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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

Jun 8, 2010 8:18 AM in response to Jeff Hallgren

Last night I tried an experiment and the result is astonishing!

I typically have 8 to 12 thousand KB of data output lately at 2 in the morning. I and many others. That is the subject of this thread.

I only had one mail account set to push. Mobileme. I changed that to manual.
I turned off the phone at midnight. I turned it back on again at 6:00 am.

I just checked my data usage on my bill. Get this:

06/07, the night before, I show 7995KB set at 2:47 am.

06/08, last night, I show 83KB at 6:00 am.

Jun 8, 2010 8:30 AM in response to Eddie Strauss

GMTA - I did a similar test. I turned off the phone before going to bed, turned it on around 6:08 AM. I show 5 MB sent at 6:08, none between 2 & 3, the usual time that outgoing data appear. So this shoots down the hypothesis that AT&T is merely accumulating sent data over a prior time period and reports it in the wee hours. If that were the case the data would have still appeared between 2 & 3 AM.

The iPhone is truly phoning "home", wherever home is.

Jun 8, 2010 8:34 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

could it be mobile me syncing up to the cloud? how many of you have mobile me accounts?

Jun 8, 2010 8:46 AM in response to Shane Davis

I just had a nasty chat with someone in "technical" at ATT who told me that in 3 years of working there this is the first she has heard of this and I was the only person with this problem! I tried to tell her how many posts there are in two threads here with people saying they have contacted ATT and also over at MacInTouch. We hung up.

Jun 8, 2010 8:53 AM in response to Shane Davis

I do not have MobileMe.

Jun 8, 2010 9:01 AM in response to TosaDeac

I see this usage as far back as AT&T's online system will allow me to look, January 2009, when I still had an iPhone Classic. So this isn't related to OS 3.

TosaDeac

Level 1

37 points

Jun 8, 2010 9:05 AM in response to Shane Davis

I do have MobileMe and have it set to Push (really only for the Find My iPhone feature), but I know my friend with Yahoo has the same problem but I know he has Push enabled as well. So that would seem to suggest it is the Push feature causing this. The few of you that experimented with shutting off Push and shutting off the phone for the night seem to support the idea it is something with Push, but what is getting pushed at 2-3am? I wonder if calling Apple Support would yield a better answer?

@Lawrence...If I recall I did not enable Push until the Find My iPhone feature was released. Do you recall if you have always used Push?

Message was edited by: TosaDeac

Jun 8, 2010 9:09 AM in response to TosaDeac

I misspoke before. I did not change to from push to manual. I meant to but I didn't want to cancel the find my iPhone feature. So the only thing I did was turn off the phone.

I'm on the phone with Apple now. On hold.

Jun 8, 2010 9:10 AM in response to TosaDeac

I don't have MobileMe, thus don't have Push for it. But I do have Exchange Push. Going back over old bills, I see the same usage as early as January 2009, which I think was before Push was available.

jinx.pt

Level 1

40 points

Jun 8, 2010 9:11 AM in response to TosaDeac

I'd recommend people with this problem, to file a bug report, and to request in the bug report, for an application or profile that allows to identify what data is being sent.
I have not heard of people outside AT&T having this problem, thus why I think it's AT&T.
(I don't have none of the problems you describe, and I have everything with push (mobile me, gmail, several apps).

If AT&T or someone else is retrieving information from your phones, this is very serious.
If there is a problem with PUSH, it is also very serious.

Jun 8, 2010 9:39 AM in response to cnpeyton

this is seriously scary stuff. i just checked my bill. i can assure you that i'm asleep by 11pm on most nights. yet every night at around 2am, data gets sent somewhere. and it puts me well over 200MB without even using my phone! the link below is a screenshot of the bogus data usage.

http://files.me.com/michael.seth.novick/e1wqsj

Jun 8, 2010 9:42 AM in response to cnpeyton

Remember when the original iPhone came out and people were getting phone book sized bills with all the data usage? ATT started consolidating the sessions to make the bills more managable. I looked at my bill and I see the same sessions. In fact, my bill doesn't show many sessions at all even though I'm on 3G throughout the day with mail, web, twitter, etc.

It's probably just ATT billing reporting on various sessions during the day. An easy way to check this would be to turn off the iPhone before midnight, clear the data logger, then turn it back on in the morning. Then before you go to bed the that day, note the data usage during the day. When it that day shows up online, compare. Otherwise you have no idea what is "extra" data and what is data you really used.

Message was edited by: flaminiom

jinx.pt

Level 1

40 points

Jun 8, 2010 9:49 AM in response to flaminiom

ahahah, it is really strange no one had yet proposed that. It is so basic and obvious, maybe that's why no one did =)
Anyways, whomever is having the problem, do what flaminiom said. Reset in the morning, check what the consumption is after that.

On a related note, some people said that, when shutting off the phone, data was not billed at those times, so I suppose that it isn't what flaminiom said, but it's a surefire way to make sure if it's AT&T consolidating data at the middle of the night or not...

I say it's that NSA thing....

Jun 8, 2010 9:50 AM in response to flaminiom

If that were the case then the usage would show up at the same time whether the phone was online or off. It does not show up when the phone is off, until it is turned on.

Jun 8, 2010 10:00 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

You're looking for logic in ATT's billing system.

The phone may in fact need to be online to close out the day, or whatever it's doing.

Basically I'm looking at my bill and certainly used more 3G sessions than listed. So, those sessions are consolidated, and we even know ATT does this. That seems pretty obvious, and probably be best working from there than asking ATT CSRs or blaming the Men in Black.

Unknown data usage early morning