[SOLVED] [USB tethering] Abnormal data surge

[littlebigman]

Hello,

This is the second time I get a warning from my phone because I'm reaching the limit on the amount of data I get to use through my cellphone plan.

Since I did nothing special — I always connect to wifi at home when either updating apps or downloading maps for GPS offline use —, I suspect it's Windows (10) mistakenly using that connection instead of Ethernet after I enabled USB tethering to sync EPIM.

Has someone else experienced the same issue and could confirm/infirm that guess?

If that's indeed the problem, it's apparently possible to configure either Android or Windows so that the Internet connection can only be used by such and such app.

In the meantime, I disabled "Mobile data" in Android, and will just enable it when I need to access the Net. Alternatively, disable USB tethering right after syncing with EPIM.

Thank you.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidQuestio ... hering_to/
https://android.stackexchange.com/quest ... data-usage
https://blog.paoloamoroso.com/2020/02/h ... hered.html

[littlebigman]

Happened again after I synced and forgot to turn it off :-/

If someone knows of an Android utility that turns off USB tethering automatically after x minutes of no-use…

[littlebigman]

It doesn't explain why some application(s) in Windows mistakenly use the USB tethering connection instead of Ethernet, but I just noticed that, on my older phone running Android 9 at least, after syncing with EPIM and turning off USB tethering… it turns itself back on! I had no reason to go back to Settings > Connection and sharing to double-check.

So, until that issue is solved, either physically unplug the USB cable to turn off tethering, or sync over wifi instead.

[littlebigman]

Since I experienced yet another occurence because I forgot about it and left the phone plugged in after syncing EPIM over USB… I got to the end of it, and found the answer: By default, Windows will use that USB connection to reach the Net, effectively eating your data plan real fast

Three solutions:

• Sync over wifi
• Before hooking up the phone to Windows through USB, disable its data connection… and remember to re-enable it after disabling USB tethering — a macro can probably automate the process
• Edit the interfaces' connection priority order so that Windows will use your wired or wifi connection to reach the Net before even trying the USB connection.

HTH,