Unknown data usage early morning

vidro3 - The "not authorized to view" appears when a thread or post has been removed.

so, it's the NSA?

but seriously folks. Why does the data insist on being sent over cellular?

The answer is still on the first couple of pages. As I'm not sure which question you are asking, I will provide 2 answers.

1. The data is not being sent at the time that it appears to be on the bill. That number is the accumulated data usage for the MTSO (cellular switch) you were connected to at the end of the day. The timestamp is the time the accumulated data was posted to the billing system. It is posted at the time the billing record in the MTSO was closed for the day. If the phone is on at that time it is posted at the time the MTSO resets. If the phone was off or cellular data was off it is posted as soon as it comes back on. It is also both sent and received; the billing system cannot distinguish, so it is all reported as sent.
2. WiFi is off when the phone is asleep to save battery. If an app sends data when the phone is asleep it goes over cellular.

Yes, I agree. For me it had never been a problem that on the heels of a typical update became huge and grievous. Since I have gone to a 5S I'm enjoying a recess from that mysterious and potentially expensive data spike along with battery drain I suffered with my 5 but I'd consider myself a fool if I allowed myself to become complacent that it will never happen again. Why did it change? I'm not sure I'll ever know but I do know I chose and paid for a phone and a contract that didn't come with a lengthy list of issues I could expect to troubleshoot using hours of my time on my landline with Apple and my carrier and spending additional hours looking at the vast number of threads in this community for answers. If that were explained to me when I bought the phone and signed for the contract I'm absolutely sure I would have declined. I find it very sad that this discussion is taking place let alone have taken place for years. Is this what we have to look forward to? However I believe if you actually like working the support forums in a favorable way you do receive some sort of compensation from Apple.

Lawrence, thanks for specifying which answer you meant, since there are multiple answers suggested in the first few pages of the thread.

I'm not sure I agree with that answer though.

First, I keep my celluar data off about 90% of the time now, as well as overnight. So "the WiFi is off when asleep" explanation does not hold water. Cellular is off unless I am actively browsing.

Second, If it were a billing/batching thing shouldn't that occur at approximately the same time each night, in theory? That does not happen to me. I get the bunches of data whenever I turn data back on.

Here is some bits from my bill compared to my DataMan app:

Oct 21 through 23 DataMan 3MB ATT 115MB

Oct 24 DataMan 150.7KB 7pm ATT 3.9MB 11:10am

Oct 25 DataMan 0kb ATT 22MB 11:22am, 5kb 4:44pm

Oct 26 0KB for both

Oct 27 0KB for both

Oct 28 DataMan 0KB ATT 11.4MB at 9:28am

Oct 29 DataMan 9.8MB ATT 10.2 MB

Oct 30 Dataman 4.0MB at 6pm ATT 879KB at 10 am, 14MB at 10:50am 2.9MB at 6:28pm

Oct 31 Dataman 24.3MB 11am, 4pm, 6pm; ATT 24.6MB 9:30am

Nov 1 0KB for both

Data charges are serious. Look to your carrier!

I had been having a terrible problem lately with my iPhone data usages--they went "sky-high" with AT&T. I am on a limited, not unlimited, plan and it makes a big difference. Calls to AT&T and to Apple did not answer questions of outgoing. data in large hunks in the middle of the night, so I started researching.

If you are having overages on your data plan, chances are you did not know that AT&T uses data mined from your phone to sell to advertisers. They mine from your phone in the middle of the night or other "down times". Lucky us, we live in the USA and can opt out of all of this. You can read about AT&T's hidden policy at the link below, then go to opt out of having your data mined and used for advertising at this link: http://www.att.com/cmpchoice
It cut my data usage by 75%!

I am also careful and only download updates when on wi-fi.

Hi Lawrence, although some answers about the time the data is recorded, and Wifi shutting off during sleep mode, are given in the first few pages, there are still lots of unanswered questions.

1) Why does the phone favor Cellular Data instead of Wifi when Wifi is on and connected?

2) I assume most people leave their phone plugged in to recharge overnight, why does it switch off Wifi in that case?

I have an AT&T enterprise 2 GB plan on my main phone only, I have 4 phones total on my account, the other 3 are 200 MB plans.

How come the overages are only happening on my 200 MB plan phones? . I never see my 2 GB plan ever go over 200 MB and I am using it with Exchange for work all the time.

Additionally, I am using the new feature in ios 7.0 which shows cellular data usage. It is not capturing ALL the cellular usage as I was hit with another overage and it showed only 100 MB of usage total.

My suggestion to everyone is do what I do and call your service provider every month to request credits for the overages. I have been doing this for the last 8 months and it is working. In the next month I am going to start charging back AT&T for the time needed to call and request a credit.

Originaldiode wrote:

Additionally, I am using the new feature in ios 7.0 which shows cellular data usage. It is not capturing ALL the cellular usage as I was hit with another overage and it showed only 100 MB of usage total.

I just had a conversation with AT&T regarding reported usage on the phone vs reported on the bill. Mine was regarding International roaming, where the phone showed 281 MB and the online account management showed 295 MB. I was told that I would be safe going by the number on the phone. So I suggest calling your carrier if there is a discrepancy between the data reported on the phone and data recorded by the carrier and discussing it with them. Note that I had purchased a 300 MB international roaming plan, so I was under in either case.

I don't want to speak too soon but I've been monitoring my son's usage every day for months - he is on an IPhone 5 and has reguarly gone over our shared plan this year. On the other hand, I am on an old IPhone 4 and have never had high data use problems. We both use the most recent IOS operating system.

With the latest upgrade to 7.0.3, however, my son's use suddenly went back down to more normal levels earlier this month. This despite him losing access to wifi at his work - which should have increased his usage.

I'm wondering if any others have seen this improvement? Maybe Apple/AT&T have actually done something this time???

I can assure you that AT&T has not fixed this problem. I've been working with them now for 4 months on the issue of data being billed every hour on the hour and they can't figure out why it's doing it. Although most data transfers aren't very much data they are still using part of the 10G that I pay to use every month. 10G of which is shared between 5 devices so as you can imagine that can add up quickly. I now don't use my phone anywhere close to how I used to use it before this began in July, and I keep four of the devices data turned off 90% of the time. It's frustrating and I don't know about anyone else but I think that it's time that the carriers begin having to be accountable for the data that is being billed! This nonsense about batching is a possibility and has some legs but to get billed for data every hour on the hour, while the phone is in WiFi, plugged in and not dark is ridiculous. I think it's time for the carriers to be accountable for knowing exactly what is using data, when it is using that data and how much it used and they should be able to tell the consumer all of that information when asked for it. This non-sense about batching data usage and not being able to tell me where, when and what is a crime and with data getting more and more expensive how does anyone on any carrier know that they are paying for what they used?? I've filed a complaint with the FCC so hopefully something will come of it and we as consumers will get the answers that we deserve. Ever other industry has to be accountable for the billings that they do, why are the wireless carriers any different?

Simply "google" the term ATT OPT OUT. You will be directed to a site, in the U S, to opt out of data mining. It works. My cellular usage dropped 75%.

http://www.att.com/cmpchoice

Thanks for posting the link.

Thank you Nana, this explains why AT&T doesn't acknowledge the problem, they make money off it. The nonsense about switches being off and accumulating data until the next cycle made no sense, as we can see most data was being billed nearly every hour of the night and day when it was used, what makes sense is AT&T is collecting data and transferring that data at 2:00am when users are not likely to notice it or be affected by a large data transfer. And with the iPhone 5 turning off the wifi network in sleep mode to save battery life, AT&T is making money both on the marketing and on the data overage.