Question re: what functions add to GB usage on net

with Verizon, you can check to see how much data is being used on-line by date and time. You can do some testing to see which activities are adding up fastest. We had the biggest problems with automatic updates of Microsoft.

I am amazed at how much data some of you use per month. We have 4GB limit per month and only once used over a GB per month. One time 4GB when my wife worked from the RV and had to upload cd's of pictures. I surf a LOT, YouTube, games, forums and Resl estate sites. I think text and most compressed pix don't chew up much.
My guess is high res pix and streaming video content are the hogs which I don't do.

Just the sheer volume of the people using your wifi is probably your issue.
I tried to count the number of people you said are using it, but lost count.
Seems like somewhere around 7 people?

How are you going to get all of their devices set to use less data, and/or get them all to change their surfing habits?

Get ready for a large bill or to get cut off depending on how your provider handles the overage.

Anything that has a lot of graphics uses a lot of data. Anything with video uses a huge amount of data. As others have said, the games are going to use your data and fast. One hour of streaming movie uses one GB of data. Watch two and a half full length movies and you have used all of your 5 GB data for the month.

Things like text, email, basic webpage browsing, reading Facebook (without the ads and not playing any video or games) will not use much data at all.

A PC or laptop connected by wifi or wire to a cell data service will use much more data looking at the same webpages than would be used looking at those same pages on a tablet or phone connected to the same data stream. Multiple computers connected at the same time - watch out, the data usage is just flying.

The cell data providers are happy to sell you more GBs if you go over but is it worth it? There are a few cell companies that will sell you a plan with actual truly unlimited data but most that say "unlimited" are not and will either charge you if you go over - which is why you got the letter of warning - or will slow your data connection down to a point where you can't do much more than read email and look at basic websites.

Kiwi_too wrote:
..... if your phone is set to maximize the wifi connection, the wifi traffic should not count against data limit, as it does not transit the cell phone towers.

If you are using a MiFi device, even if you set your phone to update via WiFi only, the phone will see the MiFi as a WiFi connection and use up all your data anyway! You have to ensure that you do not set the password to the MiFi in the phone to prevent this kind of access.

ramyankee wrote:
Patti has received email telling us we are nearing our limit of GB's "used" monthly.
Is being on facebook and playing games on facebook adding to this? I like the game Mafia Wars and Patti plays Words with Friends, Word Tornado.

Short answer YES!!!!

Some things that add: Auto updates, Any online gaming, Streaming videos.

I have my camera set to only upload to Dropbox when on wifi (not cell).

As others have said, if you have a router that is connected to your cable internet, then if your phone is set to maximize the wifi connection, the wifi traffic should not count against data limit, as it does not transit the cell phone towers.

If on the other hand if your cell service is your wifi (Jetpack or MIFI) then everything is counted as cell traffic.

It doesn't take much net activity these days to eat up bandwidth. I do watch some videos, mostly YouTube, or news based along with the usual surfing and OS updates, and average 20G of mobile 4G data a month.

BTW, Dropbox doesn't automatically upload photos unless you have Camera Upload enabled.

what functions add to GB usage on net

As a direct answer to the post topic, everything! Every activity by every person connected to your cellular device uses data.
All the video ads you see running in the side bar eat up data. Surfing page to page eats data. The things that eat data the most are video related whether that's watching a YouTube video or playing games where the graphics are constantly streaming (all live action).
Large downloads such as system operating updates (especially with that many people/devices connected) as well as an software downloads or updates like updating a Garmin GPS (2+GB there alone).
If you like sending e-mails with pictures of your last adventure, an unedited picture send from your phone or computer can be 2MB each. If you have any kind of cloud storage, these are updated automatically along with the other changes made. I screwed that up when I needed to send a large file and signed up for Dropbox. I did not realize that Dropbox then started uploading all my pictures from the phone and computer. It got very ugly very quickly and cost be a bunch of money (additional GB's).
If this is going to be an ongoing situation I would suggest that you find a high GB provider such as Millenicom so you have a fixed fee for up to 20GB and you could supplement that with you current cell plan should you find that to be necessary.

The occasional operating system updates ate my lunch a few times... Some of those files are pretty big... I finally changed my setting to manual download verses automatic so I could pick a time where I was not using my metered GB dataplan...

My other big drain would be the downstreaming of TV video streams for watching TV PROGRAms on-line. I have never measured but bet just a one-hour TV show would most likely eat up 1GB easy... Those activity lights really go to work when I am doing this... The things you have to do to keep up with NCIS and HAWAII 5-0 when on the road...

Roy Ken