Level 1

2 points

Unknown data usage early morning

With the changes to the data plans, i decided to look at my wifes data usage on her iphone. What i have found is odd and a bit concerning. Overall her data usage is pretty much nothing, except for something that occurs every morning around 1 or 2 am. I have included data usage on the AT&T account below. As you can see, something happens around 1 or 2 am every morning, i just dont know what it is. The amount of data being transferred is REALLY high if you ask me, as high as 75336KB back on the 17th. I called AT&T support and they said it was the phone updating or mail being downloaded, basically they have no idea. I have the mail set to fetch manually already. Anyway to determine what is going on???

06/04 01:22 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 3368KB
06/03 01:45 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 18906KB
06/02 01:45 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 6878KB
06/01 01:45 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9460KB
05/31 07:45 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1918KB
05/31 01:27 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 7551KB
05/30 02:27 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1224KB
05/30 01:17 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2685KB
05/29 01:39 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 8120KB
05/28 01:39 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5410KB
05/28 01:07 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5068KB
05/27 10:42 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 21778KB
05/27 01:06 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 10419KB
05/26 09:26 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 20657KB
05/26 01:50 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 8467KB
05/25 02:21 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 18086KB
05/25 01:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5249KB
05/24 01:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1012KB
05/23 01:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 12978KB
05/22 01:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9749KB
05/21 01:41 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 19166KB
05/20 01:17 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 23860KB
05/18 11:56 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 15440KB
05/18 01:06 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 29900KB
05/17 01:12 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 75336KB

Posted on Jun 5, 2010 4:56 AM

2,094 replies

ed2020

Level 1

69 points

Jul 10, 2010 12:22 AM in response to cnpeyton

Am I correct in saying Visual Voicemail is always downloaded over the cellular network, even when connected to wifi? If so could it have anything to do with this? It's the only thing I can think of that could generate some of the big data volumes without the user necessarily knowing about it.

Jul 10, 2010 6:40 AM in response to cnpeyton

Guys

I don't know if this is it, but there are some apps that have....send anonymous usage statistics....for example Lonely planet....

Check the settings on each of the apps displayed & reset them to off.

It is my understanding that most of the apps is collecting usage data & sending them off to their respective developers....presumably for further updates or whatever else...

Can't say if this is the right thing........but try it.....meanwhile turn push to off & location services to off....

Jul 10, 2010 8:24 AM in response to thevvsbond

thevvsbond wrote:
Guys

I don't know if this is it, but there are some apps that have....send anonymous usage statistics....for example Lonely planet....

Check the settings on each of the apps displayed & reset them to off.

It is my understanding that most of the apps is collecting usage data & sending them off to their respective developers....presumably for further updates or whatever else...

Can't say if this is the right thing........but try it.....meanwhile turn push to off & location services to off....

yes... i would agree with this... my investigation - ongoing - has shown that my data usage significantly drops to normal levels if i turn off cellular data overnight... i mean it's orders of magnitudes lower if I leave Cellular Data OFF during the night... and upon turning it back on in the morning, no massive amount of data... so it dismisses the whole "deferred" data reporting by AT&T... as if the data reporting was deferred from earlier in the day, it would still show up on my att wireless data log later in the night... but it's not....

sooo.... now to find out which app is guilty and FLAME THE **** out of the developer for allowing SO much data to be bled off during the night WITHOUT MY CONSENT!!

Jul 10, 2010 9:14 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

I would ignore when the usage is being posted to your ATT.com data usage report. Other than showing the total amount used so far it is confusing the real issue of inordinate data usage.

Start using the Settings/General/usage. This gives you real time updates, although it doesn't show times. We don't know the criteria for posting to ATT.com and I doubt they are going to tell us.

For me, I get hit with 3mb of usage every time it checks my email and receives something. Turning the phone off at night would obviously take care of that little problem at night.

Right now the iPhone support people believe this thread is about reporting issues more than data use issues. I'd suggest we focus on the amount of data used in a 24 hour period, then narrow it down further.

Check your usage on your iphone and see when it is jumping. Then narrow down the apps you are using. Better yet, check your usage data, use an application, then check your usage on your iphone right after that. See if there was a jump greater than you expected.

jinx.pt

Level 1

40 points

Jul 10, 2010 9:33 AM in response to Stephend7

This is a good recomendation.
I'd also wager many of you listen to music? That may consume a LOT of bandwidth, depending how they go about it.

I live in Portugal, and have 200mb limit. I rarely use my 3G connection, since I'm most of the day on Wi-Fi. However, I am very careful with my data usage. I always research first how much bandwidth my apps are using, since i played a game that, in a week, used about 150megabytes, and i didn't even use it that much...it just made downloads of everything everytime :/. Google maps can consume somewhat too, if you use it a lot.

Basically, my 200mbs are enough to get e-mails and synchronizations immediately (with attachments only on request), and the eventual google maps usage for when I need to know where to go or quick google search to solve a dilemma =).

Online games tend to use a lot of bandwidth if you're not careful. E-mail can also spend a lot, disable attachments retrieval.

cheers

Jul 10, 2010 9:37 AM in response to MI_canuck

I believe I have a fix for the large transfers. Hook up your iPhone, in iTunes CTRL click on your device on the left, and reset warnings. Unhook and hook the phone up again, and confirm that you do not want Apple getting info.

That fixed it for me. There are very small transfers happening now in the middle of the night, on the order of 20K or so.

Jul 10, 2010 9:55 AM in response to Nathan Goldshlag

Nathan Goldshlag wrote:
I believe I have a fix for the large transfers. Hook up your iPhone, in iTunes CTRL click on your device on the left, and reset warnings. Unhook and hook the phone up again, and confirm that you do not want Apple getting info.

That fixed it for me. There are very small transfers happening now in the middle of the night, on the order of 20K or so.

SWEET!!! that is what I was hoping to find out... if a way to "turn off" the apple crash reports... sounds like this is it!!

thnx!!! will test this out...

Jul 10, 2010 9:57 AM in response to MI_canuck

graphed out my data from the data report on my att wireless OLAM...

first 3 day,s 2-4 Jul - included tethering, so that usage is fair... and I accept it as is... ( although 350MB in one day... ouch 😉 )

5-8 Jul, that is NO tethering, no streaming on 3G... yet still almost about 60MB per day on average...

9 Jul, Cellular Data turned OFF at night... (normal usage of checking emails, web, twitter and FB... nothing out of ordinary)... a more liveable 10MB...

PS - also left it off last night, but obviously too soon to see 10 Jul data.... a liveable 10MB (normal usage of checking emails, web, twitter and FB... nothing out of ordinary)

the trend is building...

Pup

Level 2

310 points

Jul 10, 2010 10:03 AM in response to Nathan Goldshlag

"Unhook and hook the phone up again, and confirm that you do not want Apple getting info."

After disconnecting and reconnecting, nothing asked me to confirm anything...just showed back up in iTunes...what am I missing? 🙂

ed2020

Level 1

69 points

Jul 10, 2010 12:30 PM in response to Nathan Goldshlag

Nathan Goldshlag wrote:
I believe I have a fix for the large transfers. Hook up your iPhone, in iTunes CTRL click on your device on the left, and reset warnings. Unhook and hook the phone up again, and confirm that you do not want Apple getting info.

That fixed it for me. There are very small transfers happening now in the middle of the night, on the order of 20K or so.

If this is the cause then it's absolutely outrageous. For one thing how can they possibly justify several hundred megabytes of crash report from a phone and secondly what on Earth is the logic behind sending all this information over a cellular network - why not wait until the device is connected to a computer with a network connection, or connected to a wifi network?! No wonder AT&T and O2 are phasing out the unlimited data plans! 🙂

texagi95

Level 1

0 points

Jul 11, 2010 6:34 AM in response to cnpeyton

Mine is doing the same thing. At 1:30am when the phone is charging, and I'm sleeping. Also, I scrolled down to the "pay-per-usage" of my account, and it is showing 60mb!!! I have unlimited data, on a 3G phone!!!! what in the **** is this pay per usage charge?? Call ATT, they said that they didn't know, might be a glitch in the system, and that they made a note of it, and to check the bill when I get it. What kind of BS is this???

Jul 12, 2010 6:56 AM in response to Pup

Pup wrote:
"Unhook and hook the phone up again, and confirm that you do not want Apple getting info."

After disconnecting and reconnecting, nothing asked me to confirm anything...just showed back up in iTunes...what am I missing? 🙂

it works, but you have to hit 'Sync' after doing the 'Reset Warnings'... once you hit the 'Sync' button, a message will pop up... Just click 'Disagree'

Jul 12, 2010 9:41 AM in response to MI_canuck

I don't know which is the fix, but I've seen a major drop in usage since I activated my iPhone 4 and set it to not update Apple. I see more usage 'realtime' and all of it is in reasonable range. The first night I had my new iPhone I did get a 14MB transfer around 2:30AM, but since that night it has been a couple hundred KB max.

Another thing of note is that I get better wifi reception in my bedroom with the new phone, which may move more data over wifi than my 2G.

Zitter

Level 1

0 points

Jul 12, 2010 1:43 PM in response to brm123

Having the same issue. Contacted AT&T without any success.

DATE TIME TO/FROM TYPE DIRECTION MSG/KB/MIN
07/12 07:58 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5480KB
07/12 01:51 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 7264KB
07/11 06:51 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 4828KB
07/11 01:07 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 17209KB
07/10 06:07 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 7283KB
07/10 09:22 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 11110KB

Jul 12, 2010 6:46 PM in response to cnpeyton

Been experiencing this same problem. I've never used over 140MB in a single month, then I received the data usage overage warning e-mail from AT&T. After logging in, the data usage showed I used over 400MB in one block of time at 1:25 a.m. The following day it showed I used over 116MB at 1:45 a.m. I was asleep both times, my phone was in standby and I was using wi-fi.

I've called AT&T and Apple multiple times and continue to get a runaround. AT&T told me to turn off cellular data until the issue was resolved, then was supposed to contact Apple and then call me back…the call never came. I called again, was passed from AT&T, then to Apple, then finally made it to a senior advisor at Apple technical support. This senior advisor told me the only explaination is third-party apps running in the background. He went on to explain how apps like Facebook can run in the background and use data – apparently he doesn't understand how iOS4 works and that multitasking is limited to a small number of capabilities. I was not running streaming audio or using any app that would use task completion, so third-party apps running in the background could not be the answer.

So since iOS4 doesn't include any kind of data tracking and AT&T doesn't offer any kind of detailing tracking as well, I think we're all hosed until they figure it out themselves. While this wouldn't be an issue under unlimited data, it becomes a major problem with tiered plans.

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Unknown data usage early morning