We both have iPhone 15’s, and normally our Verizon, shared, 6 Gb data plan is fine, but earlier this month we got a warning we were close to the limit, I didn’t think to look, find out why, but today, on the last day of the period, we went over, 6.03 Gb… And they hit me with a $20 charge for an additional Gb… Looking online, my number was 1.6 Gb, but the DW’s was enough to take it over that 6 Gb limit! Looking at her iPhone, i saw that her Hot Spot was turned ON! Turned it off, changed that password, but still have no idea how or when it got turned on, she never digs in even that deep, and I hadn’t messed with it for quite a while, so all I can think is that an earlier Update must have set it on as the default… Irritating oversight, for sure… Checked mine, it was Off, as it should be… So just a warning to be aware of, if not on an unlisted Plan!
Yes, I use the Hotspot rarely, maybe once or twice a year, tops. And several months ago I found it “on” for no apparent reason. Like you, I suspect something with an update, but since I don’t know when it happened, can’t know for sure.
I didn’t cost me anything, but it was odd, certainly.
As we’re on a limited plan, it doesn’t make any sense to use it, friends, family all have Wifi in their homes, so no reason to ever use it, really… When I git the note that we were close to the limit, I should have checked both iPhones and it would have popped up that it was her iPhone… and I saw where it was only 6.02 Gb on the last day of the cycle, so a bit of strangeness as far as who might have been tapping in, as it did have a password… Very odd…
Just went to the VZ Store talked to them. I could gp to an unlimited ‘welcome plan’, but even going to auto-pay it only saves a few bucks, but would add unlimited data… So we’ll let it slide for now, rather than tie it to our bank account… Maybe a better deal will come along…
You may not be interested in doing this, but you can back up your iphone on your pc using itunes…doc
Actually, my iPhone is updated every night as I plug it into my Mac mini overnight to charge, as well as backing up… But that’s all unrelated to the data usage problem that came up, apparently due to my DW’s iPhone becoming a personal hot spot somehow… That is still a mystery, both are updated to the latest iOS 26.5, now both have the hot spot turned off, and anyway it’s password protected…
So, still a mystery… I should go look into he Apple discussion boards, haven’t checked there yet. maybe others had a similar problem…
I did post the situation on the Apple Discussion boards, one answer so far was to check the VZ Cellular Usage: “You can open Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data > Show All and see by app what used data and how much.”
Well that led to further questions as it shows an undefined ‘Current Period’ when DW’s has 120 Gb & mine shows 145 Gb! So that has to be more than a year, and is opposite of this month’s overrun! Weird… I discovered I had Cellular Data Roaming on, but again, that/mine wasn’t the cause…
Still a mystery…
This is one reason I like TMobile. When we go over, they shift us down to slower internet at no cost. No charges add up without us noticing. We can choose to pay for more fast GB until the month ends, or not, usually not. I just pretend I’m back on my 300 baud modem. It’s very nice when traveling and away from wifi for a bit when the phone might eat up our GB without us noticing.
Well, we’ve been with Verizon for 23 years now, ever since the release of their VDMA version of the iPhone, waited for it as at work with WeCo/Lucent, we built up the old GTE/verizon system locally bringing them into the CDMA world, later to the LTE, as I was about to retire in '02… Of all the companies we did work for, VZ had the best, savviest techs out in the field, they kept growing their system even as others stopped during the telecom meltdown. We had other handhelds, bag phones on the job, testing what we worked on as well as just work chatter… Traveling, I knew VZ had all the older, better, sites, so better coverage overall… So we sick with them, the Store folks have always been good as well… Anyway, I’m not flipping to another carrier, just will wait on a better ‘Plan’ offer than I see now, without giving out an access to our banking…
We’ll see how this next period goes, normally we don’t come close to using our Plan limits, so something ate it up, nothing we know of, so far, nor do I see how that Hot Spot ever got turned on…
weco
A rather timely article out today, although it didn’t alert us that DW’s Hot Spot was On, when it shouldn’t have been…
I think “current period” is defined as “since the last time you clicked on ‘reset data statistics’ (or whatever they call it now)” near the bottom of that menu.
I also like T-mo for that reason. But on my old plan, there’s also something called “data stash” where some unused data can be carried forward, up to 20GB I think, and used in a later period. To complicate things further, T-mo granted unlimited to some of my lines many years ago, so some lines have unlimited, and some lines have 10GB (plus the use of data stash data as necessary).