Unknown data usage early morning

I've noticed another point that might help to focus on a potential solution. As noted, Onavo seems to be recording the data usage that I would expect to use and it splits it down between apps as I expected: it is giving results similar to what I used to use before the sudden increase in data use recently experienced. DataMan and the iPhones own counter are recording data usage consistent with my service provider. So what data is being used that Onavo does not detect but Dataman does. Surely one of the experts on these Apps could tell us?

As an experiment I have been restricting my usage to the mail app only. If I dont check mail, I am barely using any data. But if I use mail, each time I use about 5mB. But I am not downloading 5mB of data - sometimes there are no emails at all. So why does it use 5mB each time. Could it be that it is syncing all my contacts perhaps but even that is not 5mB across all my accounts. Anyway I think the fault lies with the mail app.

Has anyone raised a formal issue with Apple to investigate? Is there any point?

broooz wrote:

As an experiment I have been restricting my usage to the mail app only. If I dont check mail, I am barely using any data. But if I use mail, each time I use about 5mB. But I am not downloading 5mB of data - sometimes there are no emails at all. So why does it use 5mB each time. Could it be that it is syncing all my contacts perhaps but even that is not 5mB across all my accounts. Anyway I think the fault lies with the mail app.

You have hit upon an interesting observation. Any time you open the mail app on an IMAP or Exchange account the folders on the iPhone must be synced with the folders on the server. The way this happens is the phone must retrieve every message see if it is still on the phone. The same is true for the calendar and contacts databases. So if you have a lot of messages in the inbox (I have 900 currently) then that number of messages must be transferred. I also have 1500 contacts and 8,000 calendar entries.

Two different observations, so I responded to each separately.

broooz wrote:

I've noticed another point that might help to focus on a potential solution. As noted, Onavo seems to be recording the data usage that I would expect to use and it splits it down between apps as I expected: it is giving results similar to what I used to use before the sudden increase in data use recently experienced. DataMan and the iPhones own counter are recording data usage consistent with my service provider. So what data is being used that Onavo does not detect but Dataman does. Surely one of the experts on these Apps could tell us?

I'm not an expert on either, but Onavo may be monitoring at a higher level in the TCP/IP stack, looking at the data transferred at the application layer. Dataman may be monitoring a layer near the bottom of the stack. Suppose an app sends a packet; Onavo sees it as one packet. But the connection is intermittent and it takes 10 tries to actually send that packet. Dataman (and the built in counter) will see it as 10 packets, and AT&T (or any other carrier) will also see it as 10 ( 9 failed) packets and charge you for 10 packets.

Thanks Lawrence - well it is a possibility - but it didnt happen in the past - so why have they changed to doing it this way. If that is the case then they have invalidated the limited data user account because my usage has gone from 10mB a day to 90mB a day. Surely it must be a fault in the app - it doesnt need to download everything to check what has changed. Indeed Exchange doesnt do that on my PC so why does it need to do it on the phone.

I have have two 4s iPhones in my house. One has unlimited data and is used all the time, to check email, Facebook, search the internet, maps, etc., all while on 3g, and is using very little data. That iPhone will not exceed 175 mb for the month, and never has. The other iphone that has a limited data plan is going through it so fast I had to turn the Internet off the second week of this month as it had already used up 200 mb once and almost over for the second time for the month. There is not a Facebook account on that phone, and email is not being checked on it either as it is a child's phone, neither is the Internet being surfed.. The only real difference I can figure out is the type of games that are on it that are being played. Could these games be what is transferring and collecting all the data at night? Or is it At&t is set up to not transfer data on an unlimited data plan, but to do it on a limited data plan. The reason I wonder about that as a friend of mine changed from unlimited data, as she never went over 200mb, to a cheaper limited plan and suddenly was now using much more data and had to increase her data plan.

For some reason it is putting in AT&T rather than name of phone carrier. I thought I just made the mistake and didn't catch it the first time but the following post where I was correcting it after I hit post it change it automatically.

The games are likely your source of high data traffic. I ran DataMan on same scenario--- one phone has no games and the 2nd does, it used 156% of data in one day being away from WiFi connection. What was used? Games.

Thanks for stating what's been said before Lawrence-- ATT charges for all packets, not the ones that just reach their destination. Bandwidth consumption means different things to different people and customers have no idea that like the cellular devices before smartphones-- all this gear really is are radio equipped devices. Bandwidth is bandwidth and whatever is consumed is how the carriers see fit to bill regardless of how many packets or re-transmits there are, consumers are using space.

After turning of my cellular data service any time I wasn't using it, I decided to completely wipe the phone and restore it using my computer to see if that would help. I had already changed all the settings to basically get email, updates from apps, etc. manually instead of pushing the notifications and I had closed apps by pressing the home key twice and exiting anything that showed up, so that should have helped but never did. Interestingly, when I forgot to turn off cellular data the other night after having restored the phone, I was still getting data coming through on the wifi and data plan but to a much lesser degree. Instead of having 12MB traffic from my phone overnight (plugged in, which doesn't seem to matter), I had a tenth or less of that coming through. One of the AT&T folks suggested that the phones struggle when asleep with wifi available and the data plan turned on. I'm not sure that I buy it, especially in light of the earlier post someone had about so much Apple Store activity. For the time being, my solution, as frustrating as it is, is to have the cellular data on only when I plan to use it. Dataman has also been helpful in showing precisely when data is being uploaded or downloaded so that I could prove that it was basically a continuous occurrence throughout the night, always starting when the phone went to sleep and stopping when I woke the phone up in the morning.

I am seeing the same thing. We have (4) iPhones on a single account, and at least 2 of them are sending copious amounts of data when their users are sleeping and WiFi connections are available. This is a bug. Either AT&T is billing us for diagnostic packets, or something is not properly using the WiFi network.

Given the amount of responses on this thread, I sincerely hope someone from Apple is going to notice this, put a sniffer on some devices on AT&T's network and get to the bottom of this.

One device just went over its monthly data limit last night -- $$$$. I am on my second call with AT&T tech support right now. So far, I have yet to talk to anyone who can go beyond the "obvious" explanations or really help here.

Let's hope others report this. And let's hope Apple / AT&T can fix this. This is bogus $$.

With all due respect, that is exactly what is happening in my case. As I mentioned in several earlier posts:

1) The phone is plugged in (charging to 100% overnight) and on a strong steady WiFi connection.

2) I am using Dataman and Onavo to track what is happening – not AT&T's billing data.

3) Overnight data - megabytes of data – is transferred at the same time on both WiFi and Cellular.

4) When on WiFi only, phone plugged in, with the cellular data network off, there has never been any significant transfer of data overnight.

5) Everything on the phone is set so that there should be no automatic transfer of any kind: Safari pages all closed, the only apps in the dock are Onavo and Dataman, push and fetch off, Store set to not use cellular data, etc., etc.

6) At least in my case Onavo reports the data transferred overnight as 100% iTunes/AppStore.

7) This is a real, documented problem that needs to be addressed by Apple, AT&T or both.

Well, I have to admit that I am too lazy to read all the threads.

I read some but not all, so I may missed some.

My wife's phone is in similar situation and I am working hard to figure out what is going on here.

My observation is similar to Max's.

One area I am testing is the backup (to iCloud). Of course it should not use cell data, but if there is a bug and that may cause trouble. I do not see any other large data transfer from my wife's phone unless there is a trojan horse type thing going on. I think onava may count this as itunes activity.

Of course, this may not happen for everybody's phone as mine and my daughter's iphone does not have same problem.

Massive 600Mb Data Overage Charge - with AT&T

We discovered the same problem on our son's iPhone 4s after he returned from the hospital. We subscribed to AT&T's "Parental Controls", and I received an alert about 'data overage'. When I checked activity on the AT&T website, I was very surprised to see 600Mb of data transfers in the month of February.

Very surprised, because our son was in the hospital for weeks. His iPhone 4s was sitting on the counter, unused.

I called AT&T and they offered to remove the charges. This was obviously not sufficient, however. I asked to speak to a supervisor -- to explain why these charges were being billed. Why wouldn't it happen again, next month? The supervisor was supposed to call us an hour ago - but you guessed it, no call.

This follows on the heels of the infamous "international roaming" charges. Our son was hit by that too, during a school trip to Peru last summer. He did not use his iPhone -- but we received a $900 bill from AT&T.

Twice burned, twice shy. Apple needs to take quick and effective action on behalf of their customers. These signficant service / billing problems are damaging the reputation of the iPhone.

Update on usage - I phoned Apple and they said a common problem was notifications - I thought I had already turned these off but I had left twitter and mail on. The rep said that the notifications would be continuously checking with the mail server or twitter for new items. I didnt believe him as I was not receiving any notifications from either source. Anyway I did as suggested and it worked - my usage has dropped back down to the more normal less then 10mB a day even if I do a lot of mail and use of flipboard. My average usage is back to normal.

The other things the Apple rep suggested were points mentioned in this thread such as ensuring iCloud only worked on WiFi, reducing the number of times the mail app checks with the server, watching location services, turning off apps that access the internet when not in use (this did not apply to the mail app which doesnt seem to be the problem). I had done all this anyway so it was not the cause for me.

MarkHays wrote:

This follows on the heels of the infamous "international roaming" charges. Our son was hit by that too, during a school trip to Peru last summer. He did not use his iPhone -- but we received a $900 bill from AT&T.

curious to know how AT&T even knew to charge him roaming if he didn't use the phone.