Does internet tethering on an iPhone 5 use alot of data?

I bought a new iPhone 5 about a week ago and I get 500MB for £20.50 a month (I get texts and minutes as well in this bundle). I'm on Orange/EE network (3G not 4G)
I used to have an iPhone 3gs and I had 500MB then which I never used up, only ever used about 250-300MB.

but now in only a week I've used 260MB, and I'm panicking because I don't know why my usage has gone down so fast in a short space of time.
Yesterday I set up a personal hotspot for about ten minutes and let my brother connect with his iPad. Would this be the cause?
I also used facetime for about an hour, but I was connected to Wi-Fi at this time and assumed that wouldnt use any of my data though I can't be sure.

Also I would like to know - does facetime only charge the person who started the call or both users?
and how much will Orange charge me if I go over my data limit?

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with European carriers and their policies of data overages, but they should be similar to the policies here in the US.

To answer you first question, yes, tethering can definitely eat up your data very quickly (especially if you don't have an unlimited data plan). And to answer your suspicions, you should definitely ask your brother what he was doing with the iPad. If he was watching YouTube videos, that can most definitely eat up your data extremely quickly. If you were using FaceTime on Wi-Fi, then you don't need to worry about it using your data. It's definitely your brother who caused your data to be used up quickly.

FaceTime doesn't charge you if you're talking with any Apple made devices. Don't worry so much about that.

As for Orange… I'm not exactly too sure about it, but you will definitely be charged a lot of money if you do go over your data limit. Make sure to turn off your mobile data whenever you're not using it and then stick to Wi-Fi whenever you can in order to avoid the overage. Hope this helped.

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