Android bandwidth usage

[danielc]

I upgraded to an HTC Hero about a month ago and have noticed a substantial increase in my bandwidth. On my last smartphone (HTC S710), the only thing I used the internet for was to pull in my Exchange mail over ActiveSync. On average, my bandiwdth cost < R 30/month.

This month, I'm up to 75 MB and counting with the new phone. It's not really a lot of bandwidth - it's just ridiculously expensive and it eats up my MTN Anytime 350 contract pretty quickly.

To try and find out what was going on, I installed NetCounter from the Android market (good app). I've discovered that by the time I get out of bed, my phone has used up to 1MB for the day! Surely a few facebook status updates and the weather for the day don't use that much bandwidth!

This got me thinking about how opaque mobile devices are (and I don't just mean Android). There isn't anything shipped with the device that enables me to monitor services running let alone bandwidth usage by service.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has found an app that does this or has also had a substantial bandwidth usage increase since changing to Android.

 

[Ecco]

I was looking at getting the HTC hero myself.

I asked a similar question about the bandwidth at the Lab 88 store. Basically i asked if there was anyway i could configure the device to pull/sync data only when connect to a WLAN or only if i specifically request a pull, i.e. use the browser or something.

Guy there didn't know if this could be done. He spoke to another guy (seemed to be the owner or manager) who gave me some crap story about how he was only paying like R60 for 500mb of data on his phone anyways, so i shouldn't be concerned about the data usage. At that point i decided these guys didnt know what they were talking about and left.

Still keen on the android phones, but I also want to keep the data consumption over the cellular network as low as possible.

 

[gasboi]

I usually stay away from broadband on my cell account or run it through prepaid. Most issues are billing related.

 

[Shake&Bake]

A genuine concern that I'm also considering when it comes to the Hero and Android.
Its a great phone but the data consumption is not a concern dor European and American markets as they pay fsckall for data plans.
Here its different as we all know and the Blackberry is more suited to our needs, especially on prepaid.

Still want a hero though, even though I'm on a Bold 9000 at the moment.

 

[alt146]

I dont know about only pulling data of WLAN, but I know you can cut down the amount of data you use by manually reducing the update rate in all your apps. Eg set your facebook app to only pull updates every 30 min instead of every 5, tell the weather app to only pull data when you request it etc. You can also completely kill your 3G connection in the settings somewhere if you dont want to use data at all. Sortof a guide here - technically it's about extending battery life, but since the biggest drain on the battery is pulling data a lot of the steps will help with both.

And if you're using 50MB or more of data, why don't get get a bundle?

 

[MrMocs]

My Phone uses on average of 1.5MB-5MB Depends on what i am doing with it mainly over 5MB when i update the apps from the market but when i am at home i use the wifi network to cut down on my bundle