7

My GSM carrier rounds all used data up to 100KB. Which means that if some app is sending/receiving 500 bytes, I get charged for 100KB.

Lately I observed that I go through several hundred megabytes per day.

Data usage in phone shows that I used ~ 400MB, while carrier charged me for over 2GB of data.

In detailed billing I see literally thousands of short connections (multiple per minute, 24 hours a day), each using 100KB - which means that actual data transfer is much lower.

Carrier helpdesk said that they can't tell me what I'm using the data for. Phone shows real data transfer, which in my case is useless.

What can I do to find out what application/process is sending lots of small packets of data (or receives)?

If it helps with anything, I'm using Motorola Moto G2 (only 1 SIM has data transfer enabled), and it's running Android 5.0.2.

While debugging the problem, I disabled Google Backup Services from using 3G (only works over Wifi now), and an hour ago I disabled it altogether. But given that it was disabled over 3G, I don't think it's the culprit.

Improve this question
10
  • 5
    Many apps transfer small amounts of data to either ask for new messages or send a heartbeat to the server so it knows that your device is able to receive messages. Some apps may allow you to disable such features, so try that. Apart from that if were you, I would change the carrier because rounding up to 100kb is just stupid.
    – GiantTree
    Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 22:44
  • Do you not have a data monitor under Settings -> Wireless or similar?
    – Matthew Read
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 2:03
  • @GiantTree I know all this, the problem is how to find what app is causing the situation now.
    – a guy
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 11:16
  • @MatthewRead - of course I have it - I mentioned "data usage". The problem is that it doesn't show me number of connections just data transferred. Which (in my, very special case) is the wrong thing.
    – a guy
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 11:17
  • I recommend looking into Background Data in Settings -> Data Usage -> Menu item "Restrict background data" or similar. That way apps can only issue a remote connection, if they are running in the foreground (I'm sure this means on screen). So no app can load data in background, but many apps will have problems (especially messaging apps).
    – GiantTree
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 16:20

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

To diagnose the issue you could try a third-party network monitoring tool - Network Connections

Powerful tool that displays and monitors (tracks) all inbound and outbound connection from and to your Android device.

Other features bundles in the app:

  • Monitors all internet connections from and to your Android device
  • Displays notification when hidden apps are connecting to remote servers
  • Displays detailed IP information for each connection - IP address, reverse resolving (PTR), AS number, Abuse RBL data, administrative information, etc.
  • Gets detailed info about each app that connects to remote servers and network connections used by it - permissions granted to each captured package and all IP addresses used by it.

enter image description here

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .