On data use, one of the advantages to this system over the mobile hotspot is this camera is specifically designed for this use over the cell system. There is no wifi link in between. My understanding of the mobile hotspots is they are similar to a cell phone in that they are continuously hooked to the cell network and have to ping the network at set intervals so are always using at least small amounts of data. I think this camera is basically asleep from the cell network when not active and only uses data when active.