit crazy, but I'd be willing to wager that a significant chunk of data usage skyrocketing in the past few months is due to Pokemon Go.
- RickS 10y ago
  Unrelated to OP, this was a huge concern when pokemon go came out. However, it turned out not to be the case. http://www.techinsider.io/how-much-data-is-pokmon-go-using-2016-7 http://www.techinsider.io/how-much-data-is-pokmon-go-using-2... about 3mb/hr, light relative to most photo/video heavy social apps.
  - joelmbell 10y ago
    Interesting! Thanks for the link.
nishaad78 10y ago
This is one reason I'm happy to be in Hong Kong...I have unlimited data on LTE :)
- soylentcola 10y ago
  Some US carriers offer this as well. The problem is typically that the largest carriers (mostly re-formed from the same telco monopoly that was broken up decades ago) use their market advantage to avoid this sort of thing. Why offer unlimited data when you have the only towers in a region and you can rake in overage fees from a captive audience?
1945 10y ago
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned, just enable Safety Mode and avoid overages.. https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/safety-mode-faqs/ https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/safety-mode-faqs/
- amock 10y ago
  That's only been available for a short while and only on new plans.
- defective 10y ago
  Well, it was, it's just that you'd have to read the article.
uptown 10y ago
I go with Verizon prepaid for about $40/month with a small data allocation. Can buy add on data packs in 3gb blocks that roll over for 3 months and tethering is included.
cathartes 10y ago
I signed up with a Verizon Wireless data plan a few days before the close of 2015 after moving to a new place. Initially paranoid about data usage and Verizon's integrity in reporting such, I maintained activity logs on all my machines with vnstat (0). But I became more at ease after a few months when I determined that Verizon's reported usage always stayed slightly below vnstat's report for each network interface (which also includes network traffic that only takes place on the LAN or with the router device itself that isn't actually sent over the airwaves). I won't suggest the article's complaints are baseless, however, even if the article itself reflects the poor community journalism I remember expecting from the Post-Standard. Because even if Verizon isn't falsifying usage data for users, the whole game is partly rigged! A typical user has no idea what their actual usage is, or what their devices do automagically in their absence. I've seen 10 GB prepaid cell data allowances get liquidated the very evening of the day they were topped off by project volunteers using laptops. In one case, a user checking and writing email forgot to disable Windows Updates. In another instance, the user had no concept of how large the neat videos he uploaded to the project's FB page actually were. Without a real concept of how much data they actually use, most users will end up finding a data plan mostly by trial & error--they will go as cheap as they can, and incrementally adjust to a larger plan when they "go over" (rinse & repeat). I think of the numerous uncomfortable talks and arguments in households everywhere based on stupid ideas of what constitutes data use, and parents who are no better informed than their children about what they can do to actually reduce household data usage. And yes, turning off automatic updates, "wifi assist", and other settings is good advice. Except that many of these settings have a mysterious way of getting re-enabled in commercial OSes. Why is it necessary for users to constantly police their own device settings because the Apples, Microsofts, and Googles of the world have other ideas? If you're running a non-libre OS (which is unavoidable on smart phones, presently), you might as well expect some hardship here. Your device does what it wants, because its makers don't think it actually belongs to you. I suspect that the main reason my experience with Verizon Wireless has been nearly painless (if not inexpensive) is because I keep only a dumb phone and several machines installed with Slackware. My data usage may be larger some months, but I always know why! It's never a surprise. 0: http://humdi.net/vnstat/ http://humdi.net/vnstat/
RickS 10y ago
Others are correct that this article is of very low quality. But that doesn't change the fact that data caps are arbitrarily set cash-grabs and should be either abolished entirely on both home and mobile plans, or should be regulated to have consistent costs that are tiered sanely, rather than the current "friendly allotment, arm-and-leg overage" model.
jmspring 10y ago
Verizon is good about sending text messages when you get close to limits. Not sure how people didn't notice...
- withdavidli 10y ago
  Van Dinter comment in the article: The usage Verizon logs is just an estimate for that moment in time. So if you're notified that you're over this evening, you may have actually gone over yesterday.
r0m4n0 10y ago
I find it absurd I have to count gb on a monthly basis to not get charged data overages in this decade. I literally use my phone lightly and one wrong mistake can throw my entire family plan into a tail spin. I manage 7 lines and it's a full time job. Every change on my plan seems to throw Verizon into a major rework of my bill and subsequent phone calls to have the changes reverted. I'm all too familiar with creating customer service tickets, miscalculating promotional data, complaining and receiving credits. I feel like I might know Verizon's plans more than Verizon. It's enough to make me not want cellular data. Comcast has a mesh network in California I literally have free wifi (as a paying Comcast customer) anywhere I go. Definitely not a plug for Comcast as they are effectively broadcasting paying customers internet to freeloaders like myself. Morality of that is another debate though
- c22 10y ago
  Doesn't xfinitywifi use a separate channel to avoid impacting the subscriber's service? Or are you talking about something else? (xfinitywifi isn't really a mesh network).
  - r0m4n0 10y ago
    Technically I'm not too sure... I know by default every router you pay Comcast to lease broadcasts the xfinitywifi network by default. I am constantly connected... I was even stopped at a traffic signal on xfinitywifi yesterday
  - givinguflac 10y ago
    Xfinitywifi broadcasts on the same channel as the customers network, along with a 3rd hidden SSID they won't explain. (Current theory is its for their security systems, who knows.) It absolutely impacts their shitty routers performance, and causes wireless congestion. I work support for some consumer wireless equipment and there are lots of times where the only improvement is disabling xfinitywifi. I don't understand why anyone supports this- it may be ok for a middle of nowhere town, but in any reasonably populated building it literally doubles the number of wifi networks, which is a nightmare when you have a big apartment building and 2.4G interference.
ap22213 10y ago
Timely article. I recently switched to VZ from ATT where I'd been a customer for years. At ATT, I had a grandfathered unlimited plan. Before I switched, I checked my max monthly data usage from the previous few months. The max was way under 3 GB / mo. After I switched to VZ, I was hitting the 5 GB limit after only 25 days. How can that be?
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Did you change phones to one with a different data usage pattern (e.g., bigger screen -> higher resolution video and graphics)? Or, just the factory settings on the new phone could have stuff like Facebook Video Auto-play reverted back to on. If you have a faster connection now, video apps might be loading 1080p video instead of 360p. You can't really make these claims without actually comparing what apps used how much data on your phone
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  IIRC, AT&T has been throttling grandfathered unlimited plans.
DocG 10y ago
Havin data limit and if exceeded limiting speed is default way of doing things in this part of europe. No overcharges ever.
dredmorbius 10y ago
Verizon hit my personal "never do business with them again" shit list a few years ago, for this and related bullshit. Non-malevolant data providers are difficult to find. The abysmally poor monitoring, control, and cost-management options offered subscribers all feed into this directly, and dovetail nicely with a previous conversation on the morality of technology. A technology which is financed by a major vendor, and is designed to maximise that vendor's profits (or worse: an entire opposed-to-the-subscriber economic sector) will be inherently biased against subscribers. Highly obvious data usage tracking, stop-loss financial settings, a soft degredation, the ability to specify what specific traffic, types of traffic, and/or sites are available or supported, etc., would all help this out. As an example on the last point: I've looked at 4GL WiFi hotspot devices. None of these that I've found supports configuring a firewall or blocklist on the device itself. For some strange reason, the telecoms and advertising-oriented providers of such devices don't find it in their interest to offer such capabilities. I am increasingly utterly disgusted with the tech world. Some fun toys, yes. But so gratuitously user-hostile. You'd think this was part of a Wells-Fargo sales enhancement strategy.
- kristopolous 10y ago
  as far as ethics and 'don't screw the consumer' go, I think t-mobile is the best you can do. And for me, offering something with integrity is what's important.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    There's Credo Mobile, who turned up among signators of tech-related companies against the TPP. http://www.credomobile.com/ http://www.credomobile.com/ They're part of the CREDO family of philathropically-oriented businesses. http://www.credomobile.com/mission/home http://www.credomobile.com/mission/home
    - kristopolous 10y ago
      it's an interesting idea. but it still has data caps, overage charges, locks you in a 2 year contract and sits on top of verizons' cdma. the company is also apparently a traditionally structured hierarchical autocratic corporation. with regard to that, all the carriers have a benevolence wing (https://twitter.com/verizongiving https://twitter.com/verizongiving for instance). So I guess cynically one can say this is just traditional capitalism with a different foot forward for a different demographic ... There's a very real ngo-industrial complex and they seem to highlight that that's where the money goes. The SPLC for instance, has many members who make $100s of k a year in legal fees on behalf of the SPLC on top of their $300k salaries. They were also sitting on over $200 million of unused cash and made it an endowment that they invested in the market with ... these people involved in these charities have taken the donations of their members to propel themselves into the 1%. Splendid.
don_draper 10y ago
Anecdotally, I use Google Fi in the DC are and love it.
chiefalchemist 10y ago
Video chews up data REALLY quick. Video views on FB and IG are up, probably up on TW as well. So when people say, "My habits haven't really changed..." they probably don't realize what a difference video makes. It's not like the adverts promote this. Even using say just IG and scrolling a lot is gonna crew up data. Not as much as video, obviously, but if you're drifting from TW or FB to more IG then I could see more data being used. As for usage while sleeping, usage while off, etc. Well, obviously that's a BIG problem. I'm not making excuses but probably no surprise. Computers aren't perfect, are they?
- pluma 10y ago
  I wish there was a way to make YouTube remember I don't want to watch videos in 1080p60 when I'm on the go. I always have to make sure it's not on HD when I leave the house just because I may have reset it to "auto" while watching at home on WiFi. This is especially annoying when the first thing it shows is an unskippable 30 second ad with no option to adjust the quality because it's an ad.
pascalxus 10y ago
Come on people, switch to a carrier that doesn't charge over-limit fees, like USmobile.com (see my comment below). Also, it's very easy to see which apps are using the most data. Just keep an eye on them, where it shows the highest data usage. Delete all apps that use more than X amount of data and switch to a competing app. As long as we have choices, businesses and apps must bend to our will. How long do you think Pokemon Go would last if everyone stopped using it because it used too much data? We are consumers, and as long as there is competition, we are All powerful.
skynetv2 10y ago
this is exactly why i moved to TMo

98 points by 0x7fffffff 10y ago

Erm... Terrible article.

Bad article, but if Verizon is significantly lying about data usage, well, the FCC is going to crawl so far up their ass it's going to look like that scene from Alien when this is all over.

Johnny555 10y ago
And if they are caught doing something illegal, they'll face a few million dollar fine so the FCC can show how tough they are, while Verizon will keep a hundred million dollars in ill gotten profits.
- godzillabrennus 10y ago
  And a few hundred poor people will go to jail for unpaid bills while no charges are brought against Verizon employees. #merica
  - nrb 10y ago
    You cannot be jailed in the US for debts other than unpaid taxes.
    - vthallam 10y ago
      The credit score/ratings would be doomed when verizon sends the unpaid bills to external collection agencies.
    - michaelmrose 10y ago
      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-d-romero/the-return-of-the-debtors_1_b_8220964.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-d-romero/the-return-of... 1 strategy is to pull the debtor into court repeatedly and hope they fail to show up once so they can be jailed for failing to appear. Repeatedly missing work can also put the poor person in danger of losing their job as well. Fake threats of jail or other impossible consequences aren't unheard of either.
    - a-no-n 10y ago
      You're so incredibly naïve. Just one example: look at states which charge overly-prosectured minorities parole fees (often for unpaid tickets and other civil matters) and reimprison them if they are unable to pay these extortionist taxes.
    - icantdrive55 10y ago
      Just make sure to show up for an asset examination. It's the one thing you need to show up for. The judge usually just fines you, but can arrest, at least in CA. I had to show up for one, and my judgment holder didn't show up, and the judge fined him $200.00, even though I told the judge I didn't lose money by comming to court. If you ever find yourself in this stressful situation, you have a lot of rights.
    - schreiaj 10y ago
      Massachusetts you can be. That's the only one I know of off the top of my head.
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  And whatever fine the FCC (or other government agency) gives them will not be sufficient to teach Verizon that this behavior is unacceptable.
  - saretired 10y ago
    Yup. The FCC fined Verizon $1.35 million for using supercookies without users' permission, which is unlikely to change the behavior of a company that paid its 4 top executives over $40 million in total in 2015.

ceejayoz 10y ago

This is a horrible article. > "My son, like most young adults, is pretty phone savvy so I was sure he knew what to do." That sort of statement is never a good sign. > "Shinn insists her late husband's phone isn't used for anything other than looking at phone numbers of missed calls or dealing with incoming calls. How, she asks, is her late husband's phone using data?" It's checking an email account or something? > "When he reaches his data limit each month, he immediately shuts off his data. Yet every month for the last four months, his data exceeded his limit. The totals: 6.00900; GB 6.00200; GB 6.01100 GB; and 6.00400 GB." The "you're over limit" is probably not sent at the exact femtosecond you go over it? > "Verizon insists that many customers' problems hinge on the infamous "Wi-Fi Assist" button, Van Dinter said. With iPhones, this is automatically "on" under the iOS9 operating system, which was introduced a year ago." Verizon's probably right. I saw my data usage go up dramatically with that. > Why are people's phones using data in the middle of the night when the phones aren't being used and are turned off or are on do-not-disturb? Because do-not-disturb prevents alerts, not usage, and phones check email etc. 24/7. > If the times of the data pings aren't necessarily accurate and are really only within a six-hour window, how is it that the phone call time stamps on my bill are accurate to the minute? Verizon says data is tallied and reported in chunks. Because phone calls aren't data usage.

tushar-r 10y ago
>The "you're over limit" is probably not sent at the exact femtosecond you go over it? What if the phone is shutting the data off automatically? Like the Data Usage settings on Android?
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  The article cites "6.00900; GB 6.00200; GB 6.01100 GB; and 6.00400 GB". Even if the phone's handling it, a megabyte or two could easily be explained by the occasional dropped HTTP request that Verizon sees but the phone doesn't count.

ikeboy 10y ago

An entire article with numerous anecdotes, and they couldn't mention the one simple way to check data usage on the phone? Both Android and iOS let you see exactly which apps used data, although only Android lets you break it down by period; iOS you'll need to "reset" then use it for a while. Those anecdotes are pretty much worthless without that information. I'm surprised the Verizon statement didn't mention to check that.

foobarqux 10y ago
> iOS you'll need to "reset" then use it for a while. Which is idiotic, but still not as idiotic as iOS's lack of automatic data usage alerts.
- copperx 10y ago
  Not idiotic, just completely against Apple's interests.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    This comes up often. Why is it against Apple interests?
    - dalore 10y ago
      More menus, buttons, options, configuration etc. Apple in minimalism. Don't make me think etc. Ideal world wouldn't have data limits, so they don't put in data limits as they design for the ideal world.
      - lostlogin 10y ago
        This is an argument I can understand. It usually turns into some sort of weird conspiracy theory about telecos being in cahoots with Apple.
croon 10y ago
As a non-American always buying non-rebranded and unlocked phones, this was my first thought as well. But if I put on my tinfoil hat, how much crap has Verizon put on their phones? I'm not sure how likely, but it's not impossible to either have an app use up your data, or alter the data stats. In any other case, I fully agree with you.

prklmn 10y ago

iOS wifi assist feature at work here most likely...unless Verizon is making up usage, which wouldn't surprise me

ceejayoz 10y ago
Wifi assist plus Facebook's auto-play videos, I'd wager.
- crottypeter 10y ago
  Maybe the connection speed has gone up and as a result facebook (and other video services) serves HD where it used to serve low-res video. This would explain why the user behaviour doesn't have to change but the data usage does.
kalleboo 10y ago
I must ask - has anyone here seen WiFi Assist actually use appreciable amounts of data? I've never seen it use more than a MB or two a month.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  That's going to depend heavily on your personal wifi. I have a decent number of dead spots in my house, and I'm frequently in the back yard where reception is poor. It'll switch back and forth frequently with assist on in those situations.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    So if you watch a video, it'll do that all over mobile data? Since I've never seen it use much, I always assumed WiFi Assist was just used for stuff like timely push notifications.
    - ceejayoz 10y ago
      Yep. Wifi assist switches you to a cellular connection more quickly if your wifi connection is poor. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296

unclebucknasty 10y ago

Been getting slammed with Verizon overages lately myself the past several months. Habits haven't really changed but suddenly my wife and are each using roughly 3X more data. Used Android usage features and, sure enough, it shows roughly the same as Verizon. And most is Web data. Still, something seems awfully fishy. I wonder if Verizon's Web gateway or similar could be the problem? I need to do some comparisons with Wi-Fi to check whether page sizes, etc are the same. Otherwise, maybe a Chrome or other update? Anyway,something has absolutely changed--literally from one month to the next--starting a few months back.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Johnny555 10y ago

For what it's worth, my usage reported by Verizon is typically within about 5% of what my phone reports. I just double checked and right now Verizon says I've used 2345MB and my phone says 2.26GB.

gregrata 10y ago
That's 2.35 GB vs 2.26GB - how is that 5%
- Lazare 10y ago
  Is this sarcasm or...? The difference between those two numbers is 0.09 GB. 0.09 is 3.8% of 2.35, or 4.0% of 2.26, so whichever way you look at it, it would be correct to say the difference is "within 5%".
  - ars 10y ago
    He read it as 5% of (like 2 is 5% of 40) instead of within (i.e. accurate).
  - fenomas 10y ago
    GP probably missed the "within".
  - dmckeon 10y ago
    The difference is even smaller if GB are power-of-2 Gibibytes: 2345MB is 2.29GB.
    - Flimm 10y ago
      Verizon could be using one definition of GB and the phone another. (One more reason to use the unambiguous MiB, GiB units.)

delinka 10y ago

I recently got two iPads with a data plan on Verizon. I'm absolutely paranoid about overages. First thing I did, right out of the box, was pick through all the data-related settings. Wifi assist? No thanks. I'm paranoid enough about it that I turn cell data off unless I'm on the road. Thus far, three months in, I can say I'm not dissatisfied with the service. I'm not thrilled about the data rate, but the "competition" sells the same thing at about the same price.

theandrewbailey 10y ago
Data is always off on my phone, unless I need it. Not only does it save the data plan, it does miracles for battery life.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 10y ago
  I need my web fed notifications.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  My phone would be near-useless without data on - 100% of my messaging (like with my wife) is over data. I wouldn't get server alerts, urgent email etc. I'd rather disable voice/sms service than data service. But I've also never had issues with overages. I use maybe 2-3 GB/mo, on a cheap MVNO plan where I have 6 GB/mo with rollover. Since I never use up the 6 GB, I effectively have 12 GB/mo in case something goes crazy or I need to tether. When I tether I get super-paranoid though, since macOS has no concept of "this is an expensive connection" so it will happily download gigabytes of Photoshop updates. Little Snitch is useful for these occasions - just whitelist the software you need & trust (email, messaging, browser)
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    Don't worry, Windows has the "metered connection" setting but it's nearly useless as no third party apps respect the setting - Dropbox and Chrome both updated over LTE today.

davidf18 10y ago

I have been a Verizon customer for about 4 years since the iPhone 5 came out. My data usage sometimes varies a great deal depending if I'm out of town or not. I always check a couple of days before the end of my billing cycle and I can increase the plan for that month. Now the plans have larger bin sizes and it easier keeping to one plan. Because of my methods I would frequently receiving "over data" text messages as a warning. Also if one installs the Verizon iPhone app you can use a widget so I see my usage daily when checking the weather and schedule and so on. I also recommend buying the omnistat app that shows you data consumed real time.

matwood 10y ago
I would recommend not using Verizon.
- function_seven 10y ago
  I've tried T-Mobile and AT&T. Both carriers were substantially worse than VZ for mobile data speeds and dropped calls. Not just a little. Tremendously worse. The LTE on them was slower and more intermittent than VZ's 3G coverage. The switch back to VZ from AT&T (after just 3 months) cost me hundreds of dollars, and was still worth it. (Thankfully T-Mobile had a weeklong trial program that saved me from going through with that switch) VZ gets away with higher pricing and abusive customer support because their network is unmatched in my opinion. My experience is obviously anecdata, and I don't live in a densely populated city, so that may be worth noting.
  - matwood 10y ago
    Cell phone service is a conversation where anecdata matters. The carrier you have must work in the places you visit. Unfortunately for you, that only seems to be the most customer unfriendly one, Verzion. Where I live TMO data speeds are much faster than both ATT and Verizon (we have tested in the office with people on different carriers). TMO service is also better than Verizon where I live, and if you travel overseas at all nothing beats TMO. The best part of this is that all of the big carriers are improving their networks like never before. Hopefully sooner rather than later, network coverage will not be a competing point.

SamReidHughes 10y ago

I get 50% and 75% warnings from Verizon in both text message and email, so I haven't had to worry one bit about exceeding my 1 GB limit.

blawson 10y ago
AT&T does something similar - 75% and 90%. I learned the hard way it can't be relied on to be timely! I received a 75% warning on a Friday night from them, continued to use data (some streaming), and never got the 90% warning, until Monday morning when I received about 20 text messages saying I had used 90%, then 100%, resulting in the automatic purchase of 1 GB more, then 75%, 90%, etc. Even with their credit for the misunderstanding it still cost me > $150 for that lesson.
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  This is by design.

joelmbell 10y ago

I know this sounds a bit crazy, but I'd be willing to wager that a significant chunk of data usage skyrocketing in the past few months is due to Pokemon Go.

RickS 10y ago
Unrelated to OP, this was a huge concern when pokemon go came out. However, it turned out not to be the case. http://www.techinsider.io/how-much-data-is-pokmon-go-using-2016-7 http://www.techinsider.io/how-much-data-is-pokmon-go-using-2... about 3mb/hr, light relative to most photo/video heavy social apps.
- joelmbell 10y ago
  Interesting! Thanks for the link.

nishaad78 10y ago

This is one reason I'm happy to be in Hong Kong...I have unlimited data on LTE :)

soylentcola 10y ago
Some US carriers offer this as well. The problem is typically that the largest carriers (mostly re-formed from the same telco monopoly that was broken up decades ago) use their market advantage to avoid this sort of thing. Why offer unlimited data when you have the only towers in a region and you can rake in overage fees from a captive audience?

1945 10y ago

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned, just enable Safety Mode and avoid overages.. https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/safety-mode-faqs/ https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/safety-mode-faqs/

amock 10y ago
That's only been available for a short while and only on new plans.
defective 10y ago
Well, it was, it's just that you'd have to read the article.

uptown 10y ago

I go with Verizon prepaid for about $40/month with a small data allocation. Can buy add on data packs in 3gb blocks that roll over for 3 months and tethering is included.

cathartes 10y ago

I signed up with a Verizon Wireless data plan a few days before the close of 2015 after moving to a new place. Initially paranoid about data usage and Verizon's integrity in reporting such, I maintained activity logs on all my machines with vnstat (0). But I became more at ease after a few months when I determined that Verizon's reported usage always stayed slightly below vnstat's report for each network interface (which also includes network traffic that only takes place on the LAN or with the router device itself that isn't actually sent over the airwaves). I won't suggest the article's complaints are baseless, however, even if the article itself reflects the poor community journalism I remember expecting from the Post-Standard. Because even if Verizon isn't falsifying usage data for users, the whole game is partly rigged! A typical user has no idea what their actual usage is, or what their devices do automagically in their absence. I've seen 10 GB prepaid cell data allowances get liquidated the very evening of the day they were topped off by project volunteers using laptops. In one case, a user checking and writing email forgot to disable Windows Updates. In another instance, the user had no concept of how large the neat videos he uploaded to the project's FB page actually were. Without a real concept of how much data they actually use, most users will end up finding a data plan mostly by trial & error--they will go as cheap as they can, and incrementally adjust to a larger plan when they "go over" (rinse & repeat). I think of the numerous uncomfortable talks and arguments in households everywhere based on stupid ideas of what constitutes data use, and parents who are no better informed than their children about what they can do to actually reduce household data usage. And yes, turning off automatic updates, "wifi assist", and other settings is good advice. Except that many of these settings have a mysterious way of getting re-enabled in commercial OSes. Why is it necessary for users to constantly police their own device settings because the Apples, Microsofts, and Googles of the world have other ideas? If you're running a non-libre OS (which is unavoidable on smart phones, presently), you might as well expect some hardship here. Your device does what it wants, because its makers don't think it actually belongs to you. I suspect that the main reason my experience with Verizon Wireless has been nearly painless (if not inexpensive) is because I keep only a dumb phone and several machines installed with Slackware. My data usage may be larger some months, but I always know why! It's never a surprise. 0: http://humdi.net/vnstat/ http://humdi.net/vnstat/

RickS 10y ago

Others are correct that this article is of very low quality. But that doesn't change the fact that data caps are arbitrarily set cash-grabs and should be either abolished entirely on both home and mobile plans, or should be regulated to have consistent costs that are tiered sanely, rather than the current "friendly allotment, arm-and-leg overage" model.

jmspring 10y ago

Verizon is good about sending text messages when you get close to limits. Not sure how people didn't notice...

withdavidli 10y ago
Van Dinter comment in the article: The usage Verizon logs is just an estimate for that moment in time. So if you're notified that you're over this evening, you may have actually gone over yesterday.

r0m4n0 10y ago

I find it absurd I have to count gb on a monthly basis to not get charged data overages in this decade. I literally use my phone lightly and one wrong mistake can throw my entire family plan into a tail spin. I manage 7 lines and it's a full time job. Every change on my plan seems to throw Verizon into a major rework of my bill and subsequent phone calls to have the changes reverted. I'm all too familiar with creating customer service tickets, miscalculating promotional data, complaining and receiving credits. I feel like I might know Verizon's plans more than Verizon. It's enough to make me not want cellular data. Comcast has a mesh network in California I literally have free wifi (as a paying Comcast customer) anywhere I go. Definitely not a plug for Comcast as they are effectively broadcasting paying customers internet to freeloaders like myself. Morality of that is another debate though

c22 10y ago
Doesn't xfinitywifi use a separate channel to avoid impacting the subscriber's service? Or are you talking about something else? (xfinitywifi isn't really a mesh network).
- r0m4n0 10y ago
  Technically I'm not too sure... I know by default every router you pay Comcast to lease broadcasts the xfinitywifi network by default. I am constantly connected... I was even stopped at a traffic signal on xfinitywifi yesterday
- givinguflac 10y ago
  Xfinitywifi broadcasts on the same channel as the customers network, along with a 3rd hidden SSID they won't explain. (Current theory is its for their security systems, who knows.) It absolutely impacts their shitty routers performance, and causes wireless congestion. I work support for some consumer wireless equipment and there are lots of times where the only improvement is disabling xfinitywifi. I don't understand why anyone supports this- it may be ok for a middle of nowhere town, but in any reasonably populated building it literally doubles the number of wifi networks, which is a nightmare when you have a big apartment building and 2.4G interference.

ap22213 10y ago

Timely article. I recently switched to VZ from ATT where I'd been a customer for years. At ATT, I had a grandfathered unlimited plan. Before I switched, I checked my max monthly data usage from the previous few months. The max was way under 3 GB / mo. After I switched to VZ, I was hitting the 5 GB limit after only 25 days. How can that be?

kalleboo 10y ago
Did you change phones to one with a different data usage pattern (e.g., bigger screen -> higher resolution video and graphics)? Or, just the factory settings on the new phone could have stuff like Facebook Video Auto-play reverted back to on. If you have a faster connection now, video apps might be loading 1080p video instead of 360p. You can't really make these claims without actually comparing what apps used how much data on your phone
ceejayoz 10y ago
IIRC, AT&T has been throttling grandfathered unlimited plans.

DocG 10y ago

Havin data limit and if exceeded limiting speed is default way of doing things in this part of europe. No overcharges ever.

dredmorbius 10y ago

Verizon hit my personal "never do business with them again" shit list a few years ago, for this and related bullshit. Non-malevolant data providers are difficult to find. The abysmally poor monitoring, control, and cost-management options offered subscribers all feed into this directly, and dovetail nicely with a previous conversation on the morality of technology. A technology which is financed by a major vendor, and is designed to maximise that vendor's profits (or worse: an entire opposed-to-the-subscriber economic sector) will be inherently biased against subscribers. Highly obvious data usage tracking, stop-loss financial settings, a soft degredation, the ability to specify what specific traffic, types of traffic, and/or sites are available or supported, etc., would all help this out. As an example on the last point: I've looked at 4GL WiFi hotspot devices. None of these that I've found supports configuring a firewall or blocklist on the device itself. For some strange reason, the telecoms and advertising-oriented providers of such devices don't find it in their interest to offer such capabilities. I am increasingly utterly disgusted with the tech world. Some fun toys, yes. But so gratuitously user-hostile. You'd think this was part of a Wells-Fargo sales enhancement strategy.

kristopolous 10y ago
as far as ethics and 'don't screw the consumer' go, I think t-mobile is the best you can do. And for me, offering something with integrity is what's important.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  There's Credo Mobile, who turned up among signators of tech-related companies against the TPP. http://www.credomobile.com/ http://www.credomobile.com/ They're part of the CREDO family of philathropically-oriented businesses. http://www.credomobile.com/mission/home http://www.credomobile.com/mission/home
  - kristopolous 10y ago
    it's an interesting idea. but it still has data caps, overage charges, locks you in a 2 year contract and sits on top of verizons' cdma. the company is also apparently a traditionally structured hierarchical autocratic corporation. with regard to that, all the carriers have a benevolence wing (https://twitter.com/verizongiving https://twitter.com/verizongiving for instance). So I guess cynically one can say this is just traditional capitalism with a different foot forward for a different demographic ... There's a very real ngo-industrial complex and they seem to highlight that that's where the money goes. The SPLC for instance, has many members who make $100s of k a year in legal fees on behalf of the SPLC on top of their $300k salaries. They were also sitting on over $200 million of unused cash and made it an endowment that they invested in the market with ... these people involved in these charities have taken the donations of their members to propel themselves into the 1%. Splendid.

don_draper 10y ago

Anecdotally, I use Google Fi in the DC are and love it.

chiefalchemist 10y ago

Video chews up data REALLY quick. Video views on FB and IG are up, probably up on TW as well. So when people say, "My habits haven't really changed..." they probably don't realize what a difference video makes. It's not like the adverts promote this. Even using say just IG and scrolling a lot is gonna crew up data. Not as much as video, obviously, but if you're drifting from TW or FB to more IG then I could see more data being used. As for usage while sleeping, usage while off, etc. Well, obviously that's a BIG problem. I'm not making excuses but probably no surprise. Computers aren't perfect, are they?

pluma 10y ago
I wish there was a way to make YouTube remember I don't want to watch videos in 1080p60 when I'm on the go. I always have to make sure it's not on HD when I leave the house just because I may have reset it to "auto" while watching at home on WiFi. This is especially annoying when the first thing it shows is an unskippable 30 second ad with no option to adjust the quality because it's an ad.

pascalxus 10y ago

Come on people, switch to a carrier that doesn't charge over-limit fees, like USmobile.com (see my comment below). Also, it's very easy to see which apps are using the most data. Just keep an eye on them, where it shows the highest data usage. Delete all apps that use more than X amount of data and switch to a competing app. As long as we have choices, businesses and apps must bend to our will. How long do you think Pokemon Go would last if everyone stopped using it because it used too much data? We are consumers, and as long as there is competition, we are All powerful.

skynetv2 10y ago

this is exactly why i moved to TMo