how much data can a data user use?

Question

how much data can a data user use?

i've had iPhones since they first came out and until recently i regularly used about 200Mb of data per month.

last month it suddenly went up to over 800Mb, and this month i'm already on 1.2Gb with a week to go. i'm going to get hit HARD by my ISP for going over my allowance (which is 750Mb per month).

i have LOADS of different apps on my phone, but generally I'm not doing anything different from before - maybe a few more apps that track my location - like MapMyRun for when i go running etc.

no more use of youtube than i did before. (i.e. very little)

I've had fun with Siri (we're becoming quite close..)

and I've tried the new espn sports app once or twice to watch a minute or two of football highlights..

has my usage quadrupled (quintupled) without me realising, or might there be something wrong with my iPhone4S (which arrived about when my usage started to rocket!)

help!

expensive!!!

thanks

paul

Posted on Nov 9, 2011 10:58 AM

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Answer 1

Dah•veed

Level 9

66,559 points

Nov 9, 2011 12:46 PM in response to Paul Richards4

Siri on the iPhone 4S uses data everytime that you use her. Just the basic software is on your phone, Siri checks with the Cloud for the information that she retrieves and presents to you.

Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica summarizes:

If you use Siri 2-3 times per day at an average of 63KB per instance, you might expect to use 126KB to 189KB per day, or 3.7 to 5.5MB per month. For 4-6 times a day, that might come out to 252KB to 378KB per day, or 7.4 to 11MB per month. If you use it 10-15 times per day, you might end up using 630KB to 945KB per day, or 18.5 to 27.7MB per month.

So if you use Siri, that is one source of data consumption.

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Answer 2

Dec 21, 2011 2:07 AM in response to Dah•veed

thanks, but if using Siri two or three times a day will put my usage up by 30 Mb per month, that doesn't explain why my usage has gone up from 200Mb per month to 1.5 GIGS a month!!!

the post script to this is that it's not as expensive as I thought .. apparently the UK fair use policy means that O2 tell me my limit is 750Mb a month, but nobody mentions the fact that if you use 1.5 Gb a month there is NO EXTRA CHARGE !!!

(i'd still like to know what's using all my data though...!)

Paul

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