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cnpeyton Author

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

Top-ranking reply

choroid

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Sep 5, 2011 4:43 AM

this is from data manager application between 7am and 8am, I was at bath had breakfast and drive. look at the data downloads both from 3g and wifi. It can be some application but after 8 am ıt just stops without any intervention. Any ideas ? (iphone 4)

View in context

2,094 replies

Jun 9, 2010 10:49 AM in response to noghbaudie

noghbaudie,

You may have to wait a few days since the transfers are not every night, but most nights. Do one thing at a time and wait a few days to see what happens. I had push on but fetch manual and no apps pushing and got the middle of the night thing. Only had it on for Find My iPhone. But now I turned it off and will wait a few days and report back.

Nate

Jun 9, 2010 11:30 AM in response to Nathan Goldshlag

Nate,

My transfers have been every night, like clockwork almost.

Is the 'Find My iPhone' for 3GS only? Mine is a Gen 1 iPhone, and I see no such setting anywhere... no GPS. I doubt the the 'Location Services' could be involved since Apple is clear that they will always make Apps ask permission first before reporting position.

TosaDeac

Level 1

37 points

Jun 9, 2010 11:43 AM in response to noghbaudie

Well I experimented by shutting off Push and Fetch to my MobileMe account before going to bed last night (left the phone on but locked) and low-and-behold so far no data charge at 2-3am this morning. I am keeping it set to this manner all day today and only manually checking email etc when I am sure I am connected to WiFi and I'll see what happens again tonight and into tomorrow. Seems odd that just doing that little change eliminated the charge and would at so far refute the possibility of just being an accounting issue.

@noghbaudie....Yeah the original iPhone can use Find My iPhone feature. I have used it quite often and although not as accurate as it is in a 3G or 3GS it does give a general radius and also enables the ability to send a "ping" which helps when your 3 year old hinds your iPhone on you! You do have to have MobileMe though...it is in Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars>Fetch New Data and set it to Push or Fetch with some interval of checking other than manually and then back out to Mail,Contacts,Calendar>MobileMe email account>Find My iPhone.

Jun 9, 2010 12:18 PM in response to TosaDeac

The Apple support guy (who has been very helpful/responsive)I spoke to earlier is going to call AT&T directly with my info and see if they can figure it out. He'll e-mail me with his findings.

TosaDeac...if you left your phone "on but locked" was it connected to WiFi all night and might that be the reason that you didn't have any data charges? I believe an earlier post brought up that when our phones are asleep overnight they might be connecting via 3G for the 02:00 data dump even if we are at home in range of WiFi. It would be interesting to see what would happen if you let your phone go to sleep overnight with Push and Fetch turned off.

Jun 9, 2010 12:30 PM in response to TosaDeac

This is the response I got from Apple after they discussed it with AT&T directly (basically nothing new or terribly helpful):

"I had called at&t and she had said what could be going on is that it could be a grand total of what you have been using. She had also mentioned that it is just a estimation of your usage not the actual number."

So it would appear that it will have to be up to the users to figure this out for now.

Jun 9, 2010 12:37 PM in response to wafflestosa

I wrote to Gizmodo and Consumerist to see if they could bring some attention to this. Someone from Gizmodo got back to me to say:

+Sorry about not replying to your email sooner, but I am consulting with an AT&T contact to sort out what's going on here. Thank you very much for tipping us off+.

Not sure if that will get us anywhere. I find it alarming that AT&T is putting data "estimations" on our bills. If I'm on the 200MB data plan, am I charged based on the "estimation" or the actual amount I use? I also still don't buy this excuse of it being a daily total, as I have a lot of other data usage on my bill.

Jun 9, 2010 1:10 PM in response to cnpeyton

I am getting the same charges... here's what's happening on my bill:

3 iPhone accounts. two 8GB 3G, one 16GB 3GS.

We have a family plan with unlimited data usage. The main line (iPhone 3G) on the plan shows daily "Data Transfer" charges at normal times with only TWO charges at 1:57AM and 2:02AM. The other 3G and 3GS are experiencing daily transfers between 1-4am along with other transfers throughout the day. They range anywhere from 10MB-20MB. The most popular time is 1:57am, but it changes throughout the cycle. These are both secondary lines. All 3 lines use about the same amount of data each month.

I would really like to know what's going on!

Jun 10, 2010 5:03 AM in response to cnpeyton

Tried one experiment - set phone autolock=never, plugged the phone in and let it sit over night. I took a totally dark picture and then launched the Photo app and displayed it with the brightness turned all the way down so I wouldn't risk a "burn in" on the iphone screen.

The idea was to see if I get an early morning cellular data charge if the phone is not asleep (and the wireless turned off). I had to wait a day to see if a transfer showed up on my AT&T bill.. Surprise!! There was no 1am - 2am transfer on my bill!!

Next step will be to try it again and look for logging on my home wireless basestation.

Jun 10, 2010 9:42 AM in response to noghbaudie

It isn't Fetch/Push. I set that to manual and still got a 2am transfer of data. Unfortunately, I forgot to check my usage stats before I went to sleep, so I don't know which direction it was going.

All the data on AT&T's usage page is described as "sent" even though some is to the phone, some is from the phone.

Today, I'm turning off 3G (so my phone doesn't see the micro cell).

The Apple engineer wants me to do a full restore, but I'm saving that for the last resort. After disabling apps on the phone to see if I can isolate which ones are talking to the mother ship in the night.

Settings:

6/9 6/10
Airplane Mode OFF OFF
WiFi ON ON
Data Roaming OFF OFF
Call Forwarding ON ON
3G ON OFF
Loc Services OFF OFF
Fetch/Push Manual Manual

The Apple tech just called to see if what happened last night.

Jun 10, 2010 10:20 AM in response to Helen Darmara

So after killing most of the sync settings on 6/08/10 I got this:
06/09 02:49 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 868KB

After killing all Fetch and Push on 6/09/10 I got this:
06/10 02:49 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1KB

Less data, but it still talked out for 1KB. Not sure what that is, and will have to wait until tonight to see if it goes higher. 1KB of chatter at night I can live with, not 5000-7000KB.

Here's my current billing cycle to date:
06/10 02:49 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1KB
06/09 02:49 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 868KB
06/08 02:40 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2353KB
06/07 02:23 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 3333KB
06/06 02:24 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5517KB
06/05 02:36 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 7260KB
06/04 02:47 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5941KB
06/03 02:32 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 778KB

Message was edited by: noghbaudie

Jun 10, 2010 11:25 AM in response to cnpeyton

I was just checking my data usage via AT&T’s website and found that I had many of these phantom data usages on my account many during the 2AM hour. Now, small usage wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but i have one particular usage of over 300MB!!! Is there anything i can do about this. Moving to the new plans may be a real problem if this keeps up.

This is my data usage for my latest billing cycle. How can this happen?

06/09 02:21 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 10688KB

06/08 02:34 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 338469KB

06/07 02:48 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 12107KB

06/06 02:40 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 27635KB

06/05 02:40 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 3836KB

06/04 02:16 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1257KB

06/03 02:16 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1861KB

06/02 02:17 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 988KB

06/01 02:36 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2909KB

05/31 02:36 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 858KB

05/30 02:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 7967KB

05/29 02:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2837KB

Jun 10, 2010 11:26 AM in response to cnpeyton

Looking at my usage, it looks like it's either a daily roll-up of usage, or a roll-up of usage about the time the phone is turned on or off. I usally get only one billing line a day, but on days when I'm on and off airplanes, I get billing lines that roughly correlate to take offs and landings.

Jun 10, 2010 12:26 PM in response to Daniel Wesnor

I don't see how any of this can be a daily 'catch-up' data transfer, since all data I move during the day moves when I am moving it...I send, I receive, it moves real-time. Its not like I send data and nothing happens, then at night it happens. This is unaccounted for data.

And, one 300MB transfer in one night is just insane. Do you have MobileME? I could see how that might sync all your data at night. It's just scary that nobody seems to know what data is being sent, and to where... At least if it were Wifi I could track the data on my router, this is totally unknown.... scary.

Jun 10, 2010 12:34 PM in response to cnpeyton

That's not what I'm saying. The data moves when you move it, but the billing happens at a fixed time or event. If your monthly bill had a line for every transfer session, you'd have a million line items on your bill.

Jun 10, 2010 12:38 PM in response to Daniel Wesnor

Daniel Wesnor wrote:
That's not what I'm saying. The data moves when you move it, but the billing happens at a fixed time or event. If your monthly bill had a line for every transfer session, you'd have a million line items on your bill.

Exactly! But that's what some of us have. This is the data portion of my last month's bill. A lot of lines of small transfers along with one huge nightly transfer.

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

Unknown data usage early morning