Unknown data usage early morning

I don't have ATT, but with my carrier, I do know that they store a copy of MMS messages I send online. Could it be possible that the iphone stores this information and waits to upload it online in bulk at some time in the evening?
Does ATT have a Media Net site online where you can view the MMS messages or videos, etc, that you've sent through their network? This might be worth something looking into.

I mention this because on my current carrier (Sprint), I noticed that MMS messages fall under DATA, and that I can look up any MMS messages I've sent online when I check my account. Just some thoughts to help out.

Cheers.

I'm thinking that it's just the way that their billing system displays things. I reset my counters and watched it carefully for a couple of days and I'm seeing similar results, but it matches up with my data usage. It's almost as if the system figures out how much data you used in big chunks and does it overnight and that's where the timestamps are coming from. The time stamp isn't the moment the data usage occurred, it's the time when the billing system got around to your account and totaled everything up for the day.

That's my theory.

Just got off the phone with an AT&T rep to discuss why my phone used 85MB of 3g data around 2am every night even though I have wi-fi at my house.

He said the phone does updates at that time and if the phone is sleeping but not fully shut down it doesn't hold the wi-fi signal, so the updates are using 3g.

He said I could turn the phone off completely each night of shut off the 3g.

I told him it would be better if the phone could continue to use wi-fi while sleeping or choose when updates were done so wi-fi could be used.

He responded that Apple controls those kinds of things.

So, if you are not on an unlimited plan, completely shut down your phone at night or shut of the 3g until you need it.

The last three nights I have set my iPhone to Airplane mode. It seems when I switch it back on in the morning, between 7:00-7:30AM, it is playing catch up...

06/16 07:14 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2015KB
06/15 07:32 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 8009KB
06/14 07:13 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 228KB

8MB sent while I was in the shower... Interesting.

I ordered an iPhone 4. Presumedly I can turn off cellular with it... Then perhaps I will drop to the 200MB plan. Until then, there is not way I'm giving up my Unlimited plan.

I may have solved this. I reset the warnings by connecting the iPhone and right clicking on the iPhone on the left in iTunes (CTRL click) and selecting reset warnings. The first time after when I sync the phone it asks me if I want to send diagnostic info to Apple and I select NO.

Ever since I did this on 6/13 I have seen transfers during the night, but they are relatively small, tens of K to a few hundred K. Nothing like the multi megab?yte transfers I saw before.

Can others try duplicating this to see if this fixes it

rdmassey wrote:
So, if you are not on an unlimited plan, completely shut down your phone at night or shut of the 3g until you need it.

I tried that. As soon as I turned it on the data transfer that would have happened between 2 & 3 AM took place. So turning it off will not solve the problem.

Well, I followed your recommendation and we'll see what happens. Did you do anything else too? Like disable Push or Notifications or shut off in the evenings at the same time? Just wondering if you changed one factor or multiple. I have been continuing to shut off Push and Notifications each evening and gets rid of the 2-3am data posting but still there is often a large transmission sometime between 5-8am which could correlate with when I reactivate push/notifications in the morning. Although in truth there really is no rhyme or reason to the data charges since some mornings they are there and others they are not. I really think it is a "daily accounting" of the previous day, but it is just so inconsistent.

I reserved an iPhone4 the other day (like many I experienced ever ordering crash senario in the book) and I'll likely keep my unlimited plan for a few months until I see what kind of data usage I rack up on the new model. Once I switch away, there is no turning back!

TinhMaiMongCho wrote:
Sorry I am new to Iphone, just have one silly question.
Is there a way to turn off 3G completely? because I have the 200MB plan. I don't to get charge if I go over it.
thanks.

Settings App -> General -> Network -> Enable 3G

Useful for keeping your phone from rapidly consuming data unless you need it. Right below that is how you turn data roaming on/off. Combined, these are the most important switches when traveling internationally. Only switch data roaming on when you need to check email/etc, then only switch on 3G for speed. Obviously switch all push/pull automatic fetching of mail and other nonsense in these situations, too.

Hope that helps. It's also useful in marginal areas to keep the phone from draining the battery, like a coworker and I found would happen at certain remote customer sites.

When I heard about the 200MB plan, I thought it was total insanity. I ran over in a single week in a foreign country, even with the above carefully controlled consumption. I couldn't imagine anyone that uses it much at all would avoid overages. AT&T is evil.

Asked this earlier and got no response (which might be an answer in itself). Is there any possibility that downloading something brought along a malware app that is now uploading spam? The 50-70 MB uploads don't really make any sense otherwise.

So, this is NOT late night data usage. What you're actually seeing is AT&T's billing cycle. So at late night they aggregate all of your data usage for the day and then bill it, and then start aggregation for the next cycle. Notice how none of your other data usage is logged? Test this by downloading a large free app over cellular data at like 1pm, and then use your phone normally for the rest of the day. Then in the morning look at your data usage again. Why else would it be at almost the same time each day on your bill?

AT&T doesn't give us up-to-the minute logging, and you should call AT&T and ask to talk to someone in billing that understands how this works. I got a good education on it when I called.

Hi all, like all of you I am here because I recently started paying attention to data usuage in light of the recent changes. I as well have noticed the 2am data usuage. I called AT&T a couple of weekends ago and all it accomplished was wasting a half hour of my life I will never get back. I did go back and examine my data usage for several weeks. Having a predictable routine in life I did notice a pattern that I hope may help you all, which I believe I confirmed through a week of experimentation. Please bear with me as the explanation is somewhat lengthy.

When I drive to and from work, I constantly stream music. I go to work about 7:30am and come home about 4:30pm. On my phone I have Pandora, LastFM, and SlackerRadio. I notice on my data usuage that on some days I had usage show up at around 7:30am and 4:30pm. Some days that does not show up and that night (or more accurately between 2:00am and 2:45am the following morning) I see the usage. For the past six days I have been alternating between LastFM and SlackerRadio exclusively. No other data usage except over WiFi at home. When I use SlackerRadio, I see the 7:30am and 4:30pm usage on AT&T's website. When I use LastFM, no usage shows up for 7:30am or 4:30pm. However, that night/moring I get the "mysterious" 2:00am data transfer.

My theory is some apps transfer (or report) data in a lump sum (LastFM) and some do it in relative real-time (SlackerRadio). When I add up the totals for the 7:30 and 4:30 usage on SlackerRadio days, they are approximately the same size as the total 2:00am tranfer on the LastFM days. Makes sense, LastFM would be reporting both the drive to and from work together.

I have one more experiment I am going to try this weekend. Tomorrow night, at home, I am going to stream 1/2 hour of LastFM with my WiFi on in the house. Saturday night I am going to stream 1/2 hour of LastFM at home but disable WiFi on the phone and force it through the 3G network.

My wife's phone has some 2:00am usage as well but never near the data usage that I see. She does less with her phone as a rule so I'm guessing she has some apps that do the same thing. Report all at once after the day.

Hope someone finds this helpful!

Message was edited by: trypticsoy

Message was edited by: trypticsoy

It's not data-usage at all. What you're seeing is AT&T aggregating your daily usage. Do you have Push enabled? If you do it'll always be at the same time every day. The only other times it does it otherwise is if you have a long period of inactivity with push disabled or if you power-cycle your phone. Those trigger billing. Their billing reports are really confusing, and could be a bit more helpful in this regard by offering a clearer FAQ as to what is going on.

So FarmerJim my question is this - if AT&T aggregates daily usage, why, when I use SlackerRadio exclusively for a day do I see data usage for the actual times that I am using it and no 2:00am usage following it but when I use LastFM I see no data usage for the actual times I am using it but there are 2:00am usages following that day? If it was AT&T aggregating wouldn't it be consistent?

Message was edited by: trypticsoy

Do you have Push notifications enabled? It's my understanding that after periods of inactivity they stop aggregating and bill, but with push you don't get that since the phone is always talking to the network. They may have other things that can trigger the billing events, but you're not seeing large chunks of data used late at night. Your usage seems tied to how the 3rd parties are utilizing the cellular data connection, the only party that can explain that better is AT&T and the application developer. I'd call them and bark up the tree until someone can explain it properly. It's what helped me get some explanations on push vs no-push, and the data aggregations.

FarmerJim wrote:
So, this is NOT late night data usage. What you're actually seeing is AT&T's billing cycle. So at late night they aggregate all of your data usage for the day and then bill it, and then start aggregation for the next cycle. Notice how none of your other data usage is logged? Test this by downloading a large free app over cellular data at like 1pm, and then use your phone normally for the rest of the day. Then in the morning look at your data usage again. Why else would it be at almost the same time each day on your bill?

To be blunt, I don't believe it. Why? Because if what you say is true that data blob would occur around the same time every night whether the phone is off or on. But it doesn't. If I turn the phone off at night the large data transfer doesn't appear on my bill until a couple of minutes after I turn it on.

Further, my data usage is logged throughout the day. Not just once at night.