Unknown data usage early morning

See my message above Mark's, on AT&T's practice of posting a single value per switch for accumulated data, with a time stamp that is never the time the data was actually used, and the fact that WiFi on an iPhone is off when the phone goes to sleep.

Dear Jycnan: Thanks for the informative post. Here is a quick summary of the key points regarding "midnight data usage" and other unknown data charges. All of this info has been posted previously; I hope this recap is helpful to new visitors:

> Large data charges around midnight: As Lawrence noted, AT&T's billing system was designed to 'roll up' data charges collected from multiple antennas during the day as the user moves around, and an aggregate charge is posted to your bill at the end of the day. That said, we encountered two anomalies in AT&T's bills: (1) If you disable cellular service at night, these big aggregate charges do not arrive -- ever. (2) Large data charges hit our son's account when he was in the hospital, with the phone unused, powered off and uncharged -- and again when he was away at camp. Both are curious, to say the least. You can draw your own conclusions...

> How to avoid large data charges around midnight: You must disable cellular service around midnight. This is not as simple as it sounds with the iPhone. You must disable cellular service AND plug the iPhone into a charger, or it will automatically revert to the cellular connection. The simplest option is to enable "Airplane mode" and shut down all connectivity. This completely eliminated the mystery midnight data charges on our son's account.

> How to track data usage: To understand what is actually going on, you must install a "data usage monitor" app or service. We use the Dataman Pro app from Xvision and Onavo -- which compresses and tracks data usage via a server link. Why two apps for the same purpose? This gives us two independent data reports, which are invaluable when you need to negotiate with AT&T. It is difficult for AT&T to argue that both are wrong, if you find a discrepancy. The cost is minor compared to the refunds.

> Hidden data hogs: AT&T's customer service / tech support team will almost always blame apps that transmit large amounts of data -- that you may not be aware of. They are often correct. Here are two examples: (1) YouTube and other 'video chat' and video / music apps -- which can send / receive enormous amounts of data. Our son did not appreciate this issue, until I explained the logarithmic increase in data volume created by video. (2) Some apps receive / send more data than you expect. We found that TextFree, for example, keeps sending data-heavy ads -- even if you buy the 'no ads' subscription! The ads are simply hidden, but the data charges continue to hit your account. The answer is data monitoring apps like Dataman Pro and Onavo. You will be able to detect which apps are gobbling up data and hitting your AT&T bill.

> How to negotiate with AT&T: First, be polite and diplomatic. I can't imagine how much stress the AT&T reps must handle, from irate customers. Second, have your facts ready. Ideally, try to create a report with a month of data logs from Dataman Pro and Onavo, which you can download to Excel in CSV format. Make sure the start / end dates align with your AT&T billing period, which does not start on the 1st of the month. Tell the AT&T rep that you would be happy to email a copy to them for review. Third, ask to speak to a supervisor if the rep cannot resolve the issue. Depending on the amount of the credit your are requesting, reps may not be able to authorize the refund. Fourth, make sure the rep provides the "issue" number and ask him / her to add the details of the problem to your billing record. You may get disconnected, and this helps to avoid repeating the entire process. The record also helps if the problem recurs.

In AT&T's defense, they kindly offered to refund all of the 'mystery' data charges we found and documented on our son's iPhone -- multiple times. Diplomacy and documentation work.

As a result, however, we will switch to Verizon when our son's contract expires. These problems are costly, irritating and time consuming. I hope AT&T is listening; they can do better.

Mark Hays

Dear Lawrence:

Thanks! I hope the summary is helpful for everyone who hasn't read through the history behind this problem. I also wish there was a way to get this message to a senior manager at AT&T who could fix most of these issues.

As you noted, some Verizon customers have similar problems -- e.g. if they are unaware of 'data hog' apps. My personal smart phone is already on Verizon, and I have had no problems. No need to log data and call for a refund, which is a relief.

Thanks again for all of your help on this issue!

Mark Hays

Mark,

So if I understand your correctly, you are saying that your data is down, now that you are on Verizon? I understand that there are data hog apps. Also a kid at AT&T told me that it's a smart phone, therefore it is going to send information periodically. It's what all smart phones do.

The kids have a lot of gaming apps, but that's about it. My daughter's iPhone is usually plugged in at night, but mine is not most nights. Neither phone sends information while they are sleeping and all data is on for both phones. My daughter's phone doesn't send much data while she is working, because she doesn't generally use it at work. However, there are a few texts during breaks and lunch, and an occasional call from daycare. My iPhone doesn't generally send any information while sleeping on my desk during the day. I did have to think about the 12:00 - 1:00 a.m. data, but that's when I go to bed, I do on occasion wake the phone up for the flashlight app, so I can see what I'm about to step on in a dark house, things like dark grey kittens, dog toys...

All told, on the 22nd day of 28 on our billing cycle with Verizon for 3 phones, data is 6.14 MB of 2048.00 MB, versus the 400 - 500 MB of data use with AT&T for 2 phones, Samsung and one iPhone, using data (same apps), with a 1 GIG plan.

Those gigantic sends only show up periodically now, like when one of my kids use the GPS on the phone, or pictures are being sent or received when not in the house.

In the past, I have had large data charges periodically on both my phone, and my wife's phone. This last month, july 4-Aug 3, I have had no large charges at all that can't be explained by normal usage. Could it be that AT&T or APPLE have found, and fixed, this problem. Given that there is little or no discussion on this lately, it would seem I am not to only person to have missed this problem lately. I surely hope I never see it again.

Not really... I'm continue seeing same consumption peaks around midnight.... I stopped calling AT&T for solution and as soon as I receive the warning that I close to my limit (200MB), usually in the 2nd week of my monthly cycle, I stop the Cell-data option.

In a few months, as soon as my contract expires, I'll transfer my family cells numbers (3) to a different provider, an we'll use Android phones... any suggestions about wich one to use?

I have complained about this a few months ago and Verizon did not offer any solution. My sons phone was using more than my company with (5) iPhone 5 users each month. All of a sudden the las month almost nothing. I think someone at apple or VWZ did something. It's almost as if his phone is not even being charge any data. And on top of it he was traveling with his grandparents in Arizona for 3 weeks last month. Our bill recycles on the 17th of each month and we got a message that we were over 50% of his data about 10 days (27th). then he left he left on the 5th of July and it was like his phone was not getting anymore odd time data charges. They simply stopped.

If you look back some 50 pages or so of this thread you will find entries I made covering nearly two years, in almost exactly six month intervals. I was constantly on AT&T about it but very calm and diplomatically. I had plenty of "ammo" to present to them. I started shutting off the cellular data nightly, closing all open apps, and plugging the phone into the charger. When the next "interval" arrived, there had been no problems nor has there been since. I now just close the apps and plug in and that is it. Do you, too, believe in "magic"??

Lawrence, You seem to know alot about this and if you've answered this before I apologize for the redundancy. My AT&T bill drops on the 28th of the month, we have had AT&T and IPhones for a Very Long time (years) but this month I began noticing these strange data "dumps" as I call them on all 4 of my IPhones (4 & 4s no 5). AT&T is trying to say it's an IPhone thing and Apple is saying it's an AT&T thing. I'm getting very frustrated, do you have any insight? This is a copy of my latest data send/receive. If you notice they are all every hour on the hour and all 4 phones are doing the same thing at different times of the day. I can only stop it after turning off my cellular data, which I did this morning when I got to work at 7AM. I have turned all of the mail to "manual", turned off the diagnostic & usage as well as turned off all apps from running in the background and all location services, nothing seems to help. Any other suggestions? I got Onavo and now I have this annoying VPN which is draining my battery extremely fast. I don't see that it's much help either as it doesn't tell me what is using data when it just says how much each app has used for the lat 30 days, am I missing something there as well? Any help or insight you can give is very much appreciated!

Christitx,

I can take a stab at this or add some more information to what you are saying, since I had a similiar thing happen.

Both of my kids were at the same place one night (after I'd notice this frequency high usage entries awhile back), I was checking periodically the bill and noticed the each one got a usage charge practically every hour on the hour. I did not, but probably because I'd turned my data off...

Now the difference and the reason I am responding here, is that my oldest had an Apple 4S and my youngest had a SAMSUNG something or another, Galaxy...

AT&T did not answer that question twice and the previous question (a week or so before) the girl was actually rude, which is something I'd never experienced with AT&T. It was always whatever you want. Or, we'll just credit you the amount 'this time'. The last time being, I called them to say I didn't realize that there was $1.45 due on my bill, since we had changed the plan three times in one month (data changes) and the $1.45 might be a day or two late (the check was really in the mail). The response was, 'well ma'am, if it's late we will be charging you a late feet and finance charges!' I was like excuse me? Things went downhill from there.

Since AT&T did not care to tell me why the kids were being charged hourly, I eventually cancelled my contract with them, incurred the charges, and switched to Verizon.

But, I seriously doubt that it is an Apple thing, when it was happening on both my oldest's Apple 4S and my youngest's Samsung.

It's mainly an AT&T issue. My daughter's iPhone-4 stopped working on Wed 6pm, she usually had 0 consumption of cellular data as she decided to stop using cellular data several months ago because of unexplained big consumption. Well the phone couldn't be turned on, we fodn how to force a restore but it didn't work, went to the apple store on Saturday 9:40am, they found the iPhone as defective, we had to buy a new one and the apple genius was isntallign IOS until 11am, connected to a Macbook Pro. As soon as we left the Apple store we received a text message from AT&T saying that the phone was close to use the 200MB cellular data, and 1 minutes later that it was over... but the phone was with cellulat data off since the IOS was installed! Then, at home, I reviewed the data consumption in the AT&T webste... it showed 209MB used, clicking for details it showed like 90MB used that morning (while IOS was beign installed from the MacBook, and a couple of 30MB charges the 2 days before, while the phone was turned off not able to work at all.... I asked for an explanation to why the consumption while the phone was off, and the answer was that my plan was very small, just 200MB.... then to my question why the website shows 209MB as total, but 113MB when we asked for details, the answer was that the values can't be taken as totally correct... so, I stopped asking questions, and I'll cancel my family plan (4 iPhones) by the end of this cycle... T-Mobile offers A LOT better prices and data options/management that AT&T, and I can use my current AT&T iPhones in T-Mobile (gettign the unlock from AT&T, wich means I will have to pay the penalty, but I'll be happy to do it if it means not to call AT&T anymore). And if I don't get the unlocks? well, Android now looks like a good option for me and my family, as Apple has not being able to deal with AT&T and these kind of issues.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenrosenbaum/2013/05/28/att-and-apple-battle-over -data-leakage/

This issue is deplorable. Please take a moment and read the above link. I found this after 3 hours on the phone with AT&T and 3 hours with Apple. Everyone was quite polite and civilized but I know if I can find this in a google search these people can as well. If neither AT&T or Apple will listen or make a change it is time to call for a class action.

Put the phone in recovery mode. Restore set it up as a new phone. and don't restore from any back up and watch to see if you get data usage. Probably an app thats using location services and the app is sending info about the phone.

in my case it actually was an app, not uploading alot but downloading alot. The app was from box.com which did have settings but didn't notice. My service provider accepted my complaint and refunded before i realized it was box.com, which is a fine service, they gave you extra 5gb if you got the app so i did, now it's deleted but still have the extra 5gb... good luck!

I checked my data usage today on AT&T site:

In the Webview this is what I see: