Unknown data usage early morning

Mitch Aunger wrote:
If what the Apple store guy told me yesterday is true (that the phone switches off the wireless to save battery), then I think Apple needs to change this somehow because there's way too much data going down the pipe to my phone for my liking...

Apple is stuck between a rock and a hard place here. If they did keep WiFi on all the time then the battery would run down in a few hours, and there would be passionate screams about the poor battery life (The iP 4 is speced at 10 hours on WiFi).

Cellular data requires only a receiver on the phone to be on, waiting for a transmission from the tower. This uses very little power (300 hours according to the specs). WiFi, however, requires a continuous "handshake" between the device and the router; it isn't just a passive receiver.

if you're home, and have the phone on Wi-Fi, turn the cellular data off. yes, you will not receive anything pushed in standby. only when the phone is in use (just press the home to wake).
but this way you will not consume any data. also, opt out at oo.apple.com from the phone.

That's only a partial solution tho. If you turn off cellular data, you lose visual voicemail and have to wonder if you've gotten any voicemails (or use the old fashioned method and actually call to find out).

I have situations now and then where the phone never rings, yet I get notification of a voice mail. So this makes me nervous to turn it off.

Tho right now, I have everything turned off so I don't go over 200mb in the next 2 days.

alerts on the iPad come at any time. If I have it by my chair while watching TV, I hear the beep and know I've gotten a new email, or facebook alert, or some sporting event etc.

Nothing special - just like the iPhone, except it is truly 100% wi-fi only.

Well I just got off the phone with Apple and the the product specialist that I spoke with informed me that this is AT&T and it is not mysterious data but the accumilation of data through the day that is being charged at one time. She said that since AT&T changed their data plans that this is when the usage hits the billing cycle. She said that you would see this even if you turned your phone off all night. No push notifications or applications are doing anything at night but it is AT&T and their delayed billings for the info transmitted to/ from your phone throught the day.
The true answer is yet to ever be determined but this is all I can get from anyone.

corygkb1 wrote:
Well I just got off the phone with Apple and the the product specialist that I spoke with informed me that this is AT&T and it is not mysterious data but the accumilation of data through the day that is being charged at one time. She said that since AT&T changed their data plans that this is when the usage hits the billing cycle. She said that you would see this even if you turned your phone off all night. No push notifications or applications are doing anything at night but it is AT&T and their delayed billings for the info transmitted to/ from your phone throught the day.
The true answer is yet to ever be determined but this is all I can get from anyone.

Interesting, but it doesn't match my experience. If the phone is off the data usage does not appear - until I turn the phone back on.

This would not surprise me -- but many are experiencing much higher daily data usage than expected, and we still need to figure out what is causing that.

It is probable that the cause is a combination of various apps using more data than expected (perhaps even when not explicitly activated) and the fact that Wi-Fi is disabled when the phone is sleeping.

Note that the fact that the bill says "Sent" is irrelevant. All 3G data usage is listed on AT&T bills as Sent, regardless of principal direction of data flow.

Perhaps someone can analyze by arranging for their phone to stay awake for 24 hours, while running on WiFi, with a network sniffer recording all packets to/from the iPhone? This should give some idea of where all of those packets are going to / coming from...

Spidey!!!


Spidey!!!

Is it possible that either of the following are happening:

1) Phone "catches up" on communication, transmitting (or receiving) a lot of information when you turn it back on. For how long was your phone turned off?

2) Some feature of AT&T's bookkeeping system causes the data use to be recorded only when the next 3G session happens

Spidey!!!

Progress update. On 7/6 I activated my iPhone 4, and opted out of the Apple notifications. Aside from one large transfer the first night, my 'mystery' usage has fluctuated between 20KB and 200KB fairly consistantly. Don''t know if it is the phone or the reporting, but I'm consuming MUCH less data now.

spidey3 wrote:
Is it possible that either of the following are happening:

1) Phone "catches up" on communication, transmitting (or receiving) a lot of information when you turn it back on. For how long was your phone turned off?

12 hours

2) Some feature of AT&T's bookkeeping system causes the data use to be recorded only when the next 3G session happens

Both of these are possibilities, but, as I said in a previous message, I can think of scenarios that would explain my observations (these were two of them in my mind).

But WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO SPECULATE. AT&T should tell us what they are doing and why. Apparently no one at AT&T has a clue. Or at Apple. They are either ignorant or hiding something. (Ignorant is my first choice, as it is usually the best explanation for anything.)

Spidey!!!

Lawrence Finch wrote:
... (Ignorant is my first choice, as it is usually the best explanation for anything.)

Agreed.
Do not ascribe to evil intent that which can be more easily explained by utter incompetance.

I have been reading this thread from the beginning for the last few days. I am really happy I found it, for I thought I was loosing mind after talking to Apple Store, AT&T and Apple support. As has been suggested, they are all oddly clueless.

My problems are similar to others; had a BB with unlimited data and switched to ipone4 with 200mg/month. Saw data spike by 5 fold, plus a few data charges at night when phone is charging and asleep, 10 feet from home wifi router. (It only charged a few data transfers, not all)

Been in Maine for several days and shut cellular data off.NO DATA CHARGES FROM THAT MOMENT. NO DELAYED BILLING DUMPED HOURS LATER. Getting all e-mails. (Able to check that on my laptop.)

I have noticed that the iphone occasionally looses conection with my wifi here. This concerns me, because it should not happens. If it is happening over night in my Boston home, it could explain the nocturnal charges from at&t. I will watch this more carefully when I return to Boston. (I don't get edge or 3g in Maine.) If this is the case, either the phone, or it's software is defective.

I made the changes suggested by Mitch, and am hopeful that too will reduce data usage.

I am now trying to focus on my apps. Could use some help. How do I figure out if any of these apps are doing things in the background that I'm not aware of. For instance, I found that the NY Times was syncing every 15 minutes. (I killed that one!!) Other news apps don't seem say how they sync. Perhaps someone out there could give us advice on that.

I know it's easy to check which apps are running in the background by double chicking the home button; I'm looking for something further than that if it exists.

Truly remarkable that AT&T & Apple say they never heard of any this, it must be happening to millions of people. Obviously, I am hoping that they do know and will supply the software upgrade to fix it. If not, the phone is a cruel joke, because it would only live up to it's potential if one has unlimited date, which I have regrettably lost.

HBarry wrote:
I am now trying to focus on my apps. Could use some help. How do I figure out if any of these apps are doing things in the background that I'm not aware of. For instance, I found that the NY Times was syncing every 15 minutes. (I killed that one!!) Other news apps don't seem say how they sync. Perhaps someone out there could give us advice on that.

On the phone go to Settings and scroll down to *NY Times* and tap on it. Now tap *Edge & 3G*. You can turn syncing on or off and set the interval. You can also do this for WiFi. Generally, apps that sync in background can be controlled the same way.

Thank you for the response. That is what I did for the Times. But I noticed that, for instance with cnbc.com I couldn't find any link to control it in the same way. Am I not looking in the right place, or do they simply snyc without telling you how?

I can confirm this as well. Once I opted out, my data use seems to has returned back to normal. I find it pretty shady this would be enabled by default. AT&T stands to clean up on practices like this.

If you haven't opted out yet, visit http://oo.apple.com/ to do so.