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Q: Unknown data usage early morning
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Jan 7, 2011 5:16 AMby macs4bg,Network 23 wrote:
Thank you, that would be great if true. I see no reason to step down to a 200MB limit, since that seems to be exactly where my plan wants to go over every month no matter what I do.
You're welcome, Network23! I'm with you on that, I'll never switch!
I found the original ATT notice that I was thinking of before... had to dig back into their official Press Releases site... (who knew they released so many! 2 full pages of results only covered Nov. & Dec. 2010! ...had to get back to "2nd Quarter 2010" press releases... ):
June 2, 2010:
*"AT&T Announces New Lower-Priced Wireless Data Plans to Make Mobile Internet More Affordable to More People":*
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=17991&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=30854&mapcod e=financial%7Cwireless
Last sentence of the first paragraph... operative word, CURRENT...
*"... CURRENT smartphone customers are not required to switch to the new plans,* but can choose to do so without a contract extension."
(& later on that same page re iPads, they also differentiate between New & Existing Customers.)
Linked in the above 6/2/10 Press Release is their page for New Customers...
*"Data Plans with Wi-Fi - DataPlus & DataPro Plan - Wireless from AT&T":*
http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/data-plans.jsp
Note the *"Fine Print"/Asterisk* at bottom of that page says:
*"If you already have a smartphone and data plan with AT&T (including an unlimited data plan) you are not required to switch to one of the new plans.* However, if you want to save money, you may choose to switch without a contract extension."
Then they repeated those facts in this 5-days-later Press Release:
June 7, 2010:
*"AT&T to Offer iPhone 4 on June 24":*
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=18004&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=30863&mapcod e=consumer%7Cwireless
Under the *Wireless Data Plans* subheading on that page it says:
*"EXISTING AT&T smartphone customers upgrading to iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS are not required to switch to a new plan,* but can choose to do so."
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So if any ATT rep ever tries to say otherwise, you'll be ready with facts.
What is not stated in those releases but I have seen somewhere, is that if any Existing Customers with the Original Unlimited Plan choose to downgrade to the new "cheaper" plans, you can Never Switch Back to the Original Unlimited Plan. -
Jan 7, 2011 10:36 AMby G-Hoh,Just read through most of this thread (started skipping ahead after the first 20 pages), and add that we haven't seen any of these charges. But we've only had our iphones for a few weeks (3 weeks for my son and 2 weeks for my wife and I). All 3 of us leave our phones on 24/7, and are on the 200mb plan. We use as much wifi as possible. We all have Dataman installed and so far it matches with AT&T on cellular usage. I'm at 0 (yeah for me), my wife is at 16mb, and my son is 160. Our billing date is the 14th. My son is using less cellular now that I've talked to him about his useage, so I don't think he'll go over the 200mb per month. I will be keeping an eye on our bill to see if we start getting the 2am data transfers. Thanks to everybody that posted in this thread. I will be watching to see if there is a fix for this. -
Jan 7, 2011 11:46 AMby AnthonyNC,I wish I never stepped down now. One thing I will say, through suggestions from this thread and other threads, I have pretty much locked down my iPhone tight. There are no more mystery uploads at 12:51am, each night, but the phone is not being used as it was intended to. Its more or less crippled. I dont get notifications and locations services is off too. I have email on manual now.
What a crappy way to use a beautiful device like that. Really makes me angry that I switched. Maybe it was some app sending data - who knows. I will slowly turn things back on, one at a time so that I can pinpoint when and what begins to activate these nightly uploads.
Another strange thing is that ALL data is reported as OUT / SENT. Why? Dont these phones receive data too? I highly doubt that received data is gratis. So where is it on our bills and our online statements? I dont see any "received" or "in" when it comes to data usage. Only "Sent" or "OUT"...
I still have major concerns over a side-topic that has shot off of this thread: security/privacy. I deleted my contacts, just to be safe. I know the phone numbers of everyone that I call anyway. I want to know if anyone has found evidence of contacts being lifted, especially from those who claim their identity was stolen via them putting their credit card number in contact data. I think that I read that in this massive thread somewhere. That isnt a smart thing to do but still, no one but the phone's owner should be viewing contact data -- period.
If anyone has any information pertaining to contact data not being safe then I'd love to read it. I dont think I am alone in that. -
Jan 7, 2011 11:55 AMby Network 23,G-Hoh wrote:
we haven't seen any of these charges. But we've only had our iphones for a few weeks...I'm at 0 (yeah for me), my wife is at 16mb, and my son is 160.
OK this is interesting and great, since your phones are new. I have long wondered if the problem is caused by specific apps, but even Dataman doesn't break down the usage by app (unless I'm missing something).
Because your phones are new, can you keep an eye on how your data usage changes as you install apps. I'm wondering if a spike will be detected after the installation of a particular app. I wonder how many apps your son has installed and which ones they are. And how many you have installed (if a person owns an iPhone and is not a heavy app user, do they not see this problem?). -
Jan 7, 2011 12:12 PMby G-Hoh,Here's what I have.
Dataman
Slacker (installed yesterday)
Shoutcast (installed today)
5-0 Radio
Seminoles App (FSU Fan)
USA Today
Craigslist
Directv
BoA
ESPN Scorecenter
Myxer
WRAL (local tv station app)
Mega million and Powerball app
I'm not sure what my son has, but my wife has FB, Aim, WRAL, Weight Watchers and Dataman. There may be or 2 more but that's it. -
Jan 8, 2011 1:02 PMby Eddie Strauss,Remarkable as they said on The Little Rascals:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/08/windows-phone-7-using-lots-of-3g-data-while-i dle-even-on-wifi/ -
Jan 8, 2011 4:09 PMby iinami,Network 23 wrote:
G-Hoh wrote:
we haven't seen any of these charges. But we've only had our iphones for a few weeks...I'm at 0 (yeah for me), my wife is at 16mb, and my son is 160.
OK this is interesting and great, since your phones are new. I have long wondered if the problem is caused by specific apps, but even Dataman doesn't break down the usage by app (unless I'm missing something).
Because your phones are new, can you keep an eye on how your data usage changes as you install apps. I'm wondering if a spike will be detected after the installation of a particular app. I wonder how many apps your son has installed and which ones they are. And how many you have installed (if a person owns an iPhone and is not a heavy app user, do they not see this problem?).
my wife and i also got our first iphones and att service on 12/30. i downloaded:
real racing 2
facebook
yahtzee
bakodo
no mail at all and set all notifications off.
i had 3mb of data usage in less than a week.
my wife downloads no apps at all but set up hotmail. manual push and she had 14mb of data in less than a week. -
Jan 9, 2011 7:23 AMby jdbartram,I have been monitoring this thread since early October when my wife had a very large unexplained data usage on her iPhone 3Gs. After that we both had large discrepancies between first iPhone Usage tracking and then usage shown by the app DataMan and what AT&T was claiming. This appeared as a discrepancy between when AT&T claimed the usage occurred and the amount. AT&T typically billed us for 15 to 50 percent more than what iPhone Usage and DataMan showed.
Beginning in late November, after I installed iOS 4.2.1, this seemed to change. For my last billing period, December 4 to January 3, the DataMan and AT&T usage correlated very closely:
iPhone 3Gs DataMan 60,833KB AT&T 60,115KB
iPhone 4 DataMan 89,549KB AT&T 93,510KB
I broke the usage down by days, and that also tracked very closely, seven days with no difference at all and most of the rest less than 4% different.
Except that I am more aware of using data when I am away from Wi-Fi, I have done nothing differently than I did before (or before I went to 200MB from the unlimited plan). I have and use lots of apps and have email, contacts, calendars and bookmarks set to Push.
I filed a complaint with the FCC on 12/13/2010, in the middle of this recent billing period. Last week, I received a call from AT&T about the FCC complaint, but I was not home at the time. I called back, but did not get through.
I don't know what any of this proves, if anything. -
Jan 10, 2011 10:30 AMby BackPacker57,macs4bg wrote:
BackPacker57 wrote:
...*your "contacts info" is also being harvested.*
So THAT's how 3 of my credit cards' numbers were stolen = from my Banks entries in iphone Contacts! I SUSPECTED!!! After the 3rd theft in 2 months (Sept.-Nov.2010), I had deleted all Banks from iphone Contacts, no more card number thefts since.
(& Yes, maybe I was a ditz for adding the card #'s in iphone Contacts in the first place, along with Banks' addys, phones, websites, etc., but I thought it was safe since phone STAYS HOME & NOBODY has ever touched it but me, & I thought it was as "safe" as keeping personal info on a Mac. Ten years on the internet & never one such problem until I began using iphone EXCLUSIVELY to shop/pay bills, etc.)
Time to delete ALL CONTACTS then, not just Banks, but friends, family, etc.!
*iPhone: Mystery Data Usage & FCC Complaints*
http://www.nojitter.com/blog/229000394
macs4bg: am very "curious" did you use Facebook app?
Message was edited by: BackPacker57 -
Jan 10, 2011 10:48 AMby AnthonyNC,I had thought that data in our Contacts, Notes, etc (whatever apps allow us to store data) was free from being harvested.
So, my questions are:
1) ARE contacts, notes and other stored info being harvested?
2) If yes, then what is the source of this accusation? I need to see a link to a written article with confirmation.
Otherwise, its all speculation. Even storing credit card numbers in the clear (which I would never EVER suggest) is not enough to suggest that they're harvesting this data from us.
With all of that said, still, the nightly data sends to whomever are annoying and need to stop. Even with my WIFI on 24/7, I am getting charged with data usage at the exact same time that I am in my house right next to my router connected with max WIFI bars AND using my phone.
I should be using ZERO 3G. So........ the next speculation questions becomes: Are we getting charged for our WIFI usage as well?????
Remember, I have location services OFF, notifications OFF, push email OFF, no more contacts, no more notes, nothing other than me manually checking email and sending a few SMS messages. -
Jan 10, 2011 11:04 AMby Lawrence Finch,AnthonyNC wrote:
I had thought that data in our Contacts, Notes, etc (whatever apps allow us to store data) was free from being harvested.
So, my questions are:
1) ARE contacts, notes and other stored info being harvested?
No firm evidence. However, apps ARE allowed to read, create, update and delete contact information. and apps can send and receive data. So an unscrupulous app developer could harvest contacts and associated information. There is at least one case where this happened, however that developer has been banned from the app store and their apps deleted.2) If yes, then what is the source of this accusation? I need to see a link to a written article with confirmation.
Otherwise, its all speculation. Even storing credit card numbers in the clear (which I would never EVER suggest) is not enough to suggest that they're harvesting this data from us.
I agree. Anyone who stores credit card numbers in plain text is likely doing other risky things.
With all of that said, still, the nightly data sends to whomever are annoying and need to stop. Even with my WIFI on 24/7, I am getting charged with data usage at the exact same time that I am in my house right next to my router connected with max WIFI bars AND using my phone.
As has been said uncountable times in this thread already, the time stamp on the data usage IS NOT the time the data transfer happened. It is the time it was reported to the billing system, and is a summary of earlier usage.
I should be using ZERO 3G. So........ the next speculation questions becomes: Are we getting charged for our WIFI usage as well?????
No. However, WiFi is turned off when the phone is asleep to preserve battery life. If there is a necessary data transfer (notification, push email, background process) during standby the phone will use 3G, no WiFi.
Remember, I have location services OFF, notifications OFF, push email OFF, no more contacts, no more notes, nothing other than me manually checking email and sending a few SMS messages.
SMS does not use data. It goes over the voice control channel. -
Jan 10, 2011 12:36 PMby BackPacker57,One of the law firms alleges: "the phones use a unique identifier (called a Unique Device ID or UDID) to track users personal information, including location, gender, age and contacts."
http://www.txinjuryblog.com/
The WSJ reported:
Google requires Android apps to notify users, before they download the app, of the data sources the app intends to access. Possible sources include the phone's camera, memory, contact list, and more than 100 others. If users don't like what a particular app wants to access, they can choose not to install the app, Google says.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704368004576027751867039730.html#i xzz1AfKDiM6V
As to how the app makers and Apple harvest info the WSJ discusses but many won't release specifics because of "privacy" concerns--- this is befuddling.
What data is being harvested and harvested data disclosures won't be forth coming will they?
While there is speculation there are two filings. The original issue Unknown data usage early morning isn't or may not be just one issue. iPhone OS 4.2.1 fixed some but not all? European users report still having huge data disparity with their carrier---
The credit card data compromise was reported by another user--- my question was did that user have Facebook as an app on the iPhone. As to the extent of the apps and or Apple collecting data on "contacts" as reported--- it's a huge hole without a lot of direct answers. The user that posted "so that's why my credit cards..." not me. I posted the harvesting of data and contacts. Is it possible? YES.
As for WiFi I find that "interesting" you are getting charged for data---- if you can use your iPhone at home, keeping it docked to your Mac or PC and then run the iPhone utility (you need a blue tooth headset)...I wonder what the iPhone utility app would reveal in the log? -
Jan 10, 2011 9:38 PMby macs4bg,BackPacker57 asked: ...my question was did that user have Facebook as an app on the iPhone?
Answer: No, never! (Can't stand FB & everything it stands for, have never joined & never dl'd their app).
(Complaints were previously made that Security/Privacy comments were taking this thread off topic from the Data Billing issue, so I wasn't going to elaborate further re the Contacts/CC "mystery" situation.)
