I believe that my ATT micro-cell has been the cause of excessive cellular data usage.
I've been experimenting and testing a couple of different video surveillance apps on my IOS devices and may have learned something about our micro-cell. It appears that my phone will choose the micro-cell over the wifi connection even when the wifi is signal is plenty strong enough for service.
I first noticed the problem when my cell data usage spiked up recently. On further snooping I found that one of my video cam apps was using a large portion of the data. This particular app call OWLR for Foscam switches automatically between the wifi/LAN address for the cam and the WAN/gateway address for the cam presumably depending on which signal is stronger. I suspect that it is choosing the micro cell signal over the wifi signal even when in close proximity to the wifi access point. This is not good because the micro-cell is billed as cell data. Or maybe the app connects to the WAN first and does a fail-over to wifi which is still not good.
I further learned that the micro cell was the cause of a lot of my problems with connecting to my elk XEP when in my yard. My iphone seemed to be having trouble choosing between wifi and cell service when in close proximity to both like when I'm in my back yard. I cured my elk connection problems by simply turning off cell service whenever on the property.
So heads up if you use a micro-cell. It may be costing you more than you know.
Mike.
I've been experimenting and testing a couple of different video surveillance apps on my IOS devices and may have learned something about our micro-cell. It appears that my phone will choose the micro-cell over the wifi connection even when the wifi is signal is plenty strong enough for service.
I first noticed the problem when my cell data usage spiked up recently. On further snooping I found that one of my video cam apps was using a large portion of the data. This particular app call OWLR for Foscam switches automatically between the wifi/LAN address for the cam and the WAN/gateway address for the cam presumably depending on which signal is stronger. I suspect that it is choosing the micro cell signal over the wifi signal even when in close proximity to the wifi access point. This is not good because the micro-cell is billed as cell data. Or maybe the app connects to the WAN first and does a fail-over to wifi which is still not good.
I further learned that the micro cell was the cause of a lot of my problems with connecting to my elk XEP when in my yard. My iphone seemed to be having trouble choosing between wifi and cell service when in close proximity to both like when I'm in my back yard. I cured my elk connection problems by simply turning off cell service whenever on the property.
So heads up if you use a micro-cell. It may be costing you more than you know.
Mike.