How my data usage plans went up in smoke

TL;DR: I recently upgraded to Samsung Galaxy S4 on AT&T with a 200 MB data limit. Today, my phone used 173 MB of data in 10 minutes while reading a Business Insider article using the Hacker News Android app.

The mopey upgrader

In my many years of owning gadgets, I have always been fond of keeping my devices as long as they work and basically run them to the ground until they stopped working. That personal trait has kept me happy and has been one of my financial pillars for saving money. The only times where I thought of upgrading or going for that new phone is that awkward feeling when you see friends or colleagues go show them off every other year - their new, latest and greatest device that is a big hit.

This time it happened to be my phone. My good ol’ Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket was the first smartphone I owned. I had bought it exactly at the time AT&T ended unlimited data i.e. I did not have a plan to get grandfathered into. Regardless, I signed up for a $15 / month data usage plan on 4G LTE.

After the ICS OTA update, I ended up going for one of those Anker battery replacements since the phone was barely holding charge for 9 hours. As luck would have it, the battery change did not solve the problem of the battery running out of charge by the time I got home from work.

The joy of upgrading your phone!

I wouldn’t say I was waiting for this day with a lot of excitement. Everytime I get into a new contract, I get apprehensive and think twice. However, with the release of Jelly Bean and the hype around Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One, I started doing my research on upgrading.

It has been only a couple of months since I got my new Samsung Galaxy S4. Like any kid with a new toy, I have been playing around with the phone ever since I bought it. The camera was amazing, the OTA updates were a lot more configurable and settings in general were much more detailed than in the SII. The battery, oh wow, it would just work.

Usage planning: a feature made for me

I have always been a stickler for planning. Which is precisely why I loved the Data Usage setting in the Galaxy S4. Here, I could set my data limit and keep track of my data usage. In my 25 odd months of the SII, I only exceeded my 200MB / month plan a couple of times.

My apps

I have a select set that just about fills up three screens:

Most of my time is spent on Reddit is fun, Hacker News Android, Twitter, Cricinfo, YouTube, Mint and Whatsapp.

First month: Hmmm, is it just AT&T or is the Galaxy S4 using up data a LOT!

In my first month of owning the Galaxy S4, I was shocked that I hit my data limit with 10 days left to go on my billing cycle. Imagine, you change phones and the very first month you run up an overage on data while you were able to plan and maintain staying within the limit for the two years preceding that.

However, I was curious. Which apps ate up my data? Did I really use all that in just 20 days?

Oh! Maps. Yes, I remember upgrading Maps when Navigation and Maps sort of got merged. I used it heavily when I drove down on Highway 1, en route to Big Sur stopping by at Monterey, Carmel and a couple of places along Highway 1. It made sense.

Second month: 1. Setup Data Limit 2. Usage curfew 3. Stick to plan 4. Stay in budget!

It has just been 5 days since my last billing cycle ended. At the end of my last cycle, I set my mobile data limit to 200 MB (set to 190 MB now) and disabled mobile data the whole of last week.

Earlier this morning, I woke up at 6AM. That is a rare early start for me on a Saturday morning. Since I was up early, the next step was to get something accomplished. I know, my car is full of bird poop! Let me head to Dirt Busters and get in line.

45 minutes for the wash you say! I was tempted to ask for the WiFi password and get caught up on the latest on Reddit and HN. But hey, I’ve hardly used my data this month. One small fix of turning on the Mobile Data is not going to hurt my plan, right! WRONG!

15 minutes into my wait at my car wash, my eyes rolled at the sight of my phone. All that careful planning, adding a curfew on my data usage per day and keeping my hands clean off an overage on this bill - all of them are now up in smoke.

Damn you Business Insider! Or Hacker News Android! Or Galaxy S4! And AT&T!

After a few minutes of flipping through the Reddit front page, I opened up Hacker News Android. The article that caught my eye was about how the largest homeless camp is in Silicon Valley.

I started to read it. Halfway through, my phone started freaking out about data limit reached. My warning had set in. Mobile Data got disabled until the time I enabled it again. My jaw dropped.

Here’s the usage over the last five days since my billing cycle for September kicked in:

That seems about right. I have only accessed a few apps during lunch time over the last week. Maybe Hacker News Android is downloading something in the background? Let me check August 31st alone (Today):

Holy! Could it be that the article from Business Insider about the homeless in Silicon Valley contained so many photos that got downloaded, leading to my data being usurped? The foreground statistic says it all:

I decided to fire up Chrome developer tools to get to the bottom of this. Besides, I bet Business Insider might have a mobile site along with optimized images for mobile devices. NOPE!

15.7 MB transferred after DOM has finished loading for one page load. Whoa! I also noticed a continuous ping to a Chartbeat.net requesting something every 30 seconds or so.

Conclusion: WTF?

At this point, I’m lost for ideas on what really happened. Maybe AT&T is ripping off people who own 4G LTE phones. Maybe Samsung Galaxy S4 has something hidden somewhere in the phone that guzzles data. Maybe Hacker News Android is terribly inefficient when it manages data. Maybe whoever maintains the Business Insider website needs to make their CMS mobile-friendly.

Here’s what I do know: I won’t be using my mobile data for the next 20 days. I can’t afford to rack up my phone bill every month while I try to pay off credit card debt, student loans AND save up for a possible down payment on a house. It will need to be WiFi only for some time.

Alas, I remember simpler times when having a phone meant only tracking your minutes. Tracking data usage seems to be a whole other ball game.