Forum Discussion

Someone_explain's avatar
Someone_explain
New Contributor
2 years ago

Data

I am sure I am not the only one who this keeps happening to but this month I again got emails about my data usage. Typically I would get it by text. However the odd thing is that I received three emails today about data usage. At 11:32AM I got an email that stated that I have used up 75% of my data. One minute later at 11:32AM I get a similar email from Cox stating that I used 90% of my data. Then at 11:47AM I get another similar email stating that 100% of data has been used. Seems like a total scam. I will have to check previous months to see if there was a same trend but this seemed very fishy. 

  • Darkatt's avatar
    Darkatt
    Honored Contributor

    There are a number of things that can all of a sudden start using a LOT of data. Someone in these forums several months back had a similar issue, then found he had installed one drive on his phone, and it would sync to one drive and upload from, his phone the entire phone, and use close to 100gb each time. if you did that with several devices, well, adds up quick. 

    Also, while streaming habits may not have changed, the resolution of the streaming MAY have, and while standard HD uses, 2.3 to 2.8gb an hour, 4K tv uses 8gb an hour and more. 2 movies in an evening, could go from using 10gb, to using 32 gb, and if you have 2 people each on their own tv, that could easily double from  instead of 20gb,  to using 64 gb and that's just for 2 tvs each watching 2 movies at 4k. it doesn't count what devices like tablets or phones, computers, and more could be using. 

    • Lovemylab's avatar
      Lovemylab
      Contributor III

      I note that we (my wife and I) consistently use 600 to 800 GB per month. That's with Nest cameras, hours of Teams conference calls every day. Probably a couple of hours per day of streaming music/tv/FB and so forth. We never come close to breaking the 1.25 TB limit. Now, if we still had several kids in the house, it might be a different story.

  • Hello. The purpose of the Cox Internet Forum is to allow customers to discuss technical topics related to residential Cox High Speed Internet services with other customers. If you need help with billing or other account specific issues, please reach us on Twitter at @CoxHelp, visit us on Facebook, or at cox.help@cox.com. -Allan, Cox Support Forums Moderator.
  • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
    WiderMouthOpen
    Esteemed Contributor

    Where are the emails from? Do you have any way of fact checking your bandwidth meter? Maybe a router with it's own meter?

    • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
      WiderMouthOpen
      Esteemed Contributor

      I think there is a way to make profiles for the different devices and it will show which device used which bandwidth. See here. Can anyone with a gateway confirm?

  • d3m3tree's avatar
    d3m3tree
    New Contributor II

    Almost certainly something akin to what others have described. You’re probably having background updates/syncing using data. You can view detailed data usage by device if you’ve got the apps installed. You can also limit the data they can use. Without a detailed list of the type of devices you use / services you have / etc that is about the most anyone can explain. If you’re able, ask them about changing service to an unlimited data plan. My internet is very reasonable for price and it’s unlimited. Not sure it’s kosher to talk about pricing on these forums but really, just ask they are willing to help if you’re a customer that pays on time every time and courteous to the reps. 

    • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
      WiderMouthOpen
      Esteemed Contributor
      You can view detailed data usage by device if you’ve got the apps installed

      Can you go over in detail on how this feature works? I couldn't find documentation on it.