Internet for each phone
Wi-Fi or cellular for each iPhone, how much data a day of posting uses, and why Foundry needs no proxy.
One route per phone
The cable to your Mac carries control and your videos. It does not carry the phone's internet. Each phone reaches Instagram, TikTok and YouTube on its own connection, like any phone.
- Use Wi-Fi you control, or cellular from the phone's own SIM. Pick one for each phone and leave it.
- On Wi-Fi: turn Wi-Fi Assist off under Settings, Cellular, so the phone does not slip onto cellular on its own.
- On cellular: turn Wi-Fi off, so the phone does not join a network you did not choose.
- Never switch a phone's network to get around a checkpoint or a block from an app. That waits for a person, the same as a 2FA code.
How much data it uses
We measured it on our own rack on October 12, 2026: the bytes each phone sent and received over its own connection during a normal afternoon of warm-ups and posts. Your videos reach the phone over the cable, so the file itself does not use the phone's data, but the app still loads its feed while it posts. The day total is our estimate from those readings, and it swings a lot with what the feeds serve.
| What | Data |
|---|---|
| A minute of Instagram warm-up | about 9 MB (3 to 17 across our phones) |
| An Instagram post | about 20 to 60 MB |
| A TikTok post | about 5 MB, up to the size of the video plus 5 MB |
| A YouTube post | the size of the video, plus about 2 MB |
| An idle phone | about 4 MB an hour |
| One phone, a whole day at our pace | an estimated 0.9 to 1.5 GB |
No proxy, no VPN
Foundry does not need a proxy or a VPN, and it never sets one up. The official apps run on the phone's own connection.
A phone on its own SIM already has its own carrier connection. A proxy or VPN in front of it is one more thing that can drop, and when it drops, every account on that phone drops with it.