No changes in data intensive activity, no gamers. Only change is went to Hulu Streaming TV and dropped Xfinity Cable TV.

that isn’t no change in data activity. thats a big change. Streaming tv can burn a lot of data. Streaming 4k can use 7 gig an hour. Pretty easy to chew through an extra 800 gig if you’re streaming 4k. roughly 100-120hours of tv. Which only works out to 3-4 hours a day. And if you have more than 1 device streaming, it can really add up. 

Plemans:

Thanks, I appreciate the reply. I’m new to investigating data usage.

I was suspicious that streaming was eating up that additional data, but during a call to Xfinity about it, an agent said streaming didn’t use much data. You can see why I was confused and went to this forum.

I love when agents are bad at their job :)

lol. 

Yes, streaming can use a lot of data. For reference:

480p streaming: doesn’t use much data. 0.3-1.2 gig an hour.  You could stream 24/7 on a single device and not hit your cap (but looks like garbage)

1080P: burns 1-3.5 gig an hour of depending on quality of the 1080p. Roughly  9-20 hours a day to hit a 1tb cap. 

4k: 7-10gig an hour. roughly 3-5 hours a day will hit a 1tb cap. 

Those are just numbers for a single streaming device. If you’ve got multiple, then its even less. many services such as amazon/netflix dynamically change the quality of the streaming depending on your speeds. You might have been only streaming 1080p on a lower speed tier and when it bumped up to faster, they upped the speed to 4k for your device because it could handle it. and then it uses more data. 

If you’re on xfinity and you want to stay with streaming services you have 4 options. 

1. pay for unlimited data. Costs an extra $50 a month
2. Rent their Xfi gateway for $25 a month. It has unlimited data
3. Limit your streaming or track your usage through their app so you know how much you can use a day
4. Stop streaming from a service and get an antenna. I have an OTA antenna that runs to a media server I built. I can download shows/movies and stream them off my server using plex to my tvs. I can also record shows using the OTA antenna. A bit more of a buy in and takes a bit more knowledge. 

Thanks very much Plemans for your concise, easy to understand reply.  I learn pretty quickly when show the facts of what’s going on. And, you’ve shed some valuable light on this.