Unknown data usage early morning

I too have joined the club of high data usage. Yesterday (7/13) morning I got an alert that I was at 65% usage from ATT.

I spend 95% or more of my time at home with wi-fi - I rarely use data outside my home unless I'm traveling so I was very shocked to see data usage. My history showed that my data usage rarely goes above the 200mb so I picked the lower plan when I upgraded to the iPhone 4.

I checked my wife's iPhone 3gs usage - 9mb - very low
I checked my daughter's iPhone 3g usage - 7mb - tho we just gave it to her when I upgraded to the 4.

my data usage - 137mb - too darn high for someone using his phone with wi-fi only!

So, I read this thread and many others yesterday morning. I decided to see if a reboot would solve the problem - as I'm thinking one of the background apps might be doing it and a reboot should turn it off right? So I rebooted and only used the phone, email, and the pzizz app (a napping tool) yesterday... here's a snippet of my usage:


DATE TIME TO/FROM TYPE DIRECTION MSG/KB/MIN
07/13 06:40 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 21KB
07/13 01:17 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5064KB
07/12 10:52 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2852KB
07/12 10:41 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 31KB
07/12 05:36 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 3086KB
07/12 04:45 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 48KB
07/12 03:05 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2840KB
07/12 02:50 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 48KB
07/12 01:23 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 85KB
07/12 12:49 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 18KB
07/12 12:32 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 66KB
07/12 12:19 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 26KB
07/12 11:42 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 988KB
07/12 11:17 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 49KB
07/12 10:32 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 913KB
07/12 09:03 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1834KB
07/12 01:34 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5652KB
07/11 10:34 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 948KB

(and the previous days all looked like 7/12 with lots of data)

Notice that 7/13 after I rebooted, there were no reports of data sent! Oh, well I also changed something else that I just thought of - I turned "Cellular data" off in the preferences - well that should have a lot to do with it too right? 🙂 All of the regular apps I'm using (testing now on 7/14) seem to work with the cellular data turned off while using wi-fi - so I'll probably be making sure that is off while at home.

so is it that there's some background app on the iPhone 4 that is sending this data?

Now, as to whether the iPhone switches off the wi-fi when the screen is locked to save power (as I've seen written here and other places), that seems bogus to me. My iPad is wi-fi only and when the screen is locked, I still get email alerts etc... so wi-fi is still connected on the iPad. Now, if I could only turn off the phone while leaving wi-fi on, we could prove that it works on the iPhone.

Two days of calls to AT&T, no one has a clue other than to turn your phone/data off or airplane mode. Seems the company (AT&T) who will earn an extra $15 on this should know the source of their extra income! Where's Gizmodo on this??

Ok, what a "d'oh" moment I had this morning! If you turn off cellular data, you don't get voicemail alerts and visual voice mail. Geez how did I not think of that?

Could it be that all of the checking for voice mail is what people are seeing as all this traffic?

I did a few quick tests yesterday just to see what uses up cell data when wireless is off, and the maps application is a big data hog! I certainly will monitor my usage of data when away from wi-fi! Good thing I have 3 iPhones in the family to spread out that maps usage when we're on a family trip 🙂

So here's the thing. Since AT&T says that "most people use less than 200MB/mo" they determined that as a price point to supposedly give customers a break. That would have been true for me until last April. It is no longer true now.

Nor does it seem to be true for most of the people posting here. So if it is true that the phone needs all that data upload to function properly, then who are the people who don't go over 200MB? Now?

Eddie Strauss wrote:
So here's the thing. Since AT&T says that "most people use less than 200MB/mo" they determined that as a price point to supposedly give customers a break. That would have been true for me until last April. It is no longer true now.

Nor does it seem to be true for most of the people posting here. So if it is true that the phone needs all that data upload to function properly, then who are the people who don't go over 200MB? Now?

good question... I can and have burned through 200MB in a couple of days without EVEN TRYING.... who the **** are these people that can go 30 days and stay under 200MB??? either a), they have turned off Cellular Data all the time and use WiFi ONLY b) they have no email setup, never use safari, and download only game apps (which shouldn't use any data)... in essence, people that don't really use an iphone how it was meant to be used...

anybody who jb'd their 3Gs, knows there is an app called PrivaCy. This will allow you to opt out of from these adds or tracking monsters. Such as Pinch Media, Flurry, Medialets, and Mobclix

That is not the point though.
- I did not sign up for these,
- I was not asked to opt in or out.

But then to have the nerve and ask the user to pay for the extra data use, this is totally BS. It's illegal, kinda of bait and switch. I am sure a lawsuit is brewing somewhere.

The folks having this problem - have you tried what I suggested which fixed the problem for me??

I reset the warnings by connecting the iPhone and right clicking on the iPhone on the left under devices in iTunes (CTRL click for Mac folks) 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 megabyte transfers I saw before.

Nate

I have the same problem and I talk to ATT about this problem 3 days ago and they put me on a HIGH PRIORITY and would get back to me by the 15th (today).
I had to call them back and they said it could take another 7 days.
Before I go to bed, I turn off all apps running in the background, turn on wifi and turn off push and I am still getting data usage. How can that be?
I even turned off my phone at night and when I turned it back on, the data usage started to run up. I have used almost 1 gig of data in 10 days ND ATT has no answer.
How can I trust them with my overall billing if they can't explain this problem?

What about RESTARTING the iPhone just before bedtime, so there are no extra apps backgrounding? That would eliminate one variable. If you wanted to be really careful you might keep track of what time you start various apps, and compare those notes to the usage to see when the "spikes" occur (if they do)........

So, I have been oblivious since I got my phone the end of June. I used 642mb of data in the two years I had the iPhone 3 so I thought I was safe. I got an alert this morning saying I had used 90% of my data for the month, so I checked my account. I saw a huge download I did last night when I was on WIFI (and I checked my icon before starting the download). Seems either the phone or an app decided to use the cellular network instead of wifi. So AT&T told me I couldn't have been on wifi because I didn't get the popup to log in. I explained several times that I set the phone to automatically log into my home network, and I verified that with the icon, but she didn't believe that was possible. The popup on her phone never gave her that option.

After discussing my huge download while on wifi with Apple, I said that if the phone was going to bypass wifi and use the cellular network, it should notify me. I was told "But you'd have to be looking at your phone to see that". I said "If I'm initiating a large download, I'm looking at my phone." She responded [no kidding folks...] "What if you were driving in your car?" I had to explain that if I were driving in my car, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be on my home network, and would know that.

Well, I'm bummed. I thought I had my data usage figured out as you can see in a previous post of mine a few days ago in this thread. Email was claiming to use 3mb of data instantly when it downloaded at least one message of any size. I fixed that problem and for a couple of days it used a more reasonable amount of data.

yesterday I was on the road, most of the time with poor to no service. I turned off data most of the time to save battery. As is my habit now I checked usage and found that when I fired up google maps it instantly used 4mb of data. Now I expect navigation to use some data, but I didn't use it to navigate real time, I just checked the maps and turned it off. Actually quit the program.

Since the 15th when my bill reset I've used over 44mb of data according to my iphone. ATT.com hasn't caught up yet, but I'm sure it will. At this rate the 2gb plan wouldn't be enough.

Since I used my blackberry much less carefully than I do my iPhone, and racked up all of 30mb to 40mb a month doing the same things (Email with a little navigation), I would think that at most, I'd use 2 or 3 times the data on the iphone. I love solving problems, but this is getting me frustrated.



Stephen

Using google maps or streaming music consumes a LOT of bandwidth.
If you don't wanna use bandwidth while using maps, the only choice is really buying one of options that already come loaded with maps (e.g.: tom tom).

Google maps works by downloading images, depending on your zoom. What that means, is that whenever you zoom out/in, it consumes more data, because it's a new image. And images take bandwidth.

I starting to believe that most of these 'problems' are from people that don't realize just how much applications need of bandwidth nowadays.

Maybe you can request google to add an offline functionality to google maps, where you can download whole areas as offline storage...that would be nice!

Hey Jinx,

Google maps works by downloading images, depending on your zoom. What that means, is that whenever you zoom out/in, it consumes more data, because it's a new image. And images take bandwidth.

I starting to believe that most of these 'problems' are from people that don't realize just how much applications need of bandwidth nowadays.

I'd agree with you on the second item, but I've been in high tech since the early 80's. I did find that my email was one source of a problem and fixed it myself as I mentioned in 2 earlier posts. What I'm seeing is that I used my blackberry in very similar ways and am using as much data in a couple of days as I use in a day or two with the iphone. This is in spite of the fact that the blackberry did not have wifi at all.

It doesn't take 4 MB of data to show a screen of google maps with 2 zoom in actions. If it did, I'd have seen huge amounts of data usage on my blackberry as well.

On my blackberry, I'd check traffic every day in the parking lot and it was over the ATT network. I check traffic in the parking lot now, but on wi-fi.

Now blackberry does use their optimized servers, so that could account for some of it, and I figured it would make a difference but...

I went back over 6 months of usage on my blackberry which ATT graphs very nicely for us. Usage was 13mb to 45mb with an average of roughly 28mb. I can do that in a day on my iphone. Awfully big disparity when you consider they are being used in such a similar way.

I realized that the apps on the iphone are much more robust, and more of them use data, so I expected to use a lot more data on my iphone, but it's clear to me something is not right here and I don't appreciate the ATT solution which is "quit being cheap and spend more money." 😉

I used my phone as if I were away from home last night - using the maps application for navigation, reading email etc - for about an hour. Used 15mb of data according to the ATT site this morning.

At that rate, I'll be insanely over the 200mb limit.

I don't understand how I'd be able to stay under the limit when away from home.

And I still don't understand how there is ANY 3g usage when I'm sitting at home with 100% wi-fi coverage. My current usage (with 3 days left in my billing period) when sitting 95% at home with my wi-fi is 174mb!!!! This is just wrong!

Oh, and I have reset my Apple info as suggested by several others here and there is some reduction in daily weird uploads... but it isn't gone completely and in my case, when sitting in my house 24 hours a day I believe there should be ZERO 3g usage.

Mitch Aunger wrote:
Oh, and I have reset my Apple info as suggested by several others here and there is some reduction in daily weird uploads... but it isn't gone completely and in my case, when sitting in my house 24 hours a day I believe there should be ZERO 3g usage.

If the phone is on standby WiFi is turned off to save battery. So if you have either Fetch or Push enabled to receive email, or Safari has a page open that refreshes automatically, you will use 3G to get the data.