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Strange excessive data use on mobile broadband

jeffdawson78
4: Newbie

Hi,

I've very recently - 9 days ago - signed up to Vodafone mobile broadband 50GB plan using there mifi mobile router for use at home on my boat with our laptops.

 

As I have not used this before I have been keen to see how the speeds compare to my old Plusnet broadband and keep an eye on data usage.

I was therefore very surprised to see my account saying I had used 13GB of data over 2 nights! I checked the usage breakdown and saw a number of very strange readings of the same amount at small intervals:

 

16 Jan 2107
18:34  990.03 MB
19:33 990.03 MB
21:07 967.97 MB
21:25 990.03 MB
21:41 967.97 MB
21:57 765.02 MB
22:10 967.97 MB
22:30 199.16 MB

17 Jan 2017
07:09 11.49 MB
20.21 990.03 MB
20:35 967.97 MB
20:49 990.03 MB
21:05 967.97 MB
21:21 495.01 MB
21;28 967.97 MB
21:47 990.03 MB

22:05 234.86 MB 

 

On the 16 I did download a couple of shows from iplayer (approx 1.5GB) but nothing to use anywhere near that much data. 

I called the supprot line this morning but whilst courteous weren't able to do anything other than suggest visiting a store.

Has anyone experienced similar issues and how did you resolve it?

Thanks for any advice!

349 REPLIES 349

Time for someone to contact Watchdog methinks....

@ Pipcoo - Why??

My experience is that it is the Windows laptop which uses the data for frequent updates - better to get onto Mr Gates at Microsoft and get him to get a grip on his crap software (long live Apple - I won't be going back to Microsoft!).  The fact the data useage is shown in 960 (ish) mb packets by Vodafone is of no actual consequence.

Cheers

John

Annie_N
Community Champion (Retired)
Community Champion (Retired)

I've just had a look at the Updates settings for W10 on my laptop. The critical bits as far as data usage is concerned seem to be as illustrated below:

Update 1.JPGUpdate 2.JPG

Not all of these are controllable. However, there are people earlier in this thread who mention the speeds that they can achieve over MBB, and the 900MB-ish chunks of data don't seem to be possible if the time stamps are indications of when the usage occurs.

Anyone with a contract which started after 5 May 2016 can turn on the account-level data cap, and might be well advised to do so, to avoid the danger of unexpected data charges; it should be noted that the cap is OFF by default. If your contract started before that date, the data cap isn't available, but it might be worth thinking about an upgrade to a new contract, in order to benefit from the data cap.

Annie_N
Community Champion (Retired)
Community Champion (Retired)

An additional way in which Windows 10 can use data is the Spotlight option for the Lock Screen. I thoroughly enjoy this feature, particularly now that they tell you where the photos were taken, and I save copies of the most attractive. BUT I reckon that it uses anything up to 5-10MB per day, so it's a feature to turn off if you are running on a tight data allowance - the control is under Settings: Personalisation: Lock Screen.

Tash
Moderator (Retired)
Moderator (Retired)

@jojie4584 We'd like to take a closer look into this for you.

So we can do this, I've sent you a private message with details to contact our team directly. 

We'll then be in touch as soon as possible.

Thank you @Natasha . I have filled the form in. I hope it did it right!

 

After going back to the Vodafone store, the nice lady put a note on my account to ask for my bill to be recalculated. I have spent the last hour on Online Chat, to be told that my bill is correct and I either downloaded something or my laptop updated.

 

I have checked the settings on my laptop and it says downloads only take place on an unmetered connection. I looked at my update history and no updates occured on the 14th August. I did get a message saying I was near my data limit but I did not see this until it was too late. I don't have the Vodafone app open on my laptop because I have never gone over my limit so have never needed to keep an eye out.

 

£84.50 isn't a lot compared to some people's wrong bills but it's irritating me and it is a lot of money for me to fork out, especially for something I have not used!

Nabs
17: Community Champion
17: Community Champion

@jojie4584 did you get an automated reply with a reference number (similar to [#12345678]) in the subject line?

Nope :smileyembarrassed:

Nabs
17: Community Champion
17: Community Champion

Try submitting again @jojie4584, once it's successful you'll get an email with a reference number. If I recall correctly Yahoo addresses seem to cause the form a particular issue, you're not using one of

If I recall correctly Yahoo addresses seem to cause the form a particular issue, you're not using one of them, are you? If so might be worth trying a different email if you have, alternatively, @Tash may be able to suggest an alternative contact method.

It worked this time. Thank you :smileyhappy: