Verizon LTE Data Usage

[Anonymous]

So were traveling and needed to play an episode of a show (on Foxnow app) over LTE. One 1-hr episode used 1.6 GB of data on an iPhone? I have about 2 GB a month so this is very disappointing. I know I have friends that watch Netflix at the gym and such, and they say they hardly ever use more than their family 2 GB. I measured this with apple cellular data tracking, so I know it's accurate. Is this typical? How do people watch videos on the go, just always track wifi? Or is Foxnow a bit of bandwidth hog? Or do people just have bigger or even unlimited data plans??

[Anonymous]

Only use wifi, or download the program on a wifi and watch it later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So were traveling and needed to play an episode of a show (on Foxnow app) over LTE. One 1-hr episode used 1.6 GB of data on an iPhone? I have about 2 GB a month so this is very disappointing. I know I have friends that watch Netflix at the gym and such, and they say they hardly ever use more than their family 2 GB. I measured this with apple cellular data tracking, so I know it's accurate. Is this typical? How do people watch videos on the go, just always track wifi? Or is Foxnow a bit of bandwidth hog? Or do people just have bigger or even unlimited data plans??

That's somewhat hard to believe. From the netflix site: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87

"Watching movies or TV shows on Netflix uses about 1 GB of data per hour for each stream of standard definition video, and up to 3 GB per hour for each stream of HD video."


It depends heavily on the quality of the video being downloaded. From the same page:

Low (0.3 GB per hour)
Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)


Does the Foxnow app have a data quality setting?

[Anonymous]

like the posts above mentioned, I'd guess that you were watching it in high definition. I think some sites automatically choose the version based on your connection speed. Not sure if you're able to choose what version you want.

I'd also guess that the people on your gym are using the gym's wifi to stream but you'd have to double check with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:like the posts above mentioned, I'd guess that you were watching it in high definition. I think some sites automatically choose the version based on your connection speed. Not sure if you're able to choose what version you want.

I'd also guess that the people on your gym are using the gym's wifi to stream but you'd have to double check with them.

OP here, will check quality setting but I think the free apps from networks don't have that. I know my buddy was not using wifi at gym; we go to same gym and there is no wifi and we had explicitly talked about using cellular.

[Anonymous]

FOX is in the dark ages compared to Netflix so I'm not surprised they'd build an app with little regard for data usage or awareness of whether you're on WiFi or cellular.

Your friend's claim doesn't sound right, if they go to the gym with any regularity and watch movies/TV the whole time it's difficult to believe they stay under 2GB/month. Even at the lowest video quality level Netflix estimates usage at 300MB/hour:

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87

[Anonymous]

LTE is supposed to be faster than home internet speeds.

So if it is one of those types of programs it might be defaulting to HD based off of the LTE speed.

Not sure if all phones have it but it looks like my phone lets you disable to LTE/4G connection.

If you have something similar you can try disabling it to force it onto 3G and slower and maybe the program will automatically send you a standard definition stream.

But as the previous poster mentioned, I'd expect it to still eat your data. Just not as quickly as it did before.

Is it possible that your friend isn't aware that their phone is jumping on wifi? Or maybe using more data than they realized?

[Anonymous]

fyi here is a link saying that you can't choose what quality you want the foxnow app to stream as. (looks like it's from 9/10/2015)

https://ask.fox.com/hc/en-us/articles/206170740-Why-can-t-I-switch-between-High-Definition-and-Standard-Definition-

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:like the posts above mentioned, I'd guess that you were watching it in high definition. I think some sites automatically choose the version based on your connection speed. Not sure if you're able to choose what version you want.

I'd also guess that the people on your gym are using the gym's wifi to stream but you'd have to double check with them.

OP here, will check quality setting but I think the free apps from networks don't have that. I know my buddy was not using wifi at gym; we go to same gym and there is no wifi and we had explicitly talked about using cellular.

Ask your buddy, and I would ask the gym again if they have a wifi, I find it strange a gym wouldn't have one. And if you have Comcast xfinity, you can use xfinity hotspots. Maybe your gym is in a hotspot you can use. Take your phone or tablet, whatever you are using, to the gym and search what wifi is available.