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Usage Data Disparity

  • 18 December 2020
  • 20 replies
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S
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So last month I got a text stating I used 1.6gb of my data and if I go over 2gb that I would not receive my kickback. So I stopped using mobile data and made sure I stayed under 2gb. My Galaxy S20 showed I was under 2gb. The t-mobile app showed I was under as well under the usage page. So I thought I would receive my kickback. But I did not. The bill stated I went over and I would not get a kickback for that line.  Whats strange is I never got a text saying I went over and that I would lot receive the kickback. Like I usually do if I go over.  I checked my phone and app again and both said it was under 2gb. Except when I dug deeper and checked usage details in the app, it did show I was over 2gb. But why does that not match my phone or the app'd usage data section. 

 

So fast forward to today.  Again my phone shows 800mb of usage as seen below.

 

The app usage page matches what my phone says as seen below. 

However under usage detail it says 1.49gb. What gives? 

Another thing to add is that all of my 5 other lines. The usage detail page matches the usage page and the phone. 

I honestly believe something is messed up on tmobile's back end system and calculating my usage incorrectly for my one line. Which is costing me extra money because I am not getting the kickback that I qualify for. Please help.

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Best answer by gramps28 24 December 2020, 00:31

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syaoran
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Apps like Facebook push a lot of data in the background that don’t necessarily show on your device as regular usage.  These services override your settings to continue to push data, like location bases services, regardless of whether you have them disabled or not.  My guess is, that is where the extra data usage is coming from.  

Syaoran - I am not a T-Mobile Employee but I could use a new job!
S
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Thanks for the reply. However i do not believe it is background usage. I say this because even in t-mobile app, there is a huge disparity on the usage page and the usage detail page. But all of my other lines match up as you can see on the screenshot above.  Also, I never received a text stating that I went over my 2gb last month.  Just the warning at 1.6gb. 

S
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Bump. Its still happening. Now it shows 1gb in usage and 1.8gb in usage detail. Something is seriously not right. When I look at the details, I am seeing usage for times that I am home or asleep and on wifi. Any tmobile specialist can help me?

gramps28
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This is a user to user forum with some Tmobile moderation.

Your best bet is to contact Tmobile on one of their social media accounts using messenger.

sweetpeach
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If your wifi isn’t stable during a particular period, your phone will default to using data unless you specifically stop that from happening (ie. turn data off).

G
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@skim32 Did you ever find a resolution for this? I have been having exactly the same problem for nearly 6-months! I have gone around and around with T-Mobile representatives at 611, in Chat, and on Twitter. Each escalates the problem, gives me their personal assurance that they will be the last person I have to talk to on the issue, but it is still not resolved.

One additional piece of information I have found is that dialing #web# to check usage appears to get closer to what is happening.

As you can see, this dialog shows two numbers, the amount of data used from “your data plan” and the “total on-network data”. From my understanding and experience before this problem started, the “data plan” number is the amount of data that counts against your plan and it is used for purposes of kickback. The “total on-network data” number is all of the data your phone has used, including zero-rated data like Music Freedom and speed test apps. Given this explanation, it never makes sense for the “your data plan” number to be larger than the “on-network data” number.

From what have seen over the last several months the website reflects the “your data plan” number (even though it is labeled as “total on-network data”) but the app reflects the “total on-network data” number.

I’ve been working with the social support team on Twitter regarding this for the last 3-months. Here is a summary of my current position:

  1. They acknowledged that the label on the website that says “Total on-network data” is incorrect. @skim32 You have this in your screenshot above. They say this should be labelled as “plan” data usage. They have opened a ticket and we may see this fixed in the future.
  2. They claim the “your data plan” number is accurately tracking usage, even though it doesn’t match the usage I see from my phone’s built-in tracking. They say the “on-network data” number is not showing all of my usage. They also see this behavior in their Grand Central application and flowing through to the website. They have opened a ticket to try to get this resolved. I’m hoping investigation into this will reveal the root cause so they can finally fix it!

I agree with #1 above, but I do not buy #2. The phone’s built-in usage tracking is always much closer to the smaller “total on-network” number and I am not convinced the phone is actually using as much data as the “your plan usage” number claims.

One final note, I am having the problem on two of the 11 lines on my account. These are the only two phones I have with 5G capability, and the issue seems to have started around the time we upgraded to these phones. Maybe it’s related to 5G data usage tracking! It’s just a theory, but I wouldn’t be surprised if when I’m on a NR NSA (non-standalone 5G) network the data is being counted twice, once for 5G and once for LTE.

W
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Has anyone been able to get this resolved with T-Mobile?  I’m not going to continue paying for twice as much data as I use.  Their Data Usage “Details” is obviously incorrect when my S20+ 5G matches what the T-Mobile Data Usage page states.

I have seen many people with this issue, and none of them have seemed to get T-Mobile to acknowledge the problem.  A Class Action Lawsuit might be the only option consumers have.

G
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@whalen53 I’m still trying to get them to fix it after more than 6-months. After bouncing around to a half-dozen T-Force agents I now have a “manager” who has been working on it for the last 5-6 weeks. He has been following up with me, but still zero progress on getting it resolved. I don’t know if he had any luck getting anyone on the technical team to acknowledge there is a problem.

S
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Currently having a similar issue.

I'm using the mobile Internet only plan on one of my devices primarily used with hotspot and tethering which is probably why they haven't shut it off, as I've heard T-Mobile will shut off people using Internet only plans on their phones.

 

My data plan has renewed today at about 5:30 a.m. as with T-Mobile there's always some sort of delay between exactly midnight and when the plan actually renews.

 

I've been asleep since about 1:30am. I checked to see if everything had reset before I went to sleep. It had not. Data was still being typically throttled to 12 kilobytes per second or 128 kilobits per second. Dialing #web# still showed 100 of 100 gigs used.

 

I woke up this morning at 6:00 in the morning to check to see if it had reset and it showed 5 GB used.

 

What used 5 gigs?? I've been sleeping!!!!!!!!

 

My phone shows under 100MB used.

 

On and I have Google play update disabled so I know that Google play wasn't updating anything and I know that apps weren't using data in the background. I disable hotspot when I'm sleeping to save power and so I know nothing was connected, so i know nothing was connected.

 

Seriously what the hell.

A

I am seeing a very large disparity between my iphones usage on the phone vs. tmobile account. 7GB on the phone, 31GB on the account. I believe im being throttled substantially now as well.

M
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@skim32

One final note, I am having the problem on two of the 11 lines on my account. These are the only two phones I have with 5G capability, and the issue seems to have started around the time we upgraded to these phones. Maybe it’s related to 5G data usage tracking! It’s just a theory, but I wouldn’t be surprised if when I’m on a NR NSA (non-standalone 5G) network the data is being counted twice, once for 5G and once for LTE.

I’ve come to the same conclusion.  There are 2 lines out of 8 on my account that have 5G enabled and both have major discrepancies between what the phone says their data usage has been and what TM claims.  Even though I have a 5G phone I’ve never enabled it because I couldn’t see any difference in speed.  I’ve suggested that the 2 who keep going over their 2gb kickback limit disable 5G.  It’ll be interesting to see if their usage now tracks correctly.

R

I just wanted to post that I'm seeing the same issue as well for the past few months. The data plan number when I dial #932# is about 50% larger than my on network data, even though the 2nd number matches what my phone recorded. I'm also on a 5G phone, if that helps.

 

Another annoying aspect (possibly unrelated) is that my T-Mobile kickback text messages seem to be based off the second number, so I won't get a text saying I'm approaching or going over the limit, but I'll still lose the discount on the bill anyway.

M
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The 2 people I mentioned in my earlier post turned off 5G and their data usage is now tracking correctly.  I believe TMobile is double counting data usage when  both 4G and 5G signals are available. Of course only those of us with kickback or limited plans would care. 

C

Yep, seeing the same problem here. My 5G phones are showing this behavior but the 4G phones on my account are not. I can “fix” the problem on my 5G phones by forcing them to use LTE only. For my phone, this matters because of kickback but for my kids, this double-counting pushes them close to 50GB and deprioritization. 
 

Have been working with Tforce on this to no avail so far. 

H

I have the same issue. As soon as I upgraded from a 4G LTE phone to a 5G phone, I noticed that my phone's actual data usage is about a half of the total counted on Tmo site. It's weird that the Tmobile Android App is showing the correct number but the detailed usage on Tmobile site is showing different number. I have disabled 5G and will see how it counts in the next few days. I am super surprised that Tmobile isn't fixing this. Very frustrating as if they want me to use the unlimited and don't get Kickback discount...

G
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One year later an this is still a problem! Why is this thread marked as Solved?

It’s amazing how 6-8 months of denying you have a problem can really delay a solution. Hopefully 2022 will bring us a solution to this problem, unlike the entire year of 2021!

A

Kudos to magenta1659776.  I had for many months experienced the same issue of a large discrepancy between data usage reported by T-Mobile and my cell phone's stock app.  Turning off 5G solved the problem, and I don't notice a difference in internet speed running on 4G. T-Mobile shouldn't jeopardize the $10 monthly kickback allowance provided under their ONE plan for 5G users, and their data usage accounting system should be fixed.

J

Same issue here.  Galaxy Flip 3.   The discrepancy between what my phone is logging and T-Mobile is showing is 10x.   About 2gig according to the phone, 20 gig according to t-mobile.   A lot of data usage happens in the early hours of the morning, but at random times as well.   I’m nearly always in WiFi, and the 2gig is about what I’d expect, maybe a little low, streaming a little music while driving.   I just left google fi, which was on t-mobile’s 5g network, and didn’t have the discrepancy.  

I’ll try turning off 5g.   My plan doesn’t drop priority data until 100gig, so I’m safe, but I don’t want to hit that cap; and I never should with my actual data usage.

B

Same issue here.  Galaxy Flip 3.   The discrepancy between what my phone is logging and T-Mobile is showing is 10x.   About 2gig according to the phone, 20 gig according to t-mobile.   A lot of data usage happens in the early hours of the morning, but at random times as well.   I’m nearly always in WiFi, and the 2gig is about what I’d expect, maybe a little low, streaming a little music while driving.   I just left google fi, which was on t-mobile’s 5g network, and didn’t have the discrepancy.  

I’ll try turning off 5g.   My plan doesn’t drop priority data until 100gig, so I’m safe, but I don’t want to hit that cap; and I never should with my actual data usage.

Same with LG v60 ThinQ 5G. I am at home so much (WFH) and when I look at the data usage on my bill its between 1am and 4am (I am sleeping). Data usage on my phone is NOTHING like what T-Mobile says I have used. I will try turning off 5G and doing just LTE as I had already put Data Saver on and restricted almost all the apps.

 

F
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switching from 5G to 4G will only slow down your speeds..wont really limit how much you can use.

 

if the main time you see all of this happening is in the super early AM that might be when your phone is starting to do all of its auto background updates/checks.. unless your phone is set up to auto update every single app you have on your device as the updates come in then maybe..but if its only doing checks and a few updates here and there as they find them

 

if you pull up that same data usage..does it show what all apps were using the most data? should list them out highest usage to smallest.

***I like many others come onto this site for assistance and to help others. Marking a reply as helpful or correct helps others with like issues when they try to search the site for assistance. I do not work for Tmobile and my suggestions and or opinions are my own**.~~~~ The site here is primarily peer to peer with some TMO moderation to keep the site in order..They do not have account access..The prefered method would be to contact TMO through either calling in (tier 1 support) or by contacting them through either Facebook/Twitter (tier 2 support)**~~~~

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