High Data Usage

Data Usage
9

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

10

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

11

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.

12

Hi @David_Gruskin,

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

14

attempting to save data not to fix things

15

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

16

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

18

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

19

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.

20

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.

21

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?

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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

22

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.

23

Got it, I think our data usage analytics are categorizing the traffic over your TLC Roku TV as if it was 3 separate devices.

If you are using Hulu in your Roku TV, adjusting the settings within the Roku platform might help. Below you can find some instructions that appear in this forum article: How do I manually set video quality at streaming video sites?

24

I don’t know how many times I have to tell you I am not using a streaming stick I am using a Roku TV. I cannot even tell you how many times I have been to settings. There are no settings for the roku tv to reduce data. I also checked the site you sent me. Including 6 pages of posts about roku eating data were eventually a Roku moderator came on with something to shut your STREAMING STICK off after 4 hours of inactivity, but that isn’t the issue. Viasat is the issue. I have used over 2 gigs today without turning the TV on. That never happened before April 1. Something very bad happened April 1 at Viasat NOT here,

25

You are absolutely right, that does not apply to Roku TVs, I apologize. I will reach out to my colleagues and see if they can think of a workaroud to save data on Huly using a Roku TV.

Regarding the unexpected data usage you describe above: Have you tried using Viasat Shield? One of its features is to track usage by device. It shows any devices that have been connected to the network over the past 7 days, as well as their usage as a percentage relative to the total usage during that time. You can download the version for iPhone here: ‎Viasat Shield on the App Store

That could help us pinpoint the devices where we see the issues, so that we can come up with strategies to optimize your data usage.

Thanks for your patience.

26

Please the issue is not here. It is what did Viasat do on April 1? Also on April 1 Viasat removed the ability to see the usage by device on the Viasat app. All devices are using much more data than before. I have to be careful to turn on computer to make plans for my first vacation in over three years. This is disgusting. This was all planned out by Viasat. Including this game of acting like something is wrong at the user’s end. You know that.

29

Hi David,

We’re really sorry for your bad experience. A couple things:

  • We are not aware of “Also on April 1 Viasat removed the ability to see the usage by device on the Viasat app.” but are asking the app team about it and will let you know what we find.

  • I do see multiple hours with ~2.4 GB of usage on Sunday that would correspond to the Hulu Live Formula 1 you mentioned. Note: Hulu Live Streams require more data than recorded programs.

We are still trying to figure out the best suggestion for you to manage your Hulu video quality and are very sorry we haven’t come up with anything that works for you yet.

Thanks,

Peter

30

I just checked data usage today is heading towards 2 gig with no streaming. Just minimal computer internet surfing. This is averaging over 2 gig a day. This was not the case before the April surprise. That is over 60 gig a month on a 100 gig plan and unconscionable just for basic internet use. My wife is not home today and I have been outside working most of the day, not on the computer.

31

While we work towards some solution for video quality control of Hulu, we also need to continue to figure out what is consuming your data when you are not even streaming any video. We have some issues on our end with our usage analysis tooling that we are sorting out so we do hope to make some progress on this today.

32

Hi, @David_Gruskin,

I just noticed we ended up not giving you the usage report when you mentioned the unknown 2GB/day usage, sorry for that. I think that happened because you started with the data saver and perhaps we thought your usage issues would be solved.

I’m going to get your usage report for the last and the current billing cycle and send you a direct message.

With the data at hand, we can better check what is happening.