Disappearing mobile data when doing speedtest

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bluepoole

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Had a very interesting (but also frustrating) situation the other day, was wondering if anyone else had experienced something similar in the past, or know what could have caused it.

I was out and about and out of boredom decided to do a speedtest (the mybroadband one) because I was on 5G.

I have two sims on my phone, a normal contract (with data) sim and a data sim. Upon completing the speedtest, all of a sudden the 400Mb data that was left on the data sim, got depleted.

I then switched over to my primary sim's data, did the speedtest again, and in a matter of seconds a whole 1Gb of data got depleted.

Keep in mind, I do not have auto updates of apps (or software updates) enabled, and I never "lose" data like that when I am on 4G or even 5G where there is relevant coverage. The action of doing the speedtests is what caused that huge amount of data to disappear just like that, by the looks of it.

I will out of interest get itemised billing from Vodacom, but will that really tell me anything?

Interested to hear what anyone's thoughts on this matter are.
 
Do you think a speed test transfers data to test speed, and if not, how does it work?
 
MentellusMaximus said:
Do you think a speed test transfers data to test speed, and if not, how does it work?
Click to expand...
Did not expect it to be THAT much (approx 700Mb per test!), but the measurement I got was quite fast so I suppose it is "normal"...

Thank you for all the replies, lesson learned, do not scratch if it doesn't itch I suppose :ROFL:
 
This is the test results in question...so looking at the replies it makes sense that it consumed so much data - I just never had an idea that much data gets used for a speedtest :unsure:
 

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I opened the thread expecting to be gobsmacked.

I am duly gobsmacked.

Not sure why people thought/think that you can do a SpeedTest without transferring data - it's literally how you test the speed - by downloading and uploading large amounts of data and measuring how long it takes to transfer.

It's like doing a top end speedrun over a kilometer and expecting the car not to use petrol.
 
bluepoole said:
Had a very interesting (but also frustrating) situation the other day, was wondering if anyone else had experienced something similar in the past, or know what could have caused it.

I was out and about and out of boredom decided to do a speedtest (the mybroadband one) because I was on 5G.

I have two sims on my phone, a normal contract (with data) sim and a data sim. Upon completing the speedtest, all of a sudden the 400Mb data that was left on the data sim, got depleted.

I then switched over to my primary sim's data, did the speedtest again, and in a matter of seconds a whole 1Gb of data got depleted.

Keep in mind, I do not have auto updates of apps (or software updates) enabled, and I never "lose" data like that when I am on 4G or even 5G where there is relevant coverage. The action of doing the speedtests is what caused that huge amount of data to disappear just like that, by the looks of it.

I will out of interest get itemised billing from Vodacom, but will that really tell me anything?

Interested to hear what anyone's thoughts on this matter are.
Click to expand...
This ^^^^ for real?

SleepyDeliciousIndianpangolin-max-1mb.gif
 
AfricanTech said:
I opened the thread expecting to be gobsmacked.

I am duly gobsmacked.

Not sure why people thought/think that you can do a SpeedTest without transferring data - it's literally how you test the speed - by downloading and uploading large amounts of data and measuring how long it takes to transfer.

It's like doing a top end speedrun over a kilometer and expecting the car not to use petrol.
Click to expand...
If you reverse the whole kilometer back to where you started it should not use any petrol. ;)
 
bluepoole said:
Had a very interesting (but also frustrating) situation the other day, was wondering if anyone else had experienced something similar in the past, or know what could have caused it.

I was out and about and out of boredom decided to do a speedtest (the mybroadband one) because I was on 5G.

I have two sims on my phone, a normal contract (with data) sim and a data sim. Upon completing the speedtest, all of a sudden the 400Mb data that was left on the data sim, got depleted.

I then switched over to my primary sim's data, did the speedtest again, and in a matter of seconds a whole 1Gb of data got depleted.

Keep in mind, I do not have auto updates of apps (or software updates) enabled, and I never "lose" data like that when I am on 4G or even 5G where there is relevant coverage. The action of doing the speedtests is what caused that huge amount of data to disappear just like that, by the looks of it.

I will out of interest get itemised billing from Vodacom, but will that really tell me anything?

Interested to hear what anyone's thoughts on this matter are.
Click to expand...
The faster the connection, the bigger the download/upload.
I did a test to speedtest.net on mobile 5G to test, downloaded 700Mb
So yeah, that's just how things work
 
AfricanTech said:
I opened the thread expecting to be gobsmacked.

I am duly gobsmacked.

Not sure why people thought/think that you can do a SpeedTest without transferring data - it's literally how you test the speed - by downloading and uploading large amounts of data and measuring how long it takes to transfer.

It's like doing a top end speedrun over a kilometer and expecting the car not to use petrol.
Click to expand...
Hey man, not everybody on here is technology guru’s :laugh:

I fully understand data needs to be sent to do the test, just didn’t think it would be THIS much. Have done plenty of speed tests in the past, including on 5G, and have never even noticed the data being used, so you can surely understand my surprise when this time around it was several hundreds of megabytes.

And as others have pointed out, the faster the connection the more data it uses, so at least I understand now, make sense given the speed my test achieved.

I learned something new today so all good.
 
W@P said:
If you reverse the whole kilometer back to where you started it should not use any petrol. ;)
Click to expand...
Or if you set back the time on the clock in your car, to before you started driving. Just remember to stop the past version of yourself from doing it again.
 
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Reactions: W@P
bluepoole said:
Hey man, not everybody on here is technology guru’s :laugh:

I fully understand data needs to be sent to do the test, just didn’t think it would be THIS much. Have done plenty of speed tests in the past, including on 5G, and have never even noticed the data being used, so you can surely understand my surprise when this time around it was several hundreds of megabytes.

And as others have pointed out, the faster the connection the more data it uses, so at least I understand now, make sense given the speed my test achieved.

I learned something new today so all good.
Click to expand...
It uses as much data as it possibly can in the allotted time, to determine how fast the connection is.
 
bluepoole said:
This is the test results in question...so looking at the replies it makes sense that it consumed so much data - I just never had an idea that much data gets used for a speedtest :unsure:
Click to expand...
That's some nice mobile speeds. Where is this?
 
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