DATA USAGE ACCURACY

You should check out the other conversation, Mysterious cellular data usage in early morning

Maybe you are not getting the answers you need or have not asked the right questions. Maybe your hotspot device has some similar behavior to what is reported in the other conversation. I do recommend looking into this. If the SIM is removed after the unit is powered down there should be no way for records of data consumption to take place. Review that conversation and maybe send a direct message to two_chris via selecting his avatar and doing so. Explain what gateway/hotspot you have and the behavior you are seeing and what you have done or point him to this conversation. Don't give up.

From your description of how you have been careful with it and turning the gateway off it does seem excessive. With our household of 4 of us here using the internet via the gateway we pull roughly 18-20G per day. I know there have been reports from others complaining that the usage reported is not up to date so maybe they have created new problems and their system is not recording/reporting properly. 

Gracias, iTinkeralot~

Unfortunately we are in a rural area where T-Mobile limits the number of homes who can be on the unlimited plan. We've received notices from T-M that they're continuing to expand and that we're "on the list" for an upgrade to ilimitados when it becomes available. (No indication of when that might be. Months? Years?)

Our strategy now is to unplug the TV when not in use or not set to record. We're also turning off the Gateway whenever we're offline. Our young techie neighbor has volunteered to come over and try to figure out what's going on with the data. He said 150GB for what we're been doing doesn't make sense.

You need to see if the home internet is available in your location. If so that is a good solution for home internet and good terms. They have some specials so maybe you can get a good deal.
Go to >    T-mobile.com and check the offers and terms.  I went into a T-Mobile store and spoke with an associate when I got the family plan. I explained exactly what my objectives were and held to them and we came up with the solution. The associate was very helpful. 

The T-Mobile home internet plan with the gateway is unlimited but is subject to throttling when traffic levels are higher. There is a seniors plan for 55 and older. The home internet, if available in your area is $50/month with auto pay. There is a special they are doing now with the home internet but has the caveat of being tied to a new line so that is probably not an option. When we moved here from CA in December of 2020 our phones were old and the prepaid cards were a pain. I got 5 phones and lines just after picking up the home internet gateway. All 6 lines 210/month. I did it to get the gang all set and in January the phones will all be paid for and the kids will pay for their own lines. I know it sounds steep but was much better than other options given the terms. No contact or extra fees, unlimited data and text. The hotspots are limited but I never use my phone as a hotspot. The service has been very good and it works great for us. 

Thank you, iTinkeralot.

Does the Magenta plan you chose give you unlimited internet? I will check it out later, along with other plans, but T-Moblie has greatly slowed our speed because we've (supposedly) reached our data limit.

And yes--price does matter because we’re seniors and on a limited budget.

It may be for certain types of accounts their reporting is not accurate. I elected the Magenta 1.0 and have 6 lines, which includes the home internet line, and with the T-Mobile app on my phone it seems to be correct. The bill has been consistent and the same since we joined T-Mobile with the phones and home internet gateway so from what I am seeing things "appear" to be recorded at levels I don't believe to be off. I am not really that tuned into all the different plans they offer. I explained exactly what my objectives were and looked over plans back then and decided upon the Magenta 1.0 which meets our needs and is much less expense than any of the others that were available to me at the time. When I compared it to how we had been using prepaid cards and mediocre phones which was a repetitive bother to deal with the card loading it actually was better to go with the family plan we have. It was a set amount each month that worked with the budget. 

I’m confounded by the usage reported by T-Mobile.

13Gs were reported for yesterday. We were NOT at home for 5 of those. When we were home, we either had the Gateway off or we surfed the net- no video, no photo/graphics downloaded. We've already turned off automatic system updates, turned off automatic downloads of podcasts. There's just no way we could've used 150Gs. 

I was commenting in the "other thread" that my usage totals have not been updating (still haven't been BTW}….but I did notice that when they were updating, the time-stamps of high data-usage did not seem to be accurate.  Sometimes they were, but other times when I was watching a 1080p movie at a certain time. the time stamps would sometimes not show it.  Over the course of a day or two, I "think" the data averaged out to the correct totals, but didn't think the time stamps were accurate.  Now, for me, they aren't updating at all.  So, yes, maybe they are related issues.

If you disable the router then the TV has no way out. So, turning off your gateway takes the network and all devices off the internet.