Now we know how the Russians hacked into and meddled with US elections.

Wait 975 TB or 975 GB?

Good call. In the original post, he does say that the notice says that he used 975 TB. Yeah, I don't think there's any way in hell he did that without something on his network being hacked, and I'm shocked that the carrier didn't contact him much sooner. My bet is that it's a typo and supposed to say 975GB. If it's 975GB, then streaming video content could definitely do it. If it's 975TB, then no way.

Yes, 974 GB.

Well, my TV experiment yesterday proved it is TV related.

I did 2 things:

(1) made sure all TVs (I have 4 Roku TVs, 3 used daily) were set to the Roku home page before turning off, and

(2) watched less than 1 hour total TV time.

My usage went from 974GB to 978GB. So 4GB used yesterday.

I think their online “useage calculator” is way off, and streaming TV uses way more data than they say.

Because although I’ve watched quite a few movies this month, I haven’t averaged 10 hours daily of TV, streaming music, general internet and social media (that’s 40 hours per day!). That’s what they calculate would use 1TB/month.

That’s what I did yesterday. But I also didn’t watch much TV. So my experiment was kind of messed up, with 2 variables I don’t know which was more important.

I’m retired and at home mostly, I didn’t realize I had a data cap (just started streaming TV this month, data cap was never an issue before that), so I’d often leave the TV on even when I wasn’t watching.

Not 10 hours a day, but certainly could have averaged more than 4. I’ve probably watched 25 movies this month. Plus general TV use.

I don’t have 4K TVs, though, they are 1080. Would it transmit at 4K to 1080 TVs?

I'm pretty sure I am correct.

1 terabyte = 1000 gigabytes

975 x 1000 = 975,000 gigabytes

975,000/5 (5gb per movie) = 195,0000.

If I have it wrong, I'm all ears.

I don’t think Roku (the device) detects that the tv is off, unless it is controlled by the same remote.

Or are you using a Roku app on the TV.

Might depend how it is powered. My chromecast is powered by TV usb, so it shuts off. I believe our Apple TV and fireTV does not shut down.

My (older) Roku used to occasionally pause and ask if I was still watching.

Do you have a TV in the bedroom you watch before bed and you maybe forget to 'stop' streaming and you just turn the TV part off?

ROKU Streaming sticks will turn off if they are powered by the TV's USB and the USB power goes off.

If you have a standalone ROKU or one powered by the wall wart it will just sit there and still pull data if you mistakenly just turn off the TV screen and forget to stop it.

If you did that every night by mistake that would pull 750 GB a month all by itself.

Just make sure you return your streaming appliance to it's home screen before putting it to sleep or sleeping the TV. Otherwise it will keep streaming in the background.

I have 2 Roku TVs, and 2 that use plug in Roku sticks.

Yes, the one in the bedroom has a Roku stick plugged into the HDMI port. It is powered by being plugged into the wall. I tried having it powered by a TV port, but that didn’t work, not enough power apparently.

But yea, I’d just turn off the TV mid program and go to sleep.

If that means it keeps streaming, what is it streaming? Because when I turn it on in the morning, it’s back to the home page.

For a dedicated Roku TV (no stick) is there any way it keeps streaming when you turn the TV off?

If so, that’s really lame.

Yeh, definite maybe.

Netflix and Amazon used to do that too - ie if you fell asleep watching a series they'd both still be auto-playing episodes hours later.

They both wised up that this was stupid from their perspective. Now, if you don't touch the remote for 3 episodes, Netflix stick up a nag screen saying "You Still There?".

Dunno what Amazon/Firestick does exactly; but when I wake up, the TV is on and the firestick is asleep :D

The Roku (or Apple TV or whatever) is smart on the front end, ie, when you say "I want to watch something" it downloads then. WHen you stop watching something, it stops downloading.

The backend, where it's connected to the TV, is more like a water hose being used to fill a bucket. The water hose won't know when the bucket is full and will keep running until you (the user with the remote) turn the water off at the faucet (tell the Roku "stop streaming video")

Yeah, my wife used to just kill the TV sometimes. Now we get the pop-up if my grandson is watching cartoons.

Ah, that makes sense now.

I’d just turn the TV off midstream while watching a series, and fall asleep, and in the morning when I turned the tv back on, it would be in the home page.

But, when I’d go to resume watching the series, it would be 3 episodes ahead of where I left off.

But I assume that means it was only streaming for those 3 episodes, not all night. That’s a huge difference!

Yes, it's possible to stream/view 4k content on 1080 TVs. With the updated info provided, it's probably unlikely in your case though.
You'd need 4K-capable ROKUs, and be actively seeking out 4k content (there will typically be a 4k and/or HDR label/banner for most titles on the info page/thumbnail).
In the case of Netflix, you would have to have a 4k plan.

You might access your router's admin/set-up feature and see if you can view actual data transmission logs to check for any discrepancies between actual data transmitted and what your ISP is telling you.
But with 4 "runaway" ROKUs I imagine it's totally possible. As mentioned, you probably want to make it a habit to return each device is the main menu before shutting the TVs off.
Also, you might want to disable any "auto play next episode" feature for all content.