High Data Usage

[Nacho]

Creating a new topic to troubleshoot this post:

@David_Gruskin

On April 1 my Data usage went sky high. I have the Gold 50 plan which is supposed to be 100 GB up to 50 Mbps. I have always had a difficult time making the data last through a month even with data extender. Now it is impossible to watch TV and get through half a month. Also I did several speed checks including Viasat’s that say my download speed is over 150 Mpbs. Is this part of the issue?? Another misunderstanding is you cannot adjust the data use with HULU for TV, that might work on mobile, not TV. Hulu has a site like this were customers are complaining and quoting Hulu because of that. I cannot afford to continue to pay for something I cannot use. Please help solve this problem.

[Nacho]

Hello @David_Gruskin,

I created this new topic to troubleshoot your issue. I have a few questions:

• Is it ok if I take a look at your data usage in our system?
• What kind of TV/TV setup do you have?

Regarding this question you have (below), the high speeds are not related to high data consumption, so that shouldn’t be the problem.

@David_Gruskin

I did several speed checks including Viasat’s that say my download speed is over 150 Mpbs. Is this part of the issue??

[Nacho]

Quoting your latest post on the original thread here so that we don’t lose any info:

@David_Gruskin

Also, you cannot adjust video quality for Amazon Prime for TV either. The Viasat data extender is the best solution for those that want to use it and keep Viasat.

[David_Gruskin]

You can take a look at it, it seems all data usage went up April 1 and I severely limited use after the first few days. TV use is the real high use, but it seems if not careful can use 2gig just internet and phone before the tv which was not happening prior. I have a TCL Roku TV.

[Nacho]

Hi @David_Gruskin,

Do you know what this “Unknown” device (below) could be? It consumed 23% of your data in the current billing cycle.

I will continue to look at your data usage report and might have some more questions soon.

[David_Gruskin]

No, and I mentioned that when I 1st called in. The only thing I can think of is the new McBook I got on April 1 and the update used 15Gb and I didn’t use it again until the other day for a few minutes. Maybe the update is unknown?

[Nacho]

Hi @David_Gruskin,

I can see a Macintosh device that used about 5 GBs in a software update on April 1. So that’s not this this “Unknown” device.

According to the report I ran, this “Unknown” device is consuming data in the form of Real Time Entertainment (which means video streaming). The last time I see considerable consumption from it is last Tuesday night, right after some consumption on your Roku. Does that ring a bell?

I am usually able to run a report by app, that could help us better identify this traffic (maybe point at a particular video streaming platform), but my report is broken at the moment. I will try again tomorrow.

Thanks for your patience.

[Nacho]

@David_Gruskin, for now, since you are out of priority data, we will add some free-of-charge data. I hope that helps while we continue to troubleshoot this issue.

[Leo]

Hi @David_Gruskin ,

We’ve added 30GB of high-speed data to your account. You might see this reflected on your bill, but please rest assured that we’ve also credited your account with the same value so there will be no change to your bill’s final value.

Thanks,
Leonardo

[David_Gruskin]

Hi @David_Gruskin ,

We’ve added 30GB of high-speed data to your account. You might see this reflected on your bill, but please rest assured that we’ve also credited your account with the same value so there will be no change to your bill’s final value.

Thanks,
Leonardo

[David_Gruskin]

Thanks for that, but changes were made to my account on your end on April 1, most notably elimination of Data Extender, and most likely other things because I have basically been unable to enjoy my service in April. I even turn the modem off a lot. There have been no changes on my end. I am retired and although my income is probably higher than most people in my zip code I cannot afford to continue to pay for something that doesn’t even provide a basic service. Even before the changes I couldn’t get to the end of the month without running out of data. With the my normal minimal usage prior to the change I would run out of data in less than 2 weeks.

[Nacho]

Hi @David_Gruskin,

@David_Gruskin

I even turn the modem off a lot.

By this above, do you mean that you reboot the modem due to issues with the experience (ex. slow speeds)? Or do you turn off the modem in an attempt to save data?

Thanks,

Nacho

[David_Gruskin]

attempting to save data not to fix things

[Peter]

Sure. It will help us get the feature back if we can fix the problems it had. But if you never experienced pausing/buffering then for you it will just be old VDE and will help us to know that you had no issues.

Thanks,

Peter

[Nacho]

Hi @David_Gruskin,

I see another appearance of the “unknown” device yesterday, it seems to have been consuming data in the form of “real time entertainment”. Do you recall doing any form of video streaming between 7-8am and 1-3pm yesterday? What device could that be?

Thanks,

Nacho

[David_Gruskin]

If that was Sunday it was the TV. 7am watching Formula 1 may have also had it on IMac for a while

[David_Gruskin]

thanks for giving the times we may have figured out what unknown is, during those times i was watching espn on hulu on tv which i haven’t been doing much in april because there is no way to limit data on hulu for tv.

[David_Gruskin]

don’t know how this resolves my issue, but to clarify it was espn on live tv on hulu. I think i watched a series later that day on hulu that was not live that i assume did not show up as unknown.

[Nacho]

Hi @David_Gruskin,

So just to confirm, you have a TLC TV, another TV (the one that appears as Unknown), and a Roku device that you sometimes use on your TVs?

I believe Hulu has a “data saver” feature that can be turned on in the settings. If you tell us what kind of TV this “Unknown” one is, we can do some research about how to enable it.

Thanks,

Nacho

[David_Gruskin]

I only have the TCL TV it is a roku tv. No other tv. Hulu DOES NOT HAVE any type of data saver device that can be accessed in settings by tv users. Hulu users are raging about this on the internet. That is totally false. Sign on to hulu on your tv and try it. You can do it on Apple tv+ and Disney + and apparently Netflix but I had just cancelled Netflix days prior to Viastat stealing my data so I cannot verify that.