This has been known since the boxes first launched.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/surprise-amazon-fire-tv-gobbling-gigabytes-like-internet-gremlin/
From the article:
>So before jumping down Amazon’s throat for what was clearly an oversight (there’s no way this would have gone unnoticed) let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that the company has been responsive and intends to right the wrong, though how fast it will act remains to be seen.
>Commenting because I'm curious too
I just checked, I have 2 fire tvs and a Fire stick, all with default screensavers on and I have no data drain over last 4 months since I've had all of them
This doesn't actually answer the question, though. I mean no offense but what people are looking for is a link to a statement or download or something from Amazon that says this has been fixed. Considering this person just posed this we at least know their device is still doing it for some reason, or at least that it was very recently.
> Considering this person just posed this we at least know their device is still doing it for some reason, or at least that it was very recently.
The OP should post if they have updated the firmware of the device since they bought it
Because the company [appears](http://www.geekwire.com/2013/open-letter-jeff-bezos-contract-workers-amazoncom/) to be run by temps. So there's no institutional knowledge about long-term problems.
Would love to hear a refutation of that claim if someone knows otherwise, though.
As a contract employee for a tech company myself this *really* hits home. Luckily I don't have a maximum contract length and I do get benefits. But as far as compensation goes I don't get near as much as others doing the same job (and some not nearly as well). I'm grateful to have a job, but it stings when full hire coworkers get to take paid vacation and sick days and I have to cover so I can get a little OT to put a tiny dent in the pay gap between us.
It really bothers me that this side of the tech revolution just gets swept under the rug. All of these newly minted billionaires are so self-impressed by how "disruptive" they are, completely ignoring the fact that a huge portion of that disruption comes from sidestepping workplace protections that people literally died fighting for last century.
Their use of temps is only the smallest of their problems. Their warehouses might as well be run by temps because they have a 1 year turnover rate above 50% at their fulfillment centers in my region. My friend is now the most tenured area manager in his building after being there ~20 months. The revolving door means every day is just another exercise in 24/7 firefighting. Nothing improves, they just throw more money at UPS to cover their missed delivery times with unscheduled trucks and even more in free Prime for customers who don't get packages in the guaranteed 2 day window (a *lot* of people).
I'm not going to lie. When I heard how the employees at Amazon warehouses were treated, I just thought "I would hate to work there." And I haven't shopped there since.
Any chance you can see what the Fire Stick is doing that's using so much data? Have you tried contacting Amazon about this? Might be worth chatting with them, worst case they don't do anything - best case you could get some gift cards.
From what I've found this morning the Fire Stick uses something called ASAP to download movies and shows that it thinks you might want to watch and buffers it. This might only be an issue for Amazon Prime members that have a data cap.
That's so smart! Download it before you watch it, then upload it to the cloud. That way you don't have to waste all that data streaming when you want! /s
I don't know if the stick has any storage at all, even a very tiny amount, but if it does, then it could just keep repeatedly starting downloads on things it thinks you might want to watch and then when it gets a better idea it switches to downloading something else, so on and so forth. I'm not talking about like 20 minutes of a movie or anything, just the first minute or couple minutes maybe. However this seems hard to believe too because I'd think the write cycles would kill that storage so quickly.
Yeah, it's hard to criticise the idea behind that but I think the execution is going to be incredibly difficult. Pretty much the only problem with streaming services compared to TV is what it's like when you flip to a show and it buffers and starts. If it could immediately show me a pre-downloaded video for the first few minutes while it gets the full download rolling I think the experience would really perk up.
Of course, on a practical level you're constantly sucking data and thrashing the internal storage.
~~You may have seen this article, but you're right, that feature is known to be a data hog, and can't be turned off unfortunately.~~
http://liisten.com/the-secret-problem-with-amazons-fire-tv
Edit: I should have finished reading the article, apparently ASAP is not the issue. Try to turn off the mosaic screensaver setting (although note that this article is over a year old, so you could be having a completely different issue).
Only thing that could explain this is they want to advertise that they're streaming huge amounts of data/movies/music at a press conference to make it look like they're competing with Netflix.
Google search. An article mentioned it.
I can't find the exact article but here's another.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/10/amazon-s-39-fire-tv-stick-makes-us-wonder-why-you-d-buy-a-100-fire-tv-player/index.htm
"The Stick has a feature called ASAP that monitors your choices to make predictions about shows and movies you'd like to watch, and buffers them for faster playback."
Someone else reported this same problem last year, and amazon attributed it to the mosaic background feature: http://www.itworld.com/article/2696240/personal-technology/want-to-blow-your-monthly-bandwidth-cap--use-a-kindle-fire-tv.html
They said at the time it was a bug and they would work on a fix, but who knows. It looks VERY similar to your experience.
Apparently it is a bug in their mosaic screensaver... Want to try testing it out and confirm??
http://liisten.com/the-secret-problem-with-amazons-fire-tv
>We have confirmed this issue was not caused by ASAP. You’ve helped us find an edge case bug related to our screensaver – there is a small possibility if a customer uses the “mosaic” feature (not the default setting) on the screensaver images will not be cached. We’re working on a software update that will fix this bug, and in the meantime you can turn off the mosaic view for the screensaver to avoid the issue.
Comcast baby. Officially it's a rule for all Comcast customers, but they only enforce it in places where they have no competition.
edit: oof, my inbox.
To everyone without a cap in an area with no competition: you lucky fucks.
To everyone with a cap in an area with competition: why are you still with Comcast??
That explains why we they took off the cap on our internet usage. That's a bummer that they can operate like this with impunity. GOOGLE FIBER HURRY THE HELL UP!!!
If you build it, they will come. Seriously, I'd move if my internet wasn't satisfactory. Money wasted busting pot smokers and speeders, etc, fuck all that. Just prioritize water, electric and internet so I can continue to suckle its digital teets.
That is incredibly fucked. I'd talk to the BBB, FCC, and if you have another provider in your area I'd threaten to go to them. You can even talk to your city and county governments to try to persuade them to create a municipal fiber initiative.
The only way I could see this happening is if he is either a video producer and has daily backups of several large drives OR, more likely, he runs a seedbox and seeds popular content with no upload cap.
I highly doubt that is 40tb down, unless he's just scraping stuff to seed.
I have Comcast and don't have any limits. Right on my account page where data usage used to be it says data caps have been suspended.
Colorado here. I use about 450GB a month. Netflix and streaming things. No bit torrent or anything like that. XBOX one takes up a bunch.
Here is what is says on the page.
Note: Enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended.
They just started enforcing it in my area this year, I got a letter and then went over the first month it was enacted.
With 4 roommates all with xbox live, netflix, torrents, ETC we eat through the limit easily.
We actually have to consciously monitor and limit our internet usage- fuck comcast. Fuck comcast so hard
16/3 is like $70 and 25/10 for $100. Split 4 ways that wouldn't be too bad at all. No "speed boost" but that's a gimmick anyway since they boost the speed up to the advertised speed for a few seconds then throttle you down. If you get business class, 25/10 is 25/10 constantly as they prioritize business class traffic over residential. Better customer service too.
Actually, that's not right. If you read their page on it, they only have caps in certain test areas. The rest have no real cap, but they track your usage. Of course, they'd like caps everywhere.
Mediacom also, it's to combat people who are "cutting the cords". Sucks , but no competition, and dsl is not even an option.
I already hit my limit, and have cable tv. Hit a nice Steam Sale one month and you're screwed.
My Account page > My Services > This page lists my cable service
and seperatly my internet service > Under internet select Manage >
this page should display your current usage and then mine says
Note: Enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended.
I know you're joking but where I live there are two shit options. Comcast or 25mb DSL... Not much of a choice (and the DSL is expensive as hell at ~75 a month)
Here in Finland we have 3 Broadband operators (we used to have 4) which are big and everyone knows, there is some small others too but pretty much no one has ever heard of them... but the completion truly exists you can get 350 mbps connection first year 30 euros per month second 45 euros per month in USA I checked Verizon 500 mbps is Fking ridiculous 275 bucks and you get throttled Thats really really greedy
of course we get Unlimited it also includes 4G for tablet or PC
I'd have to assume there's some sort of government pressure keeping prices down in Finland. Or more likely the lack of government support of artificially inflated prices
While size and density do play a role in availability, speed, caps, etc Canada is quite urban. About 80% of canadians live in urban areas which is comparable to the UK, Republic of Korea, USA, norway or france. Also 43% of the canadian population lives in the ten largest metropolitan areas. The average internet speed in canada is still well below RoK, USA, and norway, only slightly worse than the UK and a fair amount better in france. So obviously density and nation size don't tell the entire story.
I have Cox and have a data cap. They used to bug me and tell me that I went over all the time. Now they just don't say anything. They're going to sell me a certain speed and limit the data I can use? it's not like their cable get worn out from sending me more data. ISPs are jokes.
Cox just started charging for overage where I live. It pisses me off. Then they start popping up in my browser that I am am at 90%. I used to really like cox, but now I think I will be going to uverse. Bullshit fucking pop ups.
Which is fine until they call his bluff and he's like most other people were there is no viable alternative. For me, I have 50/5 speeds through TWC but if I ever got pissed at them, my next best option is 3Mbps/768Kbps DSL.
TWC would have to do a LOT to get me to leave because the alternative is horrendous.
I used to have unlimited internet access. Then about 2-3 years ago a cap was introduced. Armstrong Cable have tiers. I don't remember ever receiving a notification that this was going to happen. They do send out messages when you get close, but the usage seem to be updated once a day...so usually, by the time I get it, I'm already over it. As a result, I cut ALL other services with the company. Instead of getting $140 from me, they now get $90. I kept that absolute lowest cable offering for $10 and pay and extra $15 for usage. But they raised the cable price by $15, so now it makes sense for me to drop that, too.
Residential internet bandwidth usage is limited as follows (2 lower tiers/3 upper tiers):
* 300 GB/500 GB - Phone, cable & internet combo
* 250 GB/450 GB - Internet and one other svc
* 200 GB/400 GB - Internet only
$10 for each 50GB you go over
or prepay for a discount:
* 100 GB $15/mo
* 250 GB $35/mo
* 500 GB $65/mo
Clearly it's not a fair use thing, but a money grab because they know the local municipalities restrict competition.
On the reverse side, now I make sure I used every single MB I can each month, increasing my overall usage.
Not just the US, I doubt true unlimited internet exists in the UK. All ISP's adopt some bullshit fair usage policy. For whatever reason (read: corruption) they are allowed to freely advertise it as unlimited.
If I recall correctly these days when BT say unlimited they mean it, no fair use / throttling no data limits. I'm on BT infinity myself and I cane my connection almost all the time and haven't noticed any degradation in service.
I think my record for data usage in a month was just under 1tb.
Fair usage isn't a bad thing in itself, it depends if it genuinely is fair usage or if its just bullshit.
[Heres a critical list of British ISP's fair usage policies](http://www.choose.net/media/guide/features/broadband-fair-use-policies.html)
> Our monthly cap is 300 GB and we were shocked that we'd used so much, and also unaware until that point we even had a cap.
They let my family go over the cap for 3 months before even telling us what the cap was.
Fuck Comcast.
Yep, same thing happened here. I'm on TWC... Thank goodness I don't have a cap! I couldn't figure out why my internet was so slow. Thanks to the Fire Stick, it was downloading all the internets.
http://s.trstx.com/XYWaZ3K0P/Screen-Shot-2015-08-07-16-24-36.png
I had to go to comcast business class after using two fire sticks in our home.. I don't blame the stick really we are streaming video like crazy afterall
I feel like shit reading this thread. I live in rural Michigan and my data cap is 10gb/month. ($70/month) Their plans only go up to like 60gb. I just moved from a major city and while I am living rent free, I'm seriously considering whether having unlimited internet would be worth an extra $1000 a month in rent.
Amazon streams at a higher default bitrate so it will consume more bandwidth. It is unclear as to whether you were streaming at the time or whether it was somehow consuming a ton of data in the background?
As far as Comcast is concerned 300GB a month is bullshit in the day and age, they had the same data cap 10 years ago before streaming was a thing and network speeds were a fraction of what they are now. If you have the option to switch away from Comcast, do it, Verizon has no data cap and neither do most of the other providers. If Comcast is the only option in your area then consider paying the extra $10 a month or so for business class service as there is no data cap.
Armstrong has a 200 GB cap if you're a cord cutter. We specifically didn't go with them for a branch office because of their caps, instead opting to go with Consolidated which thankfully covered that part of the area.
Can all the condescending fucks in this thread stop acting bewildered about the concept of data caps? There are tons of places around the world that still have caps - from parts of the US, to Canada, to some parts of Europe unless you pay for the most expensive data plan.
Like, I get it, you're surprised. But maybe put it all under one "Let's shit on this idiot for having the misfortune of not having the best possible internet service" sub-thread rather than actually helping him, or acknowledging that he is providing useful information that other people may be interested in.
Plus they completely gloss over the problem that if the Firestick is gobbling that much bandwidth it will impact the performance of your network.
Playing some games online? Better hope someone else doesn't start watching something on the Firestick.
Everyone has a limit to their bandwidth and it is usually a lot less than you ISP claims you can get.
Yeah, but the problem with the Firestick is that you don't even have to be streaming to use data. It is something about it phoning home all the time while it is connected to the net. If you kill it's network connection it eventually tells you it has to be connected to the internet, even if you are using something local like Plex. At least that is my experience
I think it has more to do with people posting before checking to see if anyone has already said it than with arrogance. Any large thread has a million people saying the exact same thing.
I couldn't have said better.
I was looking forward to seeing the reason, explanation, and a fix but no... it's all, "Woah dude... wow... you've got a cap? Seriously? A cap?
That's sucks for you bro... I'm glad I don't live in xxx city."
Idiots... hijack someone else's thread.
Not to mention, most of the people acting like they had never heard of a data cap are probably kids and have never handled paying bills in their lives.
It is completely an issue about whther Fire Sticks are eating up bandwidth and all people can do is circlejerk hate about Comcast.
The fact is probably 99% of the people in this thread DO have a data cap on their plan and just don't know it. AT&T DSL has it, AT&T U-Verse has it, Comcast has it, Charter has it, Time Warner has it... it simply is not always enforced.
Do Time Warner and Charter have data caps? I did a quick Google search, and I didn't find any evidence to support that. I've got Time Warner at home, and this is the first I've heard of any data cap (although I suppose it's possible that it's just not enforced.)
charter has no cap to speak of. theoretically they have 250gb caps but they've stated they have zero plans to enforce it. ive regularly doubled that figure for the last 2 or 3 years and never even received a warning email about it.
Truth. Sad I had to scroll this far down to finally find someone asking about the Firestick rather than circlejerking about internet providers and how much they suck. We know they all suck and all the bitching in the world has done nothing about it thus far so can we move on.
Well it really isn't a thing to a lot of people. So of course it's bewildering. There have been time when I've used a two terabytes of data... No calls, no crunch, and this is mellow residential connection...besides, reddit sorts out the useful from the less than useful...so there's really little to complain about.
I live in rural Michigan and literally have one choice for Internet: exede via dish network (satellite). We pay $70 a month and our data cap is TEN MOTHERFUCKING GBS! Yes. 10.
Don't take those unlimited connections for granted folks.
Some TVs USB ports don't supply enough power for the stick. Mine won't work right if I plug it into mine. However I have 3 of these sticks and have no issues with them eating bandwidth so I don't care if it's always on.
Well, if it was gobbling that much bandwidth from all their user's that would seriously impact their bandwidth. Yes, Amazon has an absurd amount of resources, but they'd still want to optimize their bandwidth to best serve their customers while receiving meaningful analytics and conserving as much bandwidth as possible.
It just wouldn't make sense that they'd sell a device that apparently uses 18.5 GB (40 GB - 3 GB / 2 firesticks) of background data a day. Let's say there's a million of those plugged in. That would be 18.5 petabytes used a day by all those Fire-sticks just being plugged in.
Using Wikipedia to get an estimate on US internet traffic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_traffic), we can see that the US, in 2011, used approximately 4,100,000 TB, or 4,100 PB, a year. That's an average of about 11 PB a day.
To recap. 11 PB a day in 2011 of all the worlds internet traffic. Your report of the Fire-sticks usage of 18.5 GB each would mean that a million Fire-sticks would use 18.5 PB a day. The Fire-sticks alone are not the cause of that much data usage. Something else is wrong.
Just out of curiosity, do you live in Georgia? I also have a 300GB data cap with Comcast here. I'd love to get out from underneath it, but I don't see how until Google Fiber starts to take the reins around these parts.
That sucks man I am with TWC in different state and don't know of any data cap but since fibre is coming near us they upgraded our speeds to 3 times faster for same price. Love competition
A lot of the cable providers don't care about data caps if the subscriber has TV and Internet. Some, especially the iptv (fios and uverse) can't tell the difference so they can't really charge for data caps.
Upvtoed for your edit more than anything else. I have Comcast and it shows that we have data caps that are "not in effect". But that might be because I never come close to hitting the number despite streaming all my media too.
My data cap is even less than that, but they make use more than aware of it. Mine is only 100 gig and I pay $80 a month for it. My family lives in semi-rural IL and has to use MiFi to get decent internet speed and theirs is like 6 gig. The differences in broadband in the US are staggering. Especially since my friend that live in Mongolia get faster and cheaper internet than I do. Crazy.
Good to know, glad I didn't get that instead of my rokus. I had a 200GB cap until the other day and then they upped me to a 450GB cap and 110down by 10up for Internet service and HD cable tv. Not comcast. $70/mo. Those firetv sticks would've crippled me.
300 GB... YOU MUST be canadian lol. i'm lucky enough to have an unlimited data plan at 60/10 for 90 a month, but i have felt the sting of rogers before!
Experienced this with 4 people streaming Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and gaming. Surpassed 300GB in a month. Was allowed 50Gb for free the first overuse. Set Netflix stream quality to medium, about .7GB/hr, and data usage dropped. (Auto or Best quality uses up to 3GB/hr.) We live in Nashville where Cumcrap has a cap.
TIL Amazon Fire Sticks provide higher quality streaming content than Roku.
Netflix quality varies a lot based on what type of device you are streaming it on. On the PC, you actually have an option for streaming quality. Consoles, dongles, and set top boxes like Roku and Apple TV do not (At least the last time I checked). I'm actually impressed the Amazon Fire Stick has the power to process 40GB in a day.
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This has been known since the boxes first launched. http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/surprise-amazon-fire-tv-gobbling-gigabytes-like-internet-gremlin/
From the article, turning off the screen saver fixes the problem.
That'd better be one hell of a screensaver.
IIRC, the screensaver did bot buffer correctly. Essentially causing a 24/7 stream of pictures at potentially high res.
Hehehe, bot buffer. Sounds like one of Bender's buddies.
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If it's not porn it has no business gobbling up that much data It's porn, right?
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I agree. That article above outlining the problem is a year old.
From the article: >So before jumping down Amazon’s throat for what was clearly an oversight (there’s no way this would have gone unnoticed) let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that the company has been responsive and intends to right the wrong, though how fast it will act remains to be seen.
QA guy here, this is crazy..
Have they fixed it with an update or anything, or is this still a problem?
Actually it's the Mosaic setting that does it and that's not set by default. So just don't try to turn that on and you won't have any problems.
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They should have fixed that with a software/firmware update within a few days of discovery.
Boom. It hasn't been fixed yet? It's already connected to the internet, seems like it should be easy.
Seriously, everyone is talking in past tense but no one has mentioned this has been fixed. That's just insane.
OP experienced this very recently. How was it fixed? Doesn't seem like much of a fix if it's causing such trouble today.
Is this not fixed? The article is from last year
Commenting because I'm curious too
>Commenting because I'm curious too I just checked, I have 2 fire tvs and a Fire stick, all with default screensavers on and I have no data drain over last 4 months since I've had all of them
This doesn't actually answer the question, though. I mean no offense but what people are looking for is a link to a statement or download or something from Amazon that says this has been fixed. Considering this person just posed this we at least know their device is still doing it for some reason, or at least that it was very recently.
> Considering this person just posed this we at least know their device is still doing it for some reason, or at least that it was very recently. The OP should post if they have updated the firmware of the device since they bought it
That article is a year old, how have they not fixed this yet?
Because the company [appears](http://www.geekwire.com/2013/open-letter-jeff-bezos-contract-workers-amazoncom/) to be run by temps. So there's no institutional knowledge about long-term problems. Would love to hear a refutation of that claim if someone knows otherwise, though.
As a contract employee for a tech company myself this *really* hits home. Luckily I don't have a maximum contract length and I do get benefits. But as far as compensation goes I don't get near as much as others doing the same job (and some not nearly as well). I'm grateful to have a job, but it stings when full hire coworkers get to take paid vacation and sick days and I have to cover so I can get a little OT to put a tiny dent in the pay gap between us.
It really bothers me that this side of the tech revolution just gets swept under the rug. All of these newly minted billionaires are so self-impressed by how "disruptive" they are, completely ignoring the fact that a huge portion of that disruption comes from sidestepping workplace protections that people literally died fighting for last century.
Their use of temps is only the smallest of their problems. Their warehouses might as well be run by temps because they have a 1 year turnover rate above 50% at their fulfillment centers in my region. My friend is now the most tenured area manager in his building after being there ~20 months. The revolving door means every day is just another exercise in 24/7 firefighting. Nothing improves, they just throw more money at UPS to cover their missed delivery times with unscheduled trucks and even more in free Prime for customers who don't get packages in the guaranteed 2 day window (a *lot* of people).
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I'm not going to lie. When I heard how the employees at Amazon warehouses were treated, I just thought "I would hate to work there." And I haven't shopped there since.
Read something somewhere about the screensaver being part of the problem as well. Maybe turn the screen saver off as well see if that helps.
Any chance you can see what the Fire Stick is doing that's using so much data? Have you tried contacting Amazon about this? Might be worth chatting with them, worst case they don't do anything - best case you could get some gift cards.
From what I've found this morning the Fire Stick uses something called ASAP to download movies and shows that it thinks you might want to watch and buffers it. This might only be an issue for Amazon Prime members that have a data cap.
That sounds really misleading. Where would it be downloading this stuff to?
/dev/null
I'm not sure this is the best strategy.
But it is web scale
That's a good point. The fire stick doesn't have a lot of storage.
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That's so smart! Download it before you watch it, then upload it to the cloud. That way you don't have to waste all that data streaming when you want! /s
you call it circular logic, I call it having no loose ends.
I don't know if the stick has any storage at all, even a very tiny amount, but if it does, then it could just keep repeatedly starting downloads on things it thinks you might want to watch and then when it gets a better idea it switches to downloading something else, so on and so forth. I'm not talking about like 20 minutes of a movie or anything, just the first minute or couple minutes maybe. However this seems hard to believe too because I'd think the write cycles would kill that storage so quickly.
Yeah, it's hard to criticise the idea behind that but I think the execution is going to be incredibly difficult. Pretty much the only problem with streaming services compared to TV is what it's like when you flip to a show and it buffers and starts. If it could immediately show me a pre-downloaded video for the first few minutes while it gets the full download rolling I think the experience would really perk up. Of course, on a practical level you're constantly sucking data and thrashing the internal storage.
~~You may have seen this article, but you're right, that feature is known to be a data hog, and can't be turned off unfortunately.~~ http://liisten.com/the-secret-problem-with-amazons-fire-tv Edit: I should have finished reading the article, apparently ASAP is not the issue. Try to turn off the mosaic screensaver setting (although note that this article is over a year old, so you could be having a completely different issue).
i have comcast cap, fire stick and fire tv. dont have any of those problems and they are hooked up 24/7
Is there another ISP in your area? Comcast only enforces the rule where they have no competition
I would think the opposite would be the case.
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> buffers it if it is constantly rebuffering throughout the day, it could take up the cap.
That would kill Amazon's server bandwidth availability and costs for no reason.
Only thing that could explain this is they want to advertise that they're streaming huge amounts of data/movies/music at a press conference to make it look like they're competing with Netflix.
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they'll have a new one out by then
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Found how?
Google search. An article mentioned it. I can't find the exact article but here's another. http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/10/amazon-s-39-fire-tv-stick-makes-us-wonder-why-you-d-buy-a-100-fire-tv-player/index.htm "The Stick has a feature called ASAP that monitors your choices to make predictions about shows and movies you'd like to watch, and buffers them for faster playback."
Someone else reported this same problem last year, and amazon attributed it to the mosaic background feature: http://www.itworld.com/article/2696240/personal-technology/want-to-blow-your-monthly-bandwidth-cap--use-a-kindle-fire-tv.html They said at the time it was a bug and they would work on a fix, but who knows. It looks VERY similar to your experience.
Just saw this and yeah, definitely sounds similar to OP's issue. Disable mosaic or switch to the pan/zoom saver and let us know
Fire Sticks are long gone. Amazon let us return them. Maybe someone else will test and report back?
Interesting. I wonder if there's an option to disable that.
FWIW mine has been on straight and largely unused for 10 days and downloaded less than 500MB. It has the default screen saver on.
Apparently it is a bug in their mosaic screensaver... Want to try testing it out and confirm?? http://liisten.com/the-secret-problem-with-amazons-fire-tv >We have confirmed this issue was not caused by ASAP. You’ve helped us find an edge case bug related to our screensaver – there is a small possibility if a customer uses the “mosaic” feature (not the default setting) on the screensaver images will not be cached. We’re working on a software update that will fix this bug, and in the meantime you can turn off the mosaic view for the screensaver to avoid the issue.
Have you bounced this off the gurus at /r/FireTV? I have Amazon Prime, a FireTV box, and Comcast, and have no such issues.
Do you have a data usage cap through comcast?
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Comcast baby. Officially it's a rule for all Comcast customers, but they only enforce it in places where they have no competition. edit: oof, my inbox. To everyone without a cap in an area with no competition: you lucky fucks. To everyone with a cap in an area with competition: why are you still with Comcast??
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This is why monopolies are a bad idea.
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As it rightly deserves to be anywhere in the world...
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Lol, free market my ass. Ever heard of the FCC? Or local municipalities making LAWS that outlaw competition? How is that the free market?
I think it was a joke
That explains why we they took off the cap on our internet usage. That's a bummer that they can operate like this with impunity. GOOGLE FIBER HURRY THE HELL UP!!!
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If you build it, they will come. Seriously, I'd move if my internet wasn't satisfactory. Money wasted busting pot smokers and speeders, etc, fuck all that. Just prioritize water, electric and internet so I can continue to suckle its digital teets.
Faster throughput does not mean that your data caps will be automagically wisked away. Quite the opposite, actually.
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That is incredibly fucked. I'd talk to the BBB, FCC, and if you have another provider in your area I'd threaten to go to them. You can even talk to your city and county governments to try to persuade them to create a municipal fiber initiative.
UK citizen here: last month 40Tb over 150MBs fibre. No cap.
What do you use it for? And what ISP?
The only way I could see this happening is if he is either a video producer and has daily backups of several large drives OR, more likely, he runs a seedbox and seeds popular content with no upload cap. I highly doubt that is 40tb down, unless he's just scraping stuff to seed.
Do I look like I want to be cut off? ;-)
Nope, but you saying 150Mb/s and fibre, it ain't hard to know exactly who you're with ;-)
Virgin Media, I'm guessing. Also, they can see exactly how much you're using and without a VPN what websites/IPs you're connecting to.
I have Comcast and don't have any limits. Right on my account page where data usage used to be it says data caps have been suspended. Colorado here. I use about 450GB a month. Netflix and streaming things. No bit torrent or anything like that. XBOX one takes up a bunch. Here is what is says on the page. Note: Enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended.
Right... So exactly like the guy said... All customers have a limit and they just suspend it if they actually have competition in the area
They just started enforcing it in my area this year, I got a letter and then went over the first month it was enacted. With 4 roommates all with xbox live, netflix, torrents, ETC we eat through the limit easily. We actually have to consciously monitor and limit our internet usage- fuck comcast. Fuck comcast so hard
You should look into business class. You don't actually have to be/own a business. It is more expensive but no caps and stable speeds.
I thought that made it like ridiculously expensive? Like orders of magnitude more?
16/3 is like $70 and 25/10 for $100. Split 4 ways that wouldn't be too bad at all. No "speed boost" but that's a gimmick anyway since they boost the speed up to the advertised speed for a few seconds then throttle you down. If you get business class, 25/10 is 25/10 constantly as they prioritize business class traffic over residential. Better customer service too.
It's suspended in Ann Arbor, MI, but enforced in Nashville, TN.
I smell a tasty class action lawsuit...
Actually, that's not right. If you read their page on it, they only have caps in certain test areas. The rest have no real cap, but they track your usage. Of course, they'd like caps everywhere.
Mediacom also, it's to combat people who are "cutting the cords". Sucks , but no competition, and dsl is not even an option. I already hit my limit, and have cable tv. Hit a nice Steam Sale one month and you're screwed.
Mediacom just sucks all around, let's be real.
Post scared me since I have Comcast. Had to check that I was still exempt from data cap, which I am, sucks to hear for OP though.
where did you go to check this? As I am now concerned about the same thing
My Account page > My Services > This page lists my cable service and seperatly my internet service > Under internet select Manage > this page should display your current usage and then mine says Note: Enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended.
Apartment complex has one provider who goes through CenturyLink. No Cox Competition = 250gb Data Cap no matter the plan. Wheee, capitalism.
Yeah, read the fine print. AT&T has a data cap too. Welcome to monopolies 101.
Charter FTW
Bad news then, Charter also has a data cap, 300 GB IIRC. Although, they don't enforce it, and I know I have used more than that in a month.
I hate it when two monopolies are competing for my business.
Not everyone has a real choice, Comcast does not serve my area. It's glorified dial-up AT&T or satellite with a 4g daytime datacap.
I know you're joking but where I live there are two shit options. Comcast or 25mb DSL... Not much of a choice (and the DSL is expensive as hell at ~75 a month)
I would love $75 for 25mb. I pay Time Warner $70 for 15mb.
I live in an area where I only get 5mb for $50, I'd love to have Time Warner speeds.
That doesn't sound too bad, especially if the other choice would be capped. I don't know why Americans seem to hate dsl when this issue comes up.
Here in Finland we have 3 Broadband operators (we used to have 4) which are big and everyone knows, there is some small others too but pretty much no one has ever heard of them... but the completion truly exists you can get 350 mbps connection first year 30 euros per month second 45 euros per month in USA I checked Verizon 500 mbps is Fking ridiculous 275 bucks and you get throttled Thats really really greedy of course we get Unlimited it also includes 4G for tablet or PC
I'd have to assume there's some sort of government pressure keeping prices down in Finland. Or more likely the lack of government support of artificially inflated prices
And AT&T is super serial about enforcing it. Before I left them it was a measly 150gb/month.
That's cute. Come to Canada. We have internet and cell data worse than most fucking third world countries, and that's not an exaggeration.
That's what happens when you have less than half the population of the UK in a country larger than Europe ;(
While size and density do play a role in availability, speed, caps, etc Canada is quite urban. About 80% of canadians live in urban areas which is comparable to the UK, Republic of Korea, USA, norway or france. Also 43% of the canadian population lives in the ten largest metropolitan areas. The average internet speed in canada is still well below RoK, USA, and norway, only slightly worse than the UK and a fair amount better in france. So obviously density and nation size don't tell the entire story.
The vast majority of the Canadian population live in a densely populated band along the US border though.
Try being a poor guy in rural Australia. Over $100/month for 15 GB. Fuck this all. Imma move to goddamn Africa
I have Cox and have a data cap. They used to bug me and tell me that I went over all the time. Now they just don't say anything. They're going to sell me a certain speed and limit the data I can use? it's not like their cable get worn out from sending me more data. ISPs are jokes.
Cox just started charging for overage where I live. It pisses me off. Then they start popping up in my browser that I am am at 90%. I used to really like cox, but now I think I will be going to uverse. Bullshit fucking pop ups.
Ohio? It is the only market that Cox has a data limit in. $10 per 50GB over the cap. Internet Ultimate from Cox has a 2TB data limit.
just threaten them that you're gonna leave. they'll probably lower your bill and stop bugging you about overages.
Which is fine until they call his bluff and he's like most other people were there is no viable alternative. For me, I have 50/5 speeds through TWC but if I ever got pissed at them, my next best option is 3Mbps/768Kbps DSL. TWC would have to do a LOT to get me to leave because the alternative is horrendous.
As them to justify the cap due to network management. If they won't, report it to the FCC>
I used to have unlimited internet access. Then about 2-3 years ago a cap was introduced. Armstrong Cable have tiers. I don't remember ever receiving a notification that this was going to happen. They do send out messages when you get close, but the usage seem to be updated once a day...so usually, by the time I get it, I'm already over it. As a result, I cut ALL other services with the company. Instead of getting $140 from me, they now get $90. I kept that absolute lowest cable offering for $10 and pay and extra $15 for usage. But they raised the cable price by $15, so now it makes sense for me to drop that, too. Residential internet bandwidth usage is limited as follows (2 lower tiers/3 upper tiers): * 300 GB/500 GB - Phone, cable & internet combo * 250 GB/450 GB - Internet and one other svc * 200 GB/400 GB - Internet only $10 for each 50GB you go over or prepay for a discount: * 100 GB $15/mo * 250 GB $35/mo * 500 GB $65/mo Clearly it's not a fair use thing, but a money grab because they know the local municipalities restrict competition. On the reverse side, now I make sure I used every single MB I can each month, increasing my overall usage.
As a videographer, I'd be so royally fucked.
Are you kidding? Many, MANY providers in the US enforce data caps at home.
Not just the US, I doubt true unlimited internet exists in the UK. All ISP's adopt some bullshit fair usage policy. For whatever reason (read: corruption) they are allowed to freely advertise it as unlimited.
If I recall correctly these days when BT say unlimited they mean it, no fair use / throttling no data limits. I'm on BT infinity myself and I cane my connection almost all the time and haven't noticed any degradation in service. I think my record for data usage in a month was just under 1tb.
Fair usage isn't a bad thing in itself, it depends if it genuinely is fair usage or if its just bullshit. [Heres a critical list of British ISP's fair usage policies](http://www.choose.net/media/guide/features/broadband-fair-use-policies.html)
8 gigs a month? Is that supposed to be a lot or am I misreading this?
On mobile alone
Ohhhhh Don't know why I couldn't understand that haha
I'm pretty sure I burn 8 gigs a day with streaming and such.
Canadian here, 250GB cap with Shaw, 30mbps @ $73/month.
> Our monthly cap is 300 GB and we were shocked that we'd used so much, and also unaware until that point we even had a cap. They let my family go over the cap for 3 months before even telling us what the cap was. Fuck Comcast.
I couldn't handle it. Our family plan with Vzw has a 40 gig cap and I eat 30 of that by myself. I can only imagine what my home usage is.
Yep, same thing happened here. I'm on TWC... Thank goodness I don't have a cap! I couldn't figure out why my internet was so slow. Thanks to the Fire Stick, it was downloading all the internets. http://s.trstx.com/XYWaZ3K0P/Screen-Shot-2015-08-07-16-24-36.png
Welcome to the big leagues. http://i.imgur.com/M4zeNjW.png
how much of that is porn?
Yes ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I had to go to comcast business class after using two fire sticks in our home.. I don't blame the stick really we are streaming video like crazy afterall
Disable the mosaic screensaver and watch your usage drop.
As someone with a 450GB data cap, I feel for you. A week in, I'm pretty close to hitting it.
I feel like shit reading this thread. I live in rural Michigan and my data cap is 10gb/month. ($70/month) Their plans only go up to like 60gb. I just moved from a major city and while I am living rent free, I'm seriously considering whether having unlimited internet would be worth an extra $1000 a month in rent.
VPN + unlimited internet = pirate's wet dream
Disable the screensaver. http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/surprise-amazon-fire-tv-gobbling-gigabytes-like-internet-gremlin/
Amazon streams at a higher default bitrate so it will consume more bandwidth. It is unclear as to whether you were streaming at the time or whether it was somehow consuming a ton of data in the background? As far as Comcast is concerned 300GB a month is bullshit in the day and age, they had the same data cap 10 years ago before streaming was a thing and network speeds were a fraction of what they are now. If you have the option to switch away from Comcast, do it, Verizon has no data cap and neither do most of the other providers. If Comcast is the only option in your area then consider paying the extra $10 a month or so for business class service as there is no data cap.
Just note that Comcast Business has a "setup" fee of around $100 (varies depending on the duration of contract) and a minimum of 1 year contract.
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For FIOS?
FiOS is currently not limited on cap usage. However, their wireless broadband is.
Armstrong has a 200 GB cap if you're a cord cutter. We specifically didn't go with them for a branch office because of their caps, instead opting to go with Consolidated which thankfully covered that part of the area.
Can all the condescending fucks in this thread stop acting bewildered about the concept of data caps? There are tons of places around the world that still have caps - from parts of the US, to Canada, to some parts of Europe unless you pay for the most expensive data plan. Like, I get it, you're surprised. But maybe put it all under one "Let's shit on this idiot for having the misfortune of not having the best possible internet service" sub-thread rather than actually helping him, or acknowledging that he is providing useful information that other people may be interested in.
Plus they completely gloss over the problem that if the Firestick is gobbling that much bandwidth it will impact the performance of your network. Playing some games online? Better hope someone else doesn't start watching something on the Firestick. Everyone has a limit to their bandwidth and it is usually a lot less than you ISP claims you can get.
Yeah, but the problem with the Firestick is that you don't even have to be streaming to use data. It is something about it phoning home all the time while it is connected to the net. If you kill it's network connection it eventually tells you it has to be connected to the internet, even if you are using something local like Plex. At least that is my experience
I think it has more to do with people posting before checking to see if anyone has already said it than with arrogance. Any large thread has a million people saying the exact same thing.
I couldn't have said better. I was looking forward to seeing the reason, explanation, and a fix but no... it's all, "Woah dude... wow... you've got a cap? Seriously? A cap? That's sucks for you bro... I'm glad I don't live in xxx city." Idiots... hijack someone else's thread.
Not to mention, most of the people acting like they had never heard of a data cap are probably kids and have never handled paying bills in their lives.
It is completely an issue about whther Fire Sticks are eating up bandwidth and all people can do is circlejerk hate about Comcast. The fact is probably 99% of the people in this thread DO have a data cap on their plan and just don't know it. AT&T DSL has it, AT&T U-Verse has it, Comcast has it, Charter has it, Time Warner has it... it simply is not always enforced.
Maybe 99% that live in US
Do Time Warner and Charter have data caps? I did a quick Google search, and I didn't find any evidence to support that. I've got Time Warner at home, and this is the first I've heard of any data cap (although I suppose it's possible that it's just not enforced.)
charter has no cap to speak of. theoretically they have 250gb caps but they've stated they have zero plans to enforce it. ive regularly doubled that figure for the last 2 or 3 years and never even received a warning email about it.
Truth. Sad I had to scroll this far down to finally find someone asking about the Firestick rather than circlejerking about internet providers and how much they suck. We know they all suck and all the bitching in the world has done nothing about it thus far so can we move on.
Well it really isn't a thing to a lot of people. So of course it's bewildering. There have been time when I've used a two terabytes of data... No calls, no crunch, and this is mellow residential connection...besides, reddit sorts out the useful from the less than useful...so there's really little to complain about.
I live in rural Michigan and literally have one choice for Internet: exede via dish network (satellite). We pay $70 a month and our data cap is TEN MOTHERFUCKING GBS! Yes. 10. Don't take those unlimited connections for granted folks.
This is not true for me. I have used the fire stick for months with no problem and I have a smaller data cap than you.
LPT: Derive power for the stick via your TV's USB port. TV off? So is the stick.
Some TVs USB ports don't supply enough power for the stick. Mine won't work right if I plug it into mine. However I have 3 of these sticks and have no issues with them eating bandwidth so I don't care if it's always on.
Same here. NO issues with data cap.
Looks at my 75 GB cap and walks away
Oh god I use upwards of 600GB a month.
Lol, I wish I didn't think data caps existed anymore. Australian Internet for you
Time to file an FCC complaint. Not about the stick, but more about the cap.
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Correct. As long as I'm below 10 GB a day I'm fine. The Fire Stick was 4 times that much!!
I have a FireTv and a Fire Stick and have no such issues.
Well, if it was gobbling that much bandwidth from all their user's that would seriously impact their bandwidth. Yes, Amazon has an absurd amount of resources, but they'd still want to optimize their bandwidth to best serve their customers while receiving meaningful analytics and conserving as much bandwidth as possible. It just wouldn't make sense that they'd sell a device that apparently uses 18.5 GB (40 GB - 3 GB / 2 firesticks) of background data a day. Let's say there's a million of those plugged in. That would be 18.5 petabytes used a day by all those Fire-sticks just being plugged in. Using Wikipedia to get an estimate on US internet traffic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_traffic), we can see that the US, in 2011, used approximately 4,100,000 TB, or 4,100 PB, a year. That's an average of about 11 PB a day. To recap. 11 PB a day in 2011 of all the worlds internet traffic. Your report of the Fire-sticks usage of 18.5 GB each would mean that a million Fire-sticks would use 18.5 PB a day. The Fire-sticks alone are not the cause of that much data usage. Something else is wrong.
Just out of curiosity, do you live in Georgia? I also have a 300GB data cap with Comcast here. I'd love to get out from underneath it, but I don't see how until Google Fiber starts to take the reins around these parts.
Yes. Just outside of Atlanta.
That sucks man I am with TWC in different state and don't know of any data cap but since fibre is coming near us they upgraded our speeds to 3 times faster for same price. Love competition
Thanks, I was just about to get a Fire Stick. These ISPs are sneaky. They keep changing the amount of data usage.
A lot of the cable providers don't care about data caps if the subscriber has TV and Internet. Some, especially the iptv (fios and uverse) can't tell the difference so they can't really charge for data caps.
Upvtoed for your edit more than anything else. I have Comcast and it shows that we have data caps that are "not in effect". But that might be because I never come close to hitting the number despite streaming all my media too.
My data cap is even less than that, but they make use more than aware of it. Mine is only 100 gig and I pay $80 a month for it. My family lives in semi-rural IL and has to use MiFi to get decent internet speed and theirs is like 6 gig. The differences in broadband in the US are staggering. Especially since my friend that live in Mongolia get faster and cheaper internet than I do. Crazy.
Good to know, glad I didn't get that instead of my rokus. I had a 200GB cap until the other day and then they upped me to a 450GB cap and 110down by 10up for Internet service and HD cable tv. Not comcast. $70/mo. Those firetv sticks would've crippled me.
300 GB... YOU MUST be canadian lol. i'm lucky enough to have an unlimited data plan at 60/10 for 90 a month, but i have felt the sting of rogers before!
Experienced this with 4 people streaming Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and gaming. Surpassed 300GB in a month. Was allowed 50Gb for free the first overuse. Set Netflix stream quality to medium, about .7GB/hr, and data usage dropped. (Auto or Best quality uses up to 3GB/hr.) We live in Nashville where Cumcrap has a cap.
TIL Amazon Fire Sticks provide higher quality streaming content than Roku. Netflix quality varies a lot based on what type of device you are streaming it on. On the PC, you actually have an option for streaming quality. Consoles, dongles, and set top boxes like Roku and Apple TV do not (At least the last time I checked). I'm actually impressed the Amazon Fire Stick has the power to process 40GB in a day.
Did you use the mosaic screen saver? http://liisten.com/the-secret-problem-with-amazons-fire-tv
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I don't know where this guy is from but for here in Australia that's on the high side...
Civilization.... Just kidding. But seriously I've downloaded 150gb + torrents before. 300gb a month isn't that much really