Cellular Data Usage Accounting

- Member Since: Sep 30, 2018
Posted my issue on another thread. Received no reply.
My prepaid plan includes 5 GB data. The phone's total cellular data usage for
the last 30-day billing cycle was higher than usual though I had been using
the phone less. In fact, it indicated more than 5 GB before the end of the cycle.
The account info online showed less than 5 GB which was typical since it always
seemed to lag the phone info by some number of days. When the cycle rolled over
there was an unusually high amount of data use shown on the first day.
Background data for almost all app's was then turned off and it was
confirmed that there was then very little background data used. I do very little
streaming with cellular data since it burns data too fast. Binge-On was enabled
at one time but now it doesn't show anything to that effect in my account info.
I never saw a difference anyway.
Called *611 twice. Both calls a total waste of time. The first time the rep
reconnected my phone to the network. The next time the rep tried to tell me the
problem was that I was leaving cellular date enabled while using Wi-Fi so the
Wi-Fi usage was counted in the cellular total.
Went to my local T-Mobile store. The sales person said that I needed to upgrade
to a plan with 10 GB. No help whatsoever on how to resolve a technical issue.
So far my experience is what is referred to as "customer no service."
So, I performed a little experiment. Since most of my cellular data usage was
from using the Android version of the Chrome browser on the phone I determined
the size of two web pages which normally I check daily. Those two are regular
WordPress blog pages. The first page was then 623 KB in size. When this page was
displayed using the Chrome browser the cellular data usage incremented by 10 MB!
I then clicked on the comments page for the first article on the page. That page
was then 491 KB. Again, the cellular data usage shown incremented by 10 MB. So
for a total of 1.1 MB of data actually downloaded my account was apparently
docked for 20 MB!. The cumulative data received counter on the phone incremented
by 13,919 KB for the first page and 983 KB for the second. The data sent counter
incremented by 670 KB for the first page and 662 KB for the second. There is some
kind of weird arithmetic going on.
The data usage on my account now tracks closely with the phone. Sometimes it
shows more than is shown on the phone probably due to rounding. That has never
happened before. I looks like the data usage accounting has changed in the last
month or so and someone made a dumb programming error. Of course, there is a
less benign interpretation.
When I started with T-Mobile nearly three years ago customer service wasn't bad.
Apparently things have changed. That's what can happen when top management is
more concerned with wheeling and dealing than running the business.