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How to Determine Hotspot Usage?


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Awhile back, I upgraded to Verizon's Unlimited plan.  Now I'm trying to determine how much of the 10GB/month data each device has used when being used as a hotspot. 

I didn't see anyway of doing that looking at my account online or on the "My Verizon" app on my phone.  So yesterday I had a chat with someone from Verizon and this morning I talked on the phone to another person.  Neither was able to provide me a way of getting this information...I can see the "total" data I've used during the current billing period, but can't determine how much of that total data has been hotspot usage.

Has anyone found a way to keep track of just a device's hotspot usage data?

LindaH
2014 Winnebago Aspect 27K
2011 Kia Soul

 

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Go to my Verizon and sign in.  Click on my Usage.  A screen will open up showing each of your devices.  Click on each devise and your usage will show on the right side of the page.

2019 Airstream Flying Cloud 27FB
2011 Ford F350 CC SRW
 

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for."       Will Rogers        

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3 hours ago, dzwiss said:

Go to my Verizon and sign in.  Click on my Usage.  A screen will open up showing each of your devices.  Click on each devise and your usage will show on the right side of the page.

Yes, but that will not show her how much of her data on that phone was hotspot usage and how much was regular phone usage.

Everybody wanna hear the truth, but everybody tell a lie.  Everybody wanna go to Heaven, but nobody want to die.  Albert King

 

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4 hours ago, secessus said:

Log into the hotspot over it's default LAN IP (192.168.1.1 or whatever, see the particular manual).  That info should be front and center, or maybe on a Status tab or similar.  Varies by device. 

I'm using my phone as a hotspot.  I have no idea how to log into it's default LAN IP.  The phone did not come with a manual, and I doubt this type of thing would be covered in the phone's manual, anyway.

LindaH
2014 Winnebago Aspect 27K
2011 Kia Soul

 

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3 hours ago, dzwiss said:

Go to my Verizon and sign in.  Click on my Usage.  A screen will open up showing each of your devices.  Click on each devise and your usage will show on the right side of the page.

As chirakawa says, that doesn't give me the information I'm seeking.  All that information shows is "total" data usage, not the breakdown of hotspot usage vs "regular" phone usage.

LindaH
2014 Winnebago Aspect 27K
2011 Kia Soul

 

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It appears that there is NO way of breaking out the hotspot usage from the total data usage for any particular device.  You'd think if Verizon has a 10GB limit per device on hotspot usage, they'd provide a way of keeping track of that usage!

LindaH
2014 Winnebago Aspect 27K
2011 Kia Soul

 

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What phone do you have?  On my Motorola Android phone, I can go into "Settings", "Data Usage" and then scroll down to see exactly which apps have used how much data.  It may single out the hotspot usage there.

Everybody wanna hear the truth, but everybody tell a lie.  Everybody wanna go to Heaven, but nobody want to die.  Albert King

 

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2 hours ago, chirakawa said:

What phone do you have?  On my Motorola Android phone, I can go into "Settings", "Data Usage" and then scroll down to see exactly which apps have used how much data.  It may single out the hotspot usage there.

Thank you!  I did what you said and the very first line was for "mobile hotspot and tethering." 

Strange that no one at Verizon to whom I spoke knew this!

LindaH
2014 Winnebago Aspect 27K
2011 Kia Soul

 

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20 minutes ago, LindaH said:

Thank you!  I did what you said and the very first line was for "mobile hotspot and tethering." 

Strange that no one at Verizon to whom I spoke knew this!

They're all Appleheads. :D

Everybody wanna hear the truth, but everybody tell a lie.  Everybody wanna go to Heaven, but nobody want to die.  Albert King

 

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4 hours ago, LindaH said:

As chirakawa says, that doesn't give me the information I'm seeking.  All that information shows is "total" data usage, not the breakdown of hotspot usage vs "regular" phone usage.

 

5 hours ago, chirakawa said:

Yes, but that will not show her how much of her data on that phone was hotspot usage and how much was regular phone usage.

When I look at my verizon data usage it shows me how much total data used per device and how much hotspot data used and avalable, per device.  I am using Safari browser if that matters.

2019 Airstream Flying Cloud 27FB
2011 Ford F350 CC SRW
 

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for."       Will Rogers        

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It makes a difference because if you're using your device as a hotspot you only get 10 gigs at 4G speeds, then it gets reduced to 3G speed.

2019 Airstream Flying Cloud 27FB
2011 Ford F350 CC SRW
 

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for."       Will Rogers        

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10 hours ago, dzwiss said:

 

When I look at my verizon data usage it shows me how much total data used per device and how much hotspot data used and avalable, per device.  I am using Safari browser if that matters.

Thanks.  I hadn't seen that "new to me" interface.  That's quite an improvement.

Everybody wanna hear the truth, but everybody tell a lie.  Everybody wanna go to Heaven, but nobody want to die.  Albert King

 

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3 hours ago, WeBeFulltimers said:

If on the "unlimited" plan what difference does it make anyway?

Exactly what dzwiss says.  We have 3 devices on our plan, so if one device reaches the 10 GB hotspot limit, we'll switch to another.  That gives us a total of 30 GB hotspot use each billing period.

LindaH
2014 Winnebago Aspect 27K
2011 Kia Soul

 

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5 hours ago, LindaH said:

Exactly what dzwiss says.  We have 3 devices on our plan, so if one device reaches the 10 GB hotspot limit, we'll switch to another.  That gives us a total of 30 GB hotspot use each billing period.

And they are not kidding.  Yesterday I got 11 Mbps down and 8 Mbps up.  Today I got a text advising me that I had used my 10 G hotspot limit on my jetpack.  I did a speed test and got .6 Mbps down and .6 Mbps up.

2019 Airstream Flying Cloud 27FB
2011 Ford F350 CC SRW
 

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for."       Will Rogers        

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22 hours ago, LindaH said:

It appears that there is NO way of breaking out the hotspot usage from the total data usage for any particular device.  You'd think if Verizon has a 10GB limit per device on hotspot usage, they'd provide a way of keeping track of that usage!

Verizon tells me it is NOT 10G per device but 10G only on the WIFI hot spot. We were on with Verizon Customer service for about two hours today concerning the Unlimited plan. We have been on the UN limited plan for 3 months. We felt we were miss informed about the terms of the Unlimited plan as it pertains to the 10G slow t o 3G on the WiFi.We were told numerous times that  we had 22G per device and the WIFI was a Device. That is not true the WIfi is throttled to 3G speed at 10G. Customer service said they are receiving many, many calls on the same subject. Long story short they put us back on our previous Unlimited talk and text 40G plan with no argument at no charge and at the same price as before.. BTW we were not slowed t o 3G on month Number one or two but sent a E mail that we were slowed t o 3G speed this ....and we were. IMO the unlimited plan is not a good plan.

Helen and I are long timers ..08 F-350 Ford,LB,CC,6.4L,4X4, Dually,4:10 diff dragging around a 2013 Montana 3402 Big Sky

SKP 100137. North Ridgeville, Ohio in the summer, sort of and where ever it is warm in the winter.

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19 minutes ago, dzwiss said:

And they are not kidding.  Yesterday I got 11 Mbps down and 8 Mbps up.  Today I got a text advising me that I had used my 10 G hotspot limit on my jetpack.  I did a speed test and got .6 Mbps down and .6 Mbps up.

Same here and we  went back t o our previous plan..

Helen and I are long timers ..08 F-350 Ford,LB,CC,6.4L,4X4, Dually,4:10 diff dragging around a 2013 Montana 3402 Big Sky

SKP 100137. North Ridgeville, Ohio in the summer, sort of and where ever it is warm in the winter.

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18 hours ago, richfaa said:

Verizon tells me it is NOT 10G per device but 10G only on the WIFI hot spot.

I'm not sure I understand your statement.

By "WiFi hot spot," do you mean a MiFi, internet-only device (not a phone or tablet)?  We have two phones and a tablet, all three of which can be used as a hotspot.

It's my understanding that the 10GB per month hotspot limit (before speeds are throttled) is PER DEVICE.  Are you saying that this is not true, that it's 10GB per month PER ACCOUNT?

 

 

LindaH
2014 Winnebago Aspect 27K
2011 Kia Soul

 

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1 hour ago, LindaH said:

I'm not sure I understand your statement.

By "WiFi hot spot," do you mean a MiFi, internet-only device (not a phone or tablet)?  We have two phones and a tablet, all three of which can be used as a hotspot.

It's my understanding that the 10GB per month hotspot limit (before speeds are throttled) is PER DEVICE.  Are you saying that this is not true, that it's 10GB per month PER ACCOUNT?

 

 

Linda, you are correct. As per Tenchonmadia and multiple confirmations with their PR reps, the 10gb throttle limit is only per line and is throttled even on the phones if you go over the 10gb hot spot. Since a mifi device can only do hotspot, nothing else, that's all it can be used on that device is 10gb of data a month and then it slows down. I think that is what richfaa was saying as far as mifi devices. Of course on device usage is only network managed at 22gb, but again the same 10gb hotspot/tethering limit exists even on those devices, but again it's per device/line limit. If you have 3 lines, you have 30gb of hot spot split evenenly between each one. 

It's pretty obvious the customer service reps still have no idea what they are talking about and continue to give out bad information. It seems now like Verizon was forced to create the unlimited data plan to stay competitive even before they had the network tools in place to limit it, as they were losing customers at an alarming rate. So while they managed to slow the massive hemorrhaging of customers for a couple months and mislead them with unlimited/unthrottled data, they are going to have a whole new wave of customers they have totally pissed off with continued mis-information and many who gave up their actual shared data plans which in some cases is nicer as the hotspot can use all the available data if you want at 4g LTE speeds. 

Dan (Class of 2017) - 2012 Ram 3500 & 2005 Alpenlite Valhalla 29RK
Contact me at rvsolarconsulting.com or Two Wheel Ramblin

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We have not used our phones as a hot spot so can not confirm IF the 10Glimit applies my guess is that it does. We did see the  10G 4G  drop to 3G on our MIFI device. We were also never told the slow down to 3G speeds would happen when the phone was used as a hot spot. We were told over and over again 22 G per device no throttle unless we were in a high usage area.

 We were OK with our 40G shared data plan  shot themselves in the foot on rushing out the unlimited plan without properly advising the field folks.

Helen and I are long timers ..08 F-350 Ford,LB,CC,6.4L,4X4, Dually,4:10 diff dragging around a 2013 Montana 3402 Big Sky

SKP 100137. North Ridgeville, Ohio in the summer, sort of and where ever it is warm in the winter.

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  • 2 months later...
On 5/10/2017 at 4:42 PM, chirakawa said:

Yes, but that will not show her how much of her data on that phone was hotspot usage and how much was regular phone usage.

Are you using the term hotspot in a context where you have a Jetpack and are calling the Jetpack a hotspot, or do you mean you are tethering devices to your phone? I saw a HUGE, angry debate on another forum and the problem was that  the OP was saying "hotspot" when she meant "Jetpack".

Since your devices connect to your phone as if it were a wifi router, the only data connection is by the phone, so I don't know that there is any way to separate the tethered usage. Again, if you tether your iPad or LG tablet to your phone, that connection to the phone is done by a wifi connection to the SSID of the tethered phone, so that usage on the device itself is not really cellular. 

What might be interesting is a test I ran. On my Galaxy S7, I made note of my data usage. I opened Chrome, which took me to Google. Then to my bank. Then back to Google. Then to a local newspaper, then back to Google. I then read the data use. Then I turned on tethering. I connected my iPad to the phone via a wifi connection to the tethered phone. I visited the same sites in the same order, then dropped the tethering. When I checked the data use, it spent almost 3 times as much when tethered. I don't yet have a Jetpack (I just got my RV and am not ready to hit the road yet), but when I get it I will run that same test using phone, tether to phone, and tether to Jetpack. Should be interesting. That will help me decide if I boondock a lot or sleep at Walmarts. LOL!!!

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On 5/12/2017 at 10:47 AM, LindaH said:

By "WiFi hot spot," do you mean a MiFi, internet-only device (not a phone or tablet)?  We have two phones and a tablet, all three of which can be used as a hotspot.

 

Is a Jetpack (MiFi) really nothing more than a second line that can not be used for phone calls? If so, it can't know what is connecting to it to deprioritize per device. (Throttle is the wrong word. Throttle would indicate that EVERY data use after 22gb is slowed down. That is not the case. It depends on tower capacity.)

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57 minutes ago, eddie1261 said:

Are you using the term hotspot in a context where you have a Jetpack and are calling the Jetpack a hotspot, or do you mean you are tethering devices to your phone? I saw a HUGE, angry debate on another forum and the problem was that  the OP was saying "hotspot" when she meant "Jetpack".

Since your devices connect to your phone as if it were a wifi router, the only data connection is by the phone, so I don't know that there is any way to separate the tethered usage. Again, if you tether your iPad or LG tablet to your phone, that connection to the phone is done by a wifi connection to the SSID of the tethered phone, so that usage on the device itself is not really cellular. 

What might be interesting is a test I ran. On my Galaxy S7, I made note of my data usage. I opened Chrome, which took me to Google. Then to my bank. Then back to Google. Then to a local newspaper, then back to Google. I then read the data use. Then I turned on tethering. I connected my iPad to the phone via a wifi connection to the tethered phone. I visited the same sites in the same order, then dropped the tethering. When I checked the data use, it spent almost 3 times as much when tethered. I don't yet have a Jetpack (I just got my RV and am not ready to hit the road yet), but when I get it I will run that same test using phone, tether to phone, and tether to Jetpack. Should be interesting. That will help me decide if I boondock a lot or sleep at Walmarts. LOL!!!

The phone company actually can tell the difference in the usage and this is how they monitor it. When you connect a wifi device to your phone acting as a hotspot, any usage from that wifi device has to go through an extra "hop" compared to usage that originates directly from your phone and the devices keep track of that and report that with there data request. There was a thread I read where you could change the starting count on this "hop" to be one less so that when it made the hop to the phone (hotspot) then on to the internet, it would make that data appear as if it came from the phone since the hop count had started out at one less than it should have. It's pretty technical change and I don't remember all the specifics. I think it was easier to do on a laptop or something where you had more control ove the network settings. 

It is interesting you found that the tethering used more data, but then again the phone its self could have been doing stuff in the background too.  

Dan (Class of 2017) - 2012 Ram 3500 & 2005 Alpenlite Valhalla 29RK
Contact me at rvsolarconsulting.com or Two Wheel Ramblin

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2 minutes ago, BlueLghtning said:

found that the tethering used more data, but then again the phone its self could have been doing stuff in the background too.  

Well, to think about it, since I didn't turn any background apps off, the phone was running the same background processes in both parts of the test. I am going to do it again some day, and I will tether not only the iPad, but also the LG tablet I have, and then a laptop, and then a desktop. Then, just because I want to push it as far as I can, I will leave them ALL tethered to the phone and run the test on each device, stopping to read the usage at every chance in condition. And really, I am only doing it because I am a retired IT nerd (4 years ago today!!!) and somehow the nerd in me just won't die. It's not like I am resolving a problem, closing a ticket, or there is anything I can do about it..... I'm just a nerd.

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