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Using a lot of data in 2 days...

A

aaronchow

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 29, 2007
164
9
I bought an iPhone for my father two days ago so I am able to track his whereabouts. When I came to visit him today, my father proudly showed me what he has done: streaming YouTube over 3G for 2 days and replying emails to his oversea friends with SMS (it really takes a genius to figure this one out...).

My father is very afraid of technology. I bought him a computer long time ago but it took months of encouragement before he sent his first email. So when I bought him an iPhone, I encouraged him to "play with it" after I set up his phone, but somehow he was able to disable the WiFi and start streaming YouTube, so I am expecting a really big bill... ><

I tried to call AT&T but their customer service center is closed, and I am hoping that AT&T will allow me to set some kind of data cap on my father's data plan (fingers crossed). If not, then I will probably hide the YouTube app so that my father won't be able to use it...
 
Last edited:
miles01110 said:
Great story. Start a blog about it. Were you actually asking a question?
Click to expand...

I am just venting more than asking a question. I really can't do anything until tomorrow morning to see how much the bill is going to be. /s
 
aaronchow said:
I am just venting more than asking a question. I really can't do anything until tomorrow morning to see how much the bill is going to be. /s
Click to expand...

You might have some luck if you explain the situation and keep asking for people's supervisors when you're on the phone, but I don't believe AT&T has any mechanism for actually capping data usage.

You could also check out the iPhone Configuration Utility from Apple. It's a pseudo-enterprise management tool that allows you to place some restrictions on apps, etc. although I don't believe it goes down as far as disallowing Youtube on 3G. Might be worth a shot, though.
 
I will try. If not, I will disable his 3G so that his phone will run on edge only... Thanks
 
aaronchow said:
I bought an iPhone for my father two days ago so I am able to track his whereabouts. When I came to visit him today, my father proudly showed me what he has done: streaming YouTube over 3G for 2 days and replying emails to his oversea friends with SMS (it really takes a genius to figure this one out...).

My father is very afraid of technology. I bought him a computer long time ago but it took months of encouragement before he sent his first email. So when I bought him an iPhone, I encouraged him to "play with it" after I set up his phone, but somehow he was able to disable the WiFi and start streaming YouTube, so I am expecting a really big bill... ><

I tried to call AT&T but their customer service center is closed, and I am hoping that AT&T will allow me to set some kind of data cap on my father's data plan (fingers crossed). If not, then I will probably hide the YouTube app so that my father won't be able to use it...
Click to expand...

i know you are able to disable apps in settings. Disable youtube. Or tell him not to watch youtube. Has he actually used all his data? go to settings - general-usage to find out :)
 
wrinkster22 said:
i know you are able to disable apps in settings. Disable youtube. Or tell him not to watch youtube. Has he actually used all his data? go to settings - general-usage to find out :)
Click to expand...

I got in touch with AT&T and was told that my bill will be around $400. It is not as bad as I thought. My father only uses about 5GB of data, but it is the SMS/MMS that piles up the bill. They are like $2 per message when you send one oversea, and they can not and will not put a cap on the plan, which sucks.

My father doesn't understand the difference between text messaging and emailing, so I kindly told my father not to use that app at all and show him the proper way to reply to an email, and I told him not to turn off the WiFi as well.

In his mind, YouTube = Entire Internet. So I will have to spend some time showing him around the net and hopefully he will have hobbies other than watching videos. Wish me luck /s
 
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