Google Fi gobbling up my data?

VPN
1

My plan period reset two days ago. When it reset, I had my wife reset her cellular data usage so we could figure out what she was using so much data on. I have a Samsung and my wife has an iPhone. We have been basically joined at the hip for the last 2 days. My Google Fi application has used 0.3 MB of data in that time. Her Google Fi app has used 208 MB.

208 MB is 5x greater than the next app’s usage.

I thought at first the 208 was representing all of the data sent through Fi, but all of the other data added together only equals 103 MB.

The support representative has been most unhelpful after 45 minutes of chatting, so thought I’d check here to see if anyone else has encountered this problem and found an actual resolution.

2

Google Fi VPN uses 10% more data then if it was off

3

If you go to your account page on Fi (https://fi.google.com/account), do you see her phone having used that 0.2 GB of data (plus whatever else her phone used)? I am not sure if it is the same for iPhones, but my Android phone has a total amount of data used, plus I can see a daily breakdown.

I wonder if there is a chance that the Fi app on the iPhone is reporting all of its network data, SMS/MMS, VoLTE calling, etc. Hopefully, someone familiar with Fi on iPhone will know.

4

Not sure if this is related, but my phone started using a small amount of mobile data daily even if I’m on WiFi all day. My husband’s phone acts much the same but he will have some days with zero mobile data usage. Not sure where the usage is coming from. Both Pixel 4as. This started maybe 8-10 months ago. Before that, if we stayed on WiFi we would have zero mobile usage.

5

This may or may not be the reason, though I have seen this on my post-paid AT&T service. Samsung is able to view month-month data usage, it can be reset personally. Whereas iPhone though it may look to be month-month does not reset in the same way. You are seeing an overall usage amount.

Hoping this helps if at all, good luck!

6

If you use their VPN, ALL CELLULAR DATA shows up as the app using said data…

7

Hi u/tmfink10,

It looks like you’re tryin a few troubleshooting steps shared by the community here, but if this issue persists we’d be happy to check this out for you.

Feel free to DM us your case ID if you’d like more help.

-Justin

8

Thanks for the reply. Her device shows 0.25 GB. I attributed the discrepancy to a difference in when we hit reset and when the plan actually rolled over, and likely some in rounding because my calculations show she should be at 0.32 if all was perfect.

9

One thing that I noticed was that Google Fi had the VPN on. I’m testing disabling that for a day to see if that changes the usage.

10

That was one of my theories. If true though, the Fi data usage should equal the sum of all other data usage, or equal half of total. Neither of those are true though.

There could be other things at work here though, so I’m going to keep testing. If it is the VPN (which I turned off for today) then I would expect to see Fi usage be low but her data usage to remain high. If her usage is high and Fi is high then it must not be the VPN

11

I have an iPhone as well, and had the same issue.

Google Fi’s usage kept increasing to the tune of 574MB without even opening the app.

After turning off VPN, it hasn’t increased at all, but I’m also using my Wi-Fi aggressively — I’ll truly find out tomorrow if VPN is the culprit.

12

VPN causes iOS to double report usage. Once form the actual app and once from the VPN app. The usage in the Fi app is accurate.