topic Re: Youtube data usage in Mobile Data

Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Sat, 03 Aug 2024 10:59:33 GMT

I have been notified by EE that I have used 8GB of my monthly data allowance only 6 days into my data cycle. My allowance is 10GB a month.

I checked my app usage in settings and found that the highest user was only around 800MB. In total the app usage to date this cycle is around 1GB according to my phone record.

I rang 150 who told me that according to their records the biggest user this monthly cycle is Youtube with a whopping 7GB in the last 6 days! I rarely watch Youtube on my phone and certainly do not recall doing so over the past 6 days. According to my app usage information I have used 1MB on Youtube and 97KB on Youtube Music over the past 6 days, both piffling amounts.

EE could not explain why there is this discrepancy between my phone record and their record of my data usage. Clearly there is something fundamentally wrong here.

I would be grateful if anyone has any views on how this issue can be remedied,

Re: Youtube data usage

Katie_B — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 14:29:28 GMT

Hi @kellyseyeno1.

Welcome to the community.

I understand how frustrating this must be. Could you please confirm this has happened before?

Our technical care team would be in the best position to look into this further.

When you called did you speak with customer care or technical support?

Katie

Re: Youtube data usage

bristolian — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 15:09:54 GMT

Is your phone's data counter counting period, synched with that of your billing cycle?

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 17:28:24 GMT

Hi Katie B,

It might have started the previous month as my data use was higher than normal though it did not breach my limit. This month it will definitely breach the 10gb allowance as I've already used 80% of it.

I spoke with technical support who were unable to explain why my data consumption on Youtube had gone up so much. Apparently this is not something they've encountered before. In the meantime they have agreed to enhance this month's allowance. I have also disabled the Youtube app on my phone (It's a Google phone so it can't be deleted).

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 17:29:32 GMT

Hi bristolian,

Yes, the two are identical.

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 19:35:51 GMT

Hi,

Did you ever get this resolved? I have the same issue, except that it's Youtube (which I hardly ever use on my phone) rather than Reddit which is supposedly contributing to a massive consumption of my data allowance.

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 19:56:53 GMT

Katie B,

There is clearly a technical issues that needs to be taken seriously by your technical people. Below is a link to the same issue brought up on this forum last year;

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Mobile-Data/Re-Excessive-data-usage-in-just-12-hours/td-p/1273427

If it is not then I'd be disappointed and will probably move to another operator.

Re: Youtube data usage

Ali_A — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 08:13:08 GMT

From experience this has usually been down to an app on the device using services in background but not reporting correctly in the device data counter.

Quite often videos on websites and apps are in fact hosted through YouTube, so while you may not be using the YouTube app, you're still accessing YouTube for the video that shows or pre-loads in the background.

Uninstalling any recently installed or updated app tends to stop the data being consumed unexpectedly. You can then reinstall the app if needed.

If you still need a hand our Technical Support guides on 150 will be able to help you further 🙂

Ali

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 10:00:36 GMT

Hi Ali,

Thank you for your comment. I spoke again with one of the personnel in
Technical Support this morning and he suggested something similar. He
suggested that to avoid this happening I should switch off mobile data when
using my phone at home with wifi in order to avoid any usage being
accounted for against my personal allowance. He also thought that app
counters on phones don't pick up this usage as they assume that it is all
happening under wifi. This may explain the big discrepancy between my
records and those of EE.

Re: Youtube data usage

bristolian — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 10:08:49 GMT

@kellyseyeno1 wrote:
He also thought that app counters on phones don't pick up this usage as they assume that it is all
happening under wifi. This may explain the big discrepancy between my
records and those of EE.

I think the CS agent was being "creative" here. Phones will always use a wireless connection in preference to mobile data, individual apps will use whatever network connection the OS dictates.

The data counting facility is very well aware of which type of connection is being used.

Re: Youtube data usage

Ali_A — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 10:54:53 GMT

You're welcome! @kellyseyeno1
There is no need to switch off mobile data on the device- as @bristolian has said devices are set to use WIFI as default if it's available.

Data counters usually record the Mobile data and WIFI data separately, particularly with Android phones there is usually two tabs you can swap between to see the Mobile / WiFi usage.

🙂

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 20:46:48 GMT

Hi Ali,

Thanks for this.

I'm still nonplussed as to why the data usage graph on my phone shows 8.3GB used yet the sum of data used by individual apps according to my data counter is only 1.3GB or so. According to EE over 7GB is accounted for by YT let my individual data counter for YT shows only 1MB consumed this accounting period.

You mentioned data used accessing YT which is hosted in another website. I appreciate that the data used might not be formally recorded against the YT app but surely one would expect it to be recorded against the app used to access the website so that it would be recorded somewhere. However it appears not as the discrepancy above is a massive 7GB.

I thought maybe that my SIM has been cloned but speaking with EE this morning it appears that the IMEI responsible for the data consumption is the same as my phone.

I have asked EE for more information about the timing and frequency of this data consumption.

Regards

Re: Youtube data usage

Leanne_T — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 07:19:47 GMT

Hi @kellyseyeno1

Thanks for raising this with our tech team, hopefully they can get you the answers you are looking for.
Let me know how you get on when they get back to you.
Leanne 🙂

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 19:18:34 GMT

EE has provided me with a breakdown of the data downloads made by my phone during this period (29th July to 3rd August). The information does not show the websites visited but it does show the amount of data used, the time the data was downloaded and the duration of the download.

Oddly on two of the days during this period (30th July and 2nd August) there were in total 137 downloads using up each time around 50,000Kb . 65 of the downloads were at night when I would have been asleep. Others were during the daytime but would have taken place at home where I have Wifi. These downloads, totalling 6.8Gb, probably account for the majority of the discrepancy referred to in my original post. Since the 3rd August usage seems to gone back to normal.

So EE what are these phantom downloads which you are recording against my data allowance but which are absolutely nothing to do with me? Some constructive suggestions from you on this matter would be helpful.

Re: Youtube data usage

Lesley_W — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 10:56:15 GMT

Thanks for coming back to let me know @kellyseyeno1

I'm pleased our team were able to provide you a more detailed breakdown. Being a public forum, we don't have access to your account here, so I wouldn't be able to shed any further light on what these downloads could be. I'd recommend getting in touch with our technical team again who may be able to help further. If not, they can discuss next steps for raising a complaint.

Lesley

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 14:00:30 GMT

Lesley,

To be honest I originally approached your so called technical team and they couldn't help me apart from giving me an enhanced data allowance to get me through the last cycle. I will try again but I am not hopeful.

For information, my data cycle started again today and guess what? Yes at 2.50 pm I supposedly have used 1.91Gb even though the sum of my individual app data usage is less than 0.1Gb!

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 20:40:54 GMT

A postscript - Having contacted EE I was told that most of the 1.91Gb was spent accessing YT even though I know for a fact that my use of YT since the start of this data cycle is piffling. Anyway I have agreed with EE an increased data package which hopefully takes this issue out of the equation. The bottom line though is that EE cannot explain why large amounts of my data are supposedly being spent on YT .

Having researched this matter it would appear that other people on both EE and other networks have also experienced the problem without receiving a logical explanation as to why their data is being spent in this way.

Re: Youtube data usage

Leanne_T — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 09:43:49 GMT

Hi @kellyseyeno1

Thanks for coming back to us with an update and letting us know you have increased the data usage.

If you would like to discuss the used data further, please give us another call to see if the team can investigate this in more detail for you.

Leanne.

Re: Youtube data usage

Smvs — Sat, 28 Sep 2024 17:36:02 GMT

I have the same problem, my disabled daughter gets through about 3gb a month absolute maximum. I transferred 5gb to her yesterday and within 24 hours she has no data left - only at school for 2 hours and at home on WiFi on her iPad after that and never left the house. Went into the EE store who put me through to technical, who accessed her data and told me 4.2gb used on you tube. She doesn’t have the YouTube app. Checked her safari history and once she tried to log into kids YouTube for school and it wouldn’t allow her to log in and tab was closed. Technical said she WAS on YouTube app - that she doesn’t have - and must have somehow turned WiFi off on her phone while she was at home - using her iPad? An absolute con. Now my daughter is scared of using her phone at all in case she cost me more money! In the mean time my son, on WiFi at work and at home is getting through up to 60gb month from about 10gb. Despite only using his phone at lunch time at work? It’s driving me mad and I’ve been a customer for 29 years!

Re: Youtube data usage

kellyseyeno1 — Sat, 28 Sep 2024 23:50:56 GMT

EE don't seem to possess any urgency or interest in getting to the bottom of this matter. If I was in your shoes I would say to them that if they do not get give you and your daughter an unlimited data package then you you will move to another phone company.