HTC Status Data Usage is terrrrible! How do i control it?

[lalawonder]

Ok, so what counts as data usage?

2. how do i know when im using data?

3. how do i control my data?

4. does messaging and calling help as data?

please help! 

[HTC 1978]

I would love to know the same thing.   All I use is facebook and my Data is super high this month????       I have never had a problem before.  Not sure if something has changed with ATT??? 

[satchev]

Facebook uses data, so if you spend time using the facebook app/mobile website, you are using data.

[hardhat harry]

Lots of apps running in the background use data as well...weather, some news feeds, etc.

[tgj1945]

You and the original poster might get more help if you state:

1) Which HTC phone you have

2) What operating system your device uses

3) More specific detail about your data usage, etc.

[Ann154]

I was able to glean this info from the original post.

Phone: HTC Status
OS: Android 2.3 with the HTC Sense UI

You can turn off the mobile network connection. Press the menu button > settings > wireless & networks > mobile network. Uncheck the box in the mobile network line. There is also a widget you can add to your homescreen. Press menu button > personalize > widget > settings > mobile network

[tgj1945]

Ann- Oops !

Thinking about Steve Jobs  death that was just announced, I MISTAKENLY considered 'Status data,' as "status of Data."

My bad..........

[redpoint73 ACE - Wizard]

1.  If you are not on WiFi (see item 2 below), anything that uses the internet is data.  Obviously things like web browsing, streaming audio or video.  But also any app that syncs email, weather or news info, or anything like that is also using data.  Downloading apps (or downloading anything else, for that matter) uses data.  And some apps (like games) will also download extra data even after they are installed (but will usually warn you).

Voice and SMS do not count as data (see item 4 below).  I'm actually confused about MMS, as I've read that MMS is included in your data plan.  But I get charged $0.50 every time I send a picture MMS, and I have unlimited data.

2.  There are several free apps on the market you can use to track your data connection usage.  I've seen one called Watchdog recommended, but I haven't used it personally.  There are various apps on the Market with the word "watchdog" in them, but it seems like 3G Watchdog will do what you want.

3. If you are in range of WiFi at work and home, use it.  This does not use your data plan at all.  If this is an option for you, you can reduce your data plan usage drastically.  When WiFi is connected, any internet usage goes through WiFi by default, and your data plan will not be used at all.

Turning off the data network (as previously mentioned) is one option.  Although kind of a pain, as you would need to turn it back on every time you wanted to do anything internet related.  But if you are looking at constantly blowing your monthly data plan allowance and paying extra, it may be a good choice.

You can also try turning off some of the items synching in the background.  Go to Settings>Accounts & sync.  Turn off auto-sync, and you can sync these manually when needed (if you use them).  This may help, but might not solve the whole problem.  You may have other apps downloading data in the background.

4.  Voice calls and SMS are not data.  Voice minutes are taken from your pool of voice minutes, and SMS messages are taken from your messaging plan allowance (if you have one, otherwise charged per message). 

[12Chris34]

How about the weather always showing on the home screen; is that considered data usage - or just when it updates? Looks like you can change the update schedule. I don't imagine this would use much data - esp if you choose to update every 12 hours or every day or so - if that's the only time is uses data. Otherwise, how could you turn it off?

[MrSteve]

I've check data used by the HTC weather widget, it uses about 75kb every time it updates. If you don't want to use the weather, remove it from the home screen and go into settings, sync, then unchecked weather.

[12Chris34]

What does "mobile network" include? Apparently it's not the phone (which used to be considered the only mobile network, I think) - the phone still works even with that turned off.

[Ann154]

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12Chris34 wrote:

What does "mobile network" include? Apparently it's not the phone (which used to be considered the only mobile network, I think) - the phone still works even with that turned off.

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The "mobile network" is your data connection only.  you can still make phone calls and send sms messages with it off.  Your mms message will not go through with it off though, but you can always turn it on to send or receive the messages and then turn if off again.

[redpoint73 ACE - Wizard]

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12Chris34 wrote:

How about the weather always showing on the home screen; is that considered data usage - or just when it updates?

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Just because its showing, why would it be using data?  It only uses data when it updates.

[dcjes]

It's hard to add apps to a phone that has no memory available......

[MrSteve]

? you should have all the memory you need or want, flip your apps to the card and if that is full add a bigger card. Seems to be more of user problem then a phone problem.

[dcjes]

My wife has 3 apps that she uses. 2 of them are on the SD card, and it says that Facebook cannot be moved to the card.....I think its an att issue, there are a bunch of their apps that can't be uninstalled.....

[MrSteve]

3 apps and the internal memory is full? Not sure what your wife has on her phone, but with your example of FB that is only 15mb in size maybe she needs to remove a few things from the phones memory. I have 10 apps sitting in the phone memory that I down loaded with all kinds of room for more.

I guess what I am saying is this isn't a computer and if she has 3 apps that are taking up the phones memory and can't be moved to the card then she has to rethink what is important to have and not to have for apps... After all "games" are not the important apps if she is worrying about gettimg a FB app on her phone.

I still stand by what I said, it isn't a phone problem, for more then one reason, but the main one is, there is lots of room on the phones internal memory for apps. Check your memory management settings, again if you haven't.

[dcjes]

2 of the apps are on the SD Card...facebook comes with the phone. Weight Watchers is one app, and Zedge ringtones is another (she has 2 ringtones downloaded on the SD card also). She also doesnt play games. When we clear up the memory, I constantly have force stop the ATT apps from running, we get about 10MB of free space and then about 3 days later its full. She also cleans out her text messages daily, and pics are stored on the SD card.

[dcjes]

she does not use the phone for email either

[MrSteve]

Well all I can say is either those apps are very large or you have alot more apps on that phone from ATT then I do.

[MrSteve]

I had to check my internal memory to make sure I wasn't blowing smoke or thinking I was wrong... I have 768mb of memory on my internal mem left. Something is wrong here and it isn't the info I'm giving. I'll let others speak up here, I'm done.

[dcjes]

You cant have that much internal memory....

taken from ATT website:
Up to 512 MB (with 120 MB user accessible memory) 

[MrSteve]

I can only tell you what the phone is telling me and I was wrong, its 783mb available.

Here is a pic I just took a few minutes ago.

[dcjes]

Thats an Inspire, not a Status...

[MrSteve]

Wow I am so sorry, I thought I seen inspire when the subject changed to storage data. Again sorry, my bad.

[dcjes]

No worries.

[Ann154]

Even the 120 MB of user available memory is more than enough for several applications. I had the HTC Aria once and it had about 130 MB of user memory. I am sure that I had approximately 30 or so applications on it before it reached 30 MB left.

Go to settings > applications > manage applications > all tab > press the menu button > select sort by size

Note the largest applications and report back here.

If we know which ones are taking up the space, we can offer suggestions for reducing their size.

[dcjes]

The ones that show up the first, are all ATT, and HTC programs.

[Ann154]

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dcjes wrote:

The ones that show up the first, are all ATT, and HTC programs.

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But which ones? Was the cache cleared?