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Personal Hotspot uses more data?

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If an iPhone is used as a personal hotspot to transfer data to a MacBook or iPad, does it consume more data than if the phone was used to surf the net per se?
 

chscag

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No. From my personal experience using a "hotspot" when my internet connection service was down, the amount of data that I consumed was no different than if I had been using the device directly. Of course you need to take into consideration what exactly you'll be doing when using the "hotspot". Downloading files and watching YouTube videos will consume data rather quickly.
 
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I surely hope so, hotspot I find is really useful.
Does anyone else want to additionally support that good claim?
 

Raz0rEdge

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Let's just clarify things to make sure we are talking about the same thing. Turning your iPhone into a hotspot makes it an access point for your computers and other devices..

So if you wanted to download 1MB file from the Internet and you were on your home network (Wired or Wireless), that's the amount you download. If you use the iPhone hotspot, you are STILL only downloading 1MB.

However, the difference is that you are using your data allocation (if you any any) on your iPhone plan. So obviously if you are only using the iPhone on the Internet, its data usage is one thing, but the moment you make it a hotspot, you are definitely using more data because that's what you wanted when you enabled the hotspot.
 
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Just to confirm...

Scenerio 1: Using iPhone to watch a music video clip on YouTube.

Scenario 2: Using the iPhone as an internet port for my MacBook and watching the same video clip as scenario 1 on my MacBook.

You are saying that scenario 2 uses more data?

The reason why I am asking is because it seems to be the case when I turn hotspot on in my iPhone and transferring the internet to my iPad/MacBook. However, in reality, I do no use hotspot for watching video clips. I only browse websites. Yet on the day that I use hotspot to simply browse webpages, my internet usage increases substantially.
 

Raz0rEdge

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Both scenarios are using the same amount of data traffic for that particular music/clip. However, if your computer was doing anything else on the Internet as well, that gets routed through the iPhone..

For a specific action there is no difference. But these days the computers/smart devices seldom only access the Internet when you specifically request them to, theres a lot of stuff happening in the background that uses the data as well..
 
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Perhaps it updates software but...I've noticed this bigger than average consumption on many occasions that rules out the possibility that my Mac updates that frequently.
 

Raz0rEdge

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Run Surplus Meter on your Mac and you'll see all the traffic that is going on on the system..
 

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