A legal and technology question

[liberty]

How much faith do you have in corporations? Maybe I am a little cynical, but I have little faith in them. Whether we are talking about for profit corporations, none profit corporations or municipal corporation they all are composed of individuals serving their own interest. When their interest correlates to your interest, that’s a good thing, but that may not always be the case especially with for profit corporations.

As some of you may know I live out in the outback of the Louisiana delta country. For a long time I relied on dial up for my internet connection and it worked well until technology advanced beyond the capability of dial up. Since cable is not available in my area and satellite cost more than I am willing to pay I use a mobile hotspot. I added 1 gigabyte yesterday and it ran out today. I feel that is way out of line with actual data usage. I have not down loaded any video or photos and I turned off updates. I did a couple simple searches and visited plan b forum only on that hot spot. I have another hotspot for other sites. Tomorrow I will purchase another 1 GB card and use it only for plan b forum and also tract the usage of that gigabyte. I know from experience plan b is a low data usage site.

I have two questions that I hope someone here can answer:
Is there a device or program that I can buy that will allow me monitor my data usage as it is being used?
Is this ground for a law suit of some kind? It would seem to me to be some kind of fraud, promising something and not delivering.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I suppose I don't understand the concept of adding a card to get an extra gigabyte of data. As far as I know it's a carrier thing - I use Virgin pay as you go and for $35 a month I get 5 gigabytes of data - the most I use is about 0.7 gigs because I use it only for llstening to the radio when I am exercising for maybe 3 hours a week and the odd Google search when I am out looking for somewhere. Data I use when connected to a wifi at home or a Starbucks doesn't count (I know that's not an option for you, lib) but that isn't much. I fail to see how you could use a gig in a day unless you are watching movies.

if you are using an Android there should be a place in Settings where you can monitor your usage. With Virgin it's 'My Account.' I just checked and this month I have used 0.504 gig which tells you that I have rather slid off the exercise wagon a little this month. That Virgin plan won't work for you because it does not allow use of the phone as a hotspot - I think (but don't know) that an extra $10 a month would give me that cpability.

[Bicycle Bill]

lib, let me refer you to this page — https://www.verizonwireless.com/data-calculator/ ... and FYI, the type of device you have sounds like an "Internet Device (USB Modem, Verizon Jetpack™) 4G".

Now, keep in mind that if you are using a wi-fi hot-spot to connect a laptop or tablet (an iPad or similar device) ... AND LEAVING IT CONNECTED ... there may be apps on the tablet or programs on the laptop that are connected to the internet and running in the background — and consuming data, much like leaving the light on in the garage or the basement uses up electricity.  Remember too that sites that are rich in graphics (pictures, pop-up ads, auto-play videos), looking at videos on sites like YouTube or Faux News, or streaming audio from a site like Pandora, Spotify, or I♥Radio will use far more data than a relatively bare-bones site like Plan B.

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

I don't know too much about hotspots, but Is it possible that someone else has hacked into your wifi and is using your gbs? Or is it possible that your exceeded your allowance before your paid for the additional gb and that excess usage was credited against it?

[Bicycle Bill]

I don't know too much about hotspots, but Is it possible that someone else has hacked into your wifi and is using your gbs? Or is it possible that your exceeded your allowance before your paid for the additional gb and that excess usage was credited against it?

It's possible to access and use data on someone else's in–house wi–fi or hot–spot, but in most cases the wi–fi access — whether it's in–house wi–fi, a dedicated personal hot–spot through a cellular provider, or even the hot–spot feature on your smartphone — is password protected with the default password usually being either the device's unique ID number or the 10–digit cellular phone number ... so anyone trying to hack in would need to know or somehow guess that.  And that's not too likely.

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

Thanks Bill, that makes sense.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I think BB's post on 1Jan has hit the spot. It reminded me that something similar happened with me after I got my phone. I was not used to a smart phone and I noted that I got a warning that I was approaching my data limit after a few days. I went to see the Samsung guy at Best Buy who told me that after using a website and before switching the phone off (or letting it sleep) you have to hit the little back button (bottom left by the on-off button) and then close all. Otherwise, as BB says, you will be maintaining web access while it is off and if it is on something like a newspaper it will refresh every few minutes as they update the info, so the data usage is the same as if you had visited a whole new page. Plan B will only update when someone posts something (I think) so you won't see that kind of excessive usage here.