How can I monitor and manage my data usage on the HTC Aria?

August 3, 2010 12:14 PM

How can I monitor and manage my data usage on my HTC Aria with Android 2.1?

So I just got myself an HTC Aria, running Android 2.1, and I've got AT&T's 2-gig-a-month data plan. But somehow I've used over 400 kilobytes of it in the past few hours, and I haven't even done anything! I'm sure there are processes running in the background that I don't know about, eating up my data usage. As a newbie, what are settings I can adjust, steps I can take or habits I can develop to ensure that this phone only uses my data supply when I want it to?

posted by Faint of Butt to Technology (5 answers total)

Best answer: The big thing that can happen in the background with an android phone are the auto-sync and background data pulls. These can both be turned off in the Accounts and sync settings menu. You might also want to switch on wifi whenever you are in the house, as all of your data usage will go through that.

I wouldn't worry terribly though, because:

A) Normal usage shouldn't get you over 2GBs. I barely use 2GB on the worst of months, and I'm in the extreme end of data usage, given that I browse the web, stream music, and tether like a fiend. Last month I was on the road for several days, with my phone as my only Internet, and my total was only a little over a 1GB.

B) This might be the initial push of data down. When you first sign in with an android phone, it downloads all of your google contacts and gmail. I could easily see that as the cause of the initial download of information.
posted by zabuni at 12:44 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

You can use a data counter widget.
posted by subtle-t at 12:59 PM on August 3, 2010

I have the same phone and data plan. Get the 3G Watchdog app, and APNAndroid if you want it to automatically shut off 3G when you exceed or are near your quota. For what it's worth, I use Pandora streaming all the time, and navigation whenever I drive, and I'm just on track to use up my allowance by the end of the billing cycle.
posted by halogen at 1:03 PM on August 3, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions! I've got things under control now.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:39 PM on August 4, 2010

Netcounter is a nice, free data usage monitor. It tracks wifi and 3G data separately and gives you daily, weekly, and monthly running totals.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:55 AM on September 3, 2010