Unknown data usage early morning

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

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

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....

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.

My bill does reflect every single 3g session that happens. These late night data use happens in addition to those sessions and are added to the total of my bill. I've gone back a few months now and if I exclude these late night charges, I'm well under the new 200MB plan limit. If I add these data sessions, I'm well over the 200MB. It would be less of a problem had the plan remained unlimited, but with the new data plans in place, this is a serious concern.

Here's the last work week of my bill. Aside from Monday, which apparently was a big data morning for me, I have no other data session logged except for the late night. I certainly used a 3G each of those days. Those have to be the accumulation of my 3G during the day.

Interestingly, my wife is still on the original iPhone/EDGE and it appears each of her sessions show up individually and she has no late night records.

93 MON 05/24/2010 2:35AM Data Transfer Data 2,816 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
94 MON 05/24/2010 12:24PM Data Transfer Data 9,418 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
95 TUE 05/25/2010 2:11AM Data Transfer Data 12,121 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
96 WED 05/26/2010 2:28AM Data Transfer Data 11,181 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
97 THU 05/27/2010 2:28AM Data Transfer Data 10,546 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
98 FRI 05/28/2010 2:26AM Data Transfer Data 11,896 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00

Message was edited by: flaminiom

Having looked at the AT&T data usage chart for the month of May I find that on more than half of the days listed I have only one charge at about 2:30 am - in fact, I'd say it is closer to 75%. Now I know that isn't accurate and not just because I'm not using my phone at 2:30. I know that every day I've checked the weather using my weather app between 6 & 7am. No data usage there. I know I've checked prices at Amazon, done Google searches, and other things during the day. Almost none of the data usage listed in the chart actually correspond to when I know I've gone online.

That strongly suggests that AT&T's billing computer is billing us once a day - at most twice - and that it happens at an off-peak time.

But you still don't know that's not your data. Until you can account for the late night items as being additional to your daily usage, it still could just be deferred reporting regardless of how many sessions are listed.

I've had my iphone 2G almost since initial release (winter 2007). I've always noticed these "odd" data charges that occur in the middle of the night. For me its always between 2AM-3AM usually at 2:37AM. I dont use a lot of 2G since its so slow. If I'm not on wifi I generally dont use data. I've never really cared about these data transfers because the data was unlimited, but I am curious as to what they are. During an average day I'll have several small transfers of 10-30KB then a big fat one at 2:37AM thats always over 1MB and up to 8MB. I, too, have called AT&T and Apple and gotten nowhere, nobody knows what these odd transfers are.

This has to be a data reconciliation method by AT&T. Here's the entries from my bill. I've snipped out the ones during the day and only included the overnight (1am-3am) entries.

2410 TUE 04/13/2010 2:39AM Data Transfer Data 28,048 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2412 WED 04/14/2010 2:37AM Data Transfer Data 25,782 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2413 THU 04/15/2010 2:39AM Data Transfer Data 43,297 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2415 FRI 04/16/2010 2:42AM Data Transfer Data 12,861 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2416 SAT 04/17/2010 2:16AM Data Transfer Data 26,737 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2417 SUN 04/18/2010 2:13AM Data Transfer Data 6,517 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2419 MON 04/19/2010 2:28AM Data Transfer Data 39,980 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2420 TUE 04/20/2010 2:37AM Data Transfer Data 90,715 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2422 WED 04/21/2010 2:37AM Data Transfer Data 29,088 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2423 THU 04/22/2010 2:25AM Data Transfer Data 32,722 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2425 FRI 04/23/2010 2:49AM Data Transfer Data 25,339 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2428 SAT 04/24/2010 2:00AM Data Transfer Data 4,177 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2429 SUN 04/25/2010 2:00AM Data Transfer Data 43,219 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2430 MON 04/26/2010 2:19AM Data Transfer Data 46,639 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2436 WED 04/28/2010 2:52AM Data Transfer Data 50,532 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2437 THU 04/29/2010 2:16AM Data Transfer Data 51,035 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2438 FRI 04/30/2010 2:16AM Data Transfer Data 24,021 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2441 SAT 05/01/2010 2:40AM Data Transfer Data 72,397 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2444 SUN 05/02/2010 2:50AM Data Transfer Data 11,370 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2448 MON 05/03/2010 2:04AM Data Transfer Data 15,263 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2451 TUE 05/04/2010 2:40AM Data Transfer Data 29,618 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2455 WED 05/05/2010 2:26AM Data Transfer Data 33,584 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2456 THU 05/06/2010 2:27AM Data Transfer Data 12,769 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2458 FRI 05/07/2010 2:56AM Data Transfer Data 38,274 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2459 SAT 05/08/2010 1:58AM Data Transfer Data 21,980 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2460 SUN 05/09/2010 2:39AM Data Transfer Data 7,570 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2462 MON 05/10/2010 2:37AM Data Transfer Data 29,195 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2463 TUE 05/11/2010 2:19AM Data Transfer Data 1,690 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
2465 WED 05/12/2010 2:56AM Data Transfer Data 16,267 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00

Adding all these KBs total up to what I'd expect for my usage. There's one every night of my billing cycle. I don't think there's anything surreptitious going on here. It just looks odd because of when it's happening. I can clearly see that pattern my usage in these stats.

Why is ATT clueless about this? Their response to me, twice, is that an App is sending out information in the middle of the night. While asleep. With a home wi-fi network. And they have no power to stop it.

Shouldn't they be telling me that's my accumulated data usage summarized in one daily entry?

I agree. I was told it was maybe my visual voicemail. Really?! I would think they have to come up with a better explanation since so many of us are noticing this and bringing it to their attention. They brought all this upon themselves by changing from an unlimited to capped plans, so they better find a good way to explain it to all of us!

I have really minimal cell data usage and I can't understand how "billing data" can be multiple megabytes every single day.

One experiment I can try:
This evening, I'll reset my Cellular Network Data and will refrain from using the phone. In the morning I'll check the usage to see if the "unexplained transfer" has been recorded, then I'll check on AT&T's site to see if the same data use shows up. The numbers should match.
From analysis of my data it looks like the 1am transfers occur regardless of whether I use the phone for the day or not but I suppose I could try shutting off the phone after the 1am transfer for 24 hours, then turning it on. I suspect it will "transfer" when turned on, even if there was no usage for the previous 24 hours.

This really doesn't really help me out though, it doesn't explain anything. I think the next step is to find a GSM access point, repeater or cell-to-internet rerouter w/logging to install at home. Maybe then I can get a look at what the data is.

Here a few thing things I've 'learned' from AT&T over the years talking to the sales associates in the store or calling tech/customer support: When the iPhone battery dies you throw the phone away and buy a new one. Apple didn't make the iPhone, it was licensed from HTC. It isn't possible for me to have an AT&T account because I live in an area that has no AT&T service (I could see the AT&T tower from my apartment and my community had been in AT&T service for at least 6 months by then. I had to get my first AT&T account using my business address!) My Motorola phone would only work with accessories bought from the AT&T store.

So if the AT&T rep you talk to claims to be clueless - believe it.

Some thing else I'm going to try. I think I'll keep the iPhone plugged in and disable sleep - that way the wireless will be available all the time. If the data transfer uses the wireless it will log in my router, if it still uses the cell data - that would be fairly suspicious.