WiFi traffic monitor/data usage - Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Does anybody know a wifi traffic monitor app that will show you how much data you have used at any certain time, per period (day/month/etc) but also grouped by network ssid? Like for example I'm running a personal hotspot (portable 3g router - say ssid TEST) that has a certain ammount of data available per month, and I want to see on my phone for example, how much data I have used on that particular network (ssid TEST).
I found some apps that show monthly and daily wifi usage, but it's combined for all wifi networks you connect to. I am looking for an app that shows usage per wifi network.
Anybody have any tips?
Thanks.

Built in functionality
The built-in data usage monitor in 5.0 and up is sufficient for me, it perfectly shows the data used per app (so also when using a hotspot)
What Android are you running?

Related

[Q] 200 MB Of Data Gone In 2 Days?

I have the LG G2x with T-mobile using the 500 minutes of talk, unlimited text, and 200 MB of Data plan. My phone has Wi-Fi capabilities so what i wanted to ask was if i use my Wi-Fi instead of my phones 4G or 3G connection, does it still take away from my 200 MB? And what exactly takes away from the 200 MB? Surfing the web obviously, but what else? Android Market? I'm sorry if this is already a thread, if it is just point me in the right direction
Thanks.
If you use wifi, it will NOT count against your 200mb plan.
Anything that involves network/internet access will use up your plan. So internet, any audio/video streaming, the android market, social networking apps, advertisements in non-internet applications, its a pretty long list.
If that bothers you, you can always turn off your cellular data by going Settings > Data Manager > Data Delivery > Uncheck Data Enabled. Wifi will still work fine but your phone will stop anything from using up your plan.
Using Wi-Fi shouldn't use your data plan--Wi-Fi uses your Internet Service that you connect with from your computer which is separate from your phone's data service. Like how a PS3 or Nintendo DS can connect to wifi and browse the web, it doesn't cost anything except your House Internet bill that you get each month.
I'm not too sure what all uses the data plan but I can assume what they likely do based on the fact that phone companies are sneaky cheaters.
While on data:
Any application (or widget) that accesses the internet (includes accessing and downloading from the Android Market, Weather Widgets, Posting highscores, downloading information/new levels, etc.)
Anytime you use the internet (this downloads temporary files so you can view material)
Anytime you download a file from the internet to your phone
While on Wi-Fi (house internet connection, starbucks, airport, etc.):
Nothing.
Turn data off when you leave and only turn it on for a short while when you need and or want it.
That's what I do and it works out great. !
Happened to mee too once :S
you can use juice defender to turn off you wireless connections.
If use wifi it don't count your 200M plan
Make sure you are in range of the wifi 'hotspot', some users have been thinking they are using wifi and downloaded heaps only to realize they were out of range of the access point.

Can I turn off data plan access on AT&T Smart Phone?

So I've had this HTC S743 for about 5 days and I thought I had it setup correctly to use wifi for data comm.
wifi enabled and selected to use my home network. I can see the radio tower status icon and my locally named network is also displayed.
Under the comm manager the data connection is off.
I have a very simple $45/mo plan with no monthly data plan.
Over the last 5 days I have been surfing the web a bit did some email tests with my ISP and used the on board GPS app which is horrible. Not heavy usage but experimentation to see if I like how the phone works.
After 2 days I get an email from AT&T that I have extremely high data usage exceeding my account limit (for having no monthly plan) and that I should sign up for a data plan at once.
$29 over 2 days for this little bit of fluff? A total of 2,900kb in data.
So I call up AT&T and they tell me this and that and want me to sign up for a plan which I may do. But I want to be able to know that the datacomm is happening via WIFI when I can see a selected WIFI is in service.
They also told me that all GPS data is forced through 3G and bypasses WIFI???
Can anyone here give me an idea about what I may be doing wrong and whether AT&T is correct about the GPS service?
Is there a better GPS app that doesn't do this? This one pretty much stinks anyway. A resolution of 1000 meters doesn't cut it.
AT&T also informed me that I can't have a smart phone without a data contract. Really? I've had one for 6 years like that but it wasn't WIFI capabale and too small to bother with web access.
Thanks for any light you shed on the subject.
One thing I have subsequently found out is that if data connection is off and WIFI is off then when I go into IE and start surfing it does bring up pages. Then when I go back to the Comm Manager the Data Connection to check the status of my connections it is still off for an instant and then it automatically turns itself on as though it had been turned on by use of IE and the status was just being updated.
Last night I installed a newer version of Google maps and was only able to install it via the web browser as opposed to via the Activesynch application on my PC. I was concerned that this might trigger turning on the 3G connection. So I had it set up for a WIFI connection ONLY and installed the app. Afterwards I went into the connection manager and once again the data conn. was turned back on so it's possible that it utilized AT&T's 3G network instead.
Is there any way to control or stop this?
GPS data doesn't have anything to do with 3G/Wifi data......
I know it's supposed to be positioning via the satellites through the GPS antenna but the the description data is coming over the network right? So it appears that even though I'm setup for WIFI access and it's showing as connected with an IP address etc. when I try the Googlemaps GPS app it turns the data conn. for 3G back on.
Thanks for chiming in ...
I have been copying over and installing some new apps to try out this morning via usb. WIFI is on and I'm loged in. None are datacomm oriented that I know of (unless they'r trying to make an internet access to notify about being installed) none the less I just checked again and my data conn. is once again turned back on. Is this typical behavior for a windows mobile phone (6.1) or is this just an AT&T "feature".
Sorry, I don't have a WM6 phone!

Tethering idea... and a question

Ok, so, I have an OpenVPN setup at home, and I'm connected to it with my phone. I've been using VPNs for years and based on my previous experiences, I have a thought, and a couple questions...
Does every single packet go out through the VPN or only the ones destined for an IP on the private subnet? If it indeed passes every packet over the VPN (as with others I've used), why couldn't one just tether it after that? Would all data not then go over AT&Ts network and out to the internet via my home connection?
I've actually been musing about this for a while, but never bothered to actually connect my phone to my home VPN until now to even think about trying it.
Anybody have any unique insight on this?
N0ctrnl said:
Ok, so, I have an OpenVPN setup at home, and I'm connected to it with my phone. I've been using VPNs for years and based on my previous experiences, I have a thought, and a couple questions...
Does every single packet go out through the VPN or only the ones destined for an IP on the private subnet? If it indeed passes every packet over the VPN (as with others I've used), why couldn't one just tether it after that? Would all data not then go over AT&Ts network and out to the internet via my home connection?
I've actually been musing about this for a while, but never bothered to actually connect my phone to my home VPN until now to even think about trying it.
Anybody have any unique insight on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It entirely depends on how your VPN is set up. You can set up a VPN that will require all traffic to be routed through the VPN, or you can set up a VPN to only route traffic destined for that internal network to be sent over VPN.
And there's no reason you couldn't do that. If they are indeed detecting tethering by the content of data, you could set a VPN to pass all traffic through the VPN, and encrypt it so that they would never know what data was actually being sent. The biggest thing to be aware of is speed. If you are passing all traffic through VPN, your internet speed will immediately be reduced to the maximum speed your home internet connection can upload data. So if your home internet is 1 Mbps up, then your max speed is going to be 1 Mbps up now because you have to wait for that system to send the data along (plus overheads for encryption and processing of data, etc).
AJerman said:
It entirely depends on how your VPN is set up. You can set up a VPN that will require all traffic to be routed through the VPN, or you can set up a VPN to only route traffic destined for that internal network to be sent over VPN.
And there's no reason you couldn't do that. If they are indeed detecting tethering by the content of data, you could set a VPN to pass all traffic through the VPN, and encrypt it so that they would never know what data was actually being sent. The biggest thing to be aware of is speed. If you are passing all traffic through VPN, your internet speed will immediately be reduced to the maximum speed your home internet connection can upload data. So if your home internet is 1 Mbps up, then your max speed is going to be 1 Mbps up now because you have to wait for that system to send the data along (plus overheads for encryption and processing of data, etc).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I fully understand the performance penalties of pushing all data through a VPN. Really, I only tether my phone down at my workshop to update orders and print shipping labels. It's about 200MB a week, and I could do it over dialup if I had one. Not an issue at all.
Thanks a bunch for your thoughts. It's pretty much what I thought. I'll just have to brush up on my OpenVPN knowledge and see if I can make sure it's all routed over the VPN.
Note: Consequently, I just got a text message from AT&T letting me know I'd automatically been switched over to a tethering plan since I was still tethering. The rub here is I have not tethered my phone a single time in the last 3 months! I actually have a 2GB plan on my old Captivate that I've been using. I called into AT&T and the lady I got was really cool. She said there must be something triggering the tethering alert on their side and she filed an extension for me so I wouldn't get switched over automatically.
So, I don't know what AT&T is really using to detect tethering, but it's indeed throwing out false positives. I've also only used 809MB since the beginning of my billing cycle (November 21), so I doubt very much that it's excessive data usage. I use some interesting things like wifi connected file managers and remote web desktop, but surely those don't trigger it (?).
Ok, so, I just did a test using whatismyip.com. It shows my wifi gateway here at work when using wifi with the VPN on, and it shows the AT&T IP when connected with wifi off. So, that shoots the idea that all traffic will go over the VPN by default when connected. I guess I'm going to have to dig a little deeper to get it working that way.
The "Redirect Gateway" option in the VPN settings seems to work perfectly. I'll keep testing and see what I can come up with as far as a tether goes!

Location aware data usage monitor

Hi. Does anyone know of a data usage monitor for 3G which supports international data plans? E.g. I have a data plan for national use (no roaming), European use and use elsewhere. I'd like to be able to monitor my usage and if possible switch off 3G usage when certain limits are reached.
Does this exist?
Tia, Peter

[Q] Cellular data usage when Mobile data is disabled

Hi there.
I have been recently working outside my home country and I disable my mobile data as soon as I reach the airport.
My Nexus 5, now with 4.4.3 reports 0 bytes of data when I am in roaming and I never got a notification or any sort of activity that may point to a data access being made, yet my service provider sent a big bill with many 10KB accesses during the time I was in roaming.
The same problem might exist while at my home country, but since I have a few hundreds of MB to use each month, I can't really tell.
Anyone else is facing the same problem?
I will temporarily ask my service provider to block my data access while in roaming, but I would like to understand if that is some sort of Android bug or a service provider charging what it shouldn't.
I've looked a bit more into this issue and I suspect that it was the Google Location Services that try to obtain the positioning from the cellular mobile network.
I've installed the Network Monitor Mini and it showed me a few times that process has a residual network usage.
Since I'm on Wifi most of the time, I assumed that network usage was on the WiFi but now I understand that being connected to the WiFi doesn't mean that the phone cannot use cellular data.
Can anyone that uses little Mobile Data (disabled in the Settings most of the time) confirm that the eventually you get some cellular data charged if you have the Location Settings set to use the mobile networks?
Sorry for the monologue, but this might be useful for someone that may face this problem in the feature.
After being more attentive to the network usage pointed by Network Monitor Mini, I think I found the culprit.
I've spent the last weeks with mobile data completely off, using only WiFi, yet on a couple of occasions I noticed Network Monitor Mini reporting minimal network usage being made when no know network WiFi was around.
As the screenshot shows, the WiFi is not connected to any known access point, yet some data was being uploaded by one of those processes.
I think the phone is trying to ping the cellular antenna for a location, thus accounting for mobile data access.
I've disabled the location and I will keep monitoring the data usage to see if that is the real culprit. Also noticed that Network Monitor Mini has a traffic breakdown mode per interface. I'll use that to distinguish wifi and cellular data.
why not just disable data complete, a data signal wont even appear because it wont be connected to data? go to main settings, more, mobile networks, data enabled.. now uncheck it and your data connection will disappear, but your phone connection will stay.
edit.. and if you have root, you can install the disable service app, then you can disable the 5 differing types of location services that your phone uses.
Hi simms22.
Like I said on the first post, that was the first thing I did in the airport. I'm not saying simply disabling roaming data, I disabled data completely.
The point I'm trying to show is that even with mobile data disabled, in roaming I still got several tiny chunks of data registered by my operator and I occasionally noticed Network Monitor Mini showing 0.1KB upload, as shown in the screenshot.
Regards.
VuDuCuRSe said:
Hi simms22.
Like I said on the first post, that was the first thing I did in the airport. I'm not saying simply disabling roaming data, I disabled data completely.
The point I'm trying to show is that even with mobile data disabled, in roaming I still got several tiny chunks of data registered by my operator and I occasionally noticed Network Monitor Mini showing 0.1KB upload, as shown in the screenshot.
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well, a little bit of data can be transferred through the phone signal(sms). do you have disabled in wifi settings, bottom right three dots, advanced, scanning always available? that uses the wifi to scan for location even when wifi is off, maybe they do that with the mobile signal as well. anyways, about a month ago, google location services kept waking my device non stop, so i completely disabled them in the google play services using the disable service app(i have root). now google never checks for my location unless i let it.
Hey.
I disabled the Location services in Settings, restricted the background data and so far it has been three days with no data accesses registered by my provider.
I don't think the background data is responsible for the traffic so I will wait a couple more days and then re-enable it.
I think the Location services are useful and I do like those small things it offers like weather prediction for where you are, where you parked the car, time to go home/work and movie times near you. The only problem is that it doesn't seem to respect the Mobile data status.
Just raised an issue in the AOSP tracker
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=72332&colspec=ID Type Status Owner Summary Stars
If you share the concern on this problem, please star it to give visibility.
VuDuCuRSe said:
Just raised an issue in the AOSP tracker
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=72332&colspec=ID Type Status Owner Summary Stars
If you share the concern on this problem, please star it to give visibility.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It also happens with me but I have a Galaxy S4. It's a huge defect to alow location to consume mobile data even with the data roaming and mobile data disabled.

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