Sprint has sent me 2 letters complaining of my excessive data usage via phone as a modem.....

[Lance Theaderman]

The first time it happened, I was using it everyday for about a year strait. I got the letter in the mail. I decided it was time to get Broadband service via the cable company. I turned that phone off as it had a broken screen and was not usable outside of 

being used for a modem. Fast forward about 7 mths later. A storm took out my home internet connection. So i use my wife's phone for 3 days via KLINK. She then gets a letter a few days later.  So am I on a watch list or something? or has KLINK easy for Sprint

to see in use these days? Pity......I like using it at work for mu laptop(I am an auto tech) so it is really handy. I just do not want to loose my Sprint service......as they threatened to close my phone lines/data down if I did not cease useage or buy there tether program.

Any thoughts???? 

[Kevin Ko]

Hi, Lance.

I think that it's more likely a matter of how much data one uses within a certain time period.  A few things come to mind:

If you inadvertently roam to another carrier's tower, your carrier will be particularly picky despite any "unlimited" verbiage.  Sprint will apparently complain after a few hundred MB of roaming data usage and has been known to send warning letters regarding this:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1737760

Streaming music (Pandora, Spotify, etc.) and video (Youtube and Netflix) are also extremely popular and will eat up data in no time.

For example, Netflix usage is (https://support.netflix.com/en/node/87):

Good quality: 0.3GB/hour 

Better quality: 0.7GB/hour

Best quality: 1GB/hour and 2.8GB/hour with HD.

If your connection is particularly fast, Netflix will ratchet up to Best Quality mode automatically.  This could raise some alarms with just a couple hours of viewing.  5+GB of data consumption in a couple of hours is a lot of usage and would probably create problems within a day or two.

Similar data usage is found with Youtube and other streaming video.

There are ways to force lower-quality modes.  Often times, however, this must be done manually.  With Netflix, one can go to the above link, and set the quality to a lower mode.  With Youtube, choose a lower quality mode (e.g., 240p)  when viewing the video.

Other things on a computer can eat up data, too.  Sometimes spyware can find its way onto a computer.  In some cases, that garbage can consume data in the background.  It's worth checking the data meter on your device, within Klink, or on your computer to see if it is moving up more quickly than expected.

In general though, Sprint has been known to flag down heavy users:

http://www.timehat.com/sprint-truly-unlimited-data-really/

and activities like media streaming and heavy downloading can hit any unmentioned rules very quickly.

Note that if you configure Youtube to use the HTML5 player (http://www.youtube.com/html5), use Chrome, and set the flash plugin to "Click to play", your activity will look very similar to that of the Android Chrome browser.  

Also, if you use Klink in conjunction with a VPN service like AnchorFree's free Hotspot Shield app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=hotspotshield.android.vpn&hl=en) or some pay service like Private Internet Access (https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/), your activity will be completely hidden, and only absolute data usage numbers can be determined.  In this example, run AnchorFree's app first; then run Klink.  When doing this, all traffic will be encrypted and routed securely between your computer to the VPN provider, which will then relay things to the internet.

Kevin

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