Q: Unknown data usage early morning

VinUnleaded wrote:
It appears you are barking up the wrong tree Anthony. AT&T is only a service provider, they only bill you for the traffic going through their network (coming from your phone). They really have no idea what is requesting those traffic on your phone. Thats like asking your electrical company which machine is drawing power and causing usage on your electrical bill.

"They dont charge me a text message to notify me that my bill is due. So why the data?"

Are you assuming those data usage you cant explain is because of your internet provider? Lets not fall into the logic of "if I cant explain this, it must be this".

Message was edited by: VinUnleaded

I dont wish to disagree with you for the sake of disagreeing and I dont want to assume anything for the sake of assumption, but the general consensus, based on feedback from the service provider at hand, is, that they are pulling usage data late at night to reconcile billing systems. Fine. I dont think anyone takes issue with that.

What I take issue with is that _they're using the allotment of data that we pay for to achieve that result_. What I take issue with is that I never went over 200MB and thus wanted to save $15/mth and now I am suddenly going to go over this month for the first time in 26 months? What I take issue with is that I dont use my phone for an entire day (like today) and there is 12MB of data usage already? I have everything turned off/shut down/removed and locked up. I am on wifi in my house all day today with a cold watching football and DURING the game at some point my phone went a browsing around to the tune of 6MB? How? Why? If you notice, I state that I have a crippled iPhone 3G. I have purposely cut my usage down to zero - just to test this "theory" of billing reconciliation. Are you saying that there are still rogue apps that are not adhering to my forcing them not to be able to do location or notification? I mean, who knows - maybe there are. I guess next I should delete ALL of my apps and idle the phone for a few days. I could do that. I dont use the phone much as an data device anyway.

And......... YES - the provider should (unlike the power company cant) be able to say to me: "your phone accessed this IP address, at this time of the day, for this length of time, and used X-bytes of bandwidth UP, and Y-bytes of bandwidth DOWN". That information is available to them right now, unlike the power company that (at present) can not tell me how much energy my stove is consuming and when it consumes it. At least not until this so-called smart grid is assembled maybe. So there is no comparison. If I can see every byte of data going into and out of my computer then why cant AT*T with our phones?

VinUnleaded says that "... AT*T is only a service provider,", well at the wire level you can surely see were the traffic is going (via the IPs) and at least provide that information which they don't.

I agree with AnthonyNC, they do not want to say anything about this traffic after all they charge you for it! ca ching$$$$$$$ Please bear in mind that the other party involved does not want to provide any information, as well.

For me, lack of information from a company means something wrong is going on, as simple as that. We are not talking national security here!

snl11's posting, for me, shows again who the originator of the data is, the purpose again, for me, is simple, profiling users for advertising.

Please limit all other discussions and stay focused on the data transmission at night that this forum is about. That does not mean I disagree with what is being said ,only that I am amazed that this thread has been allowed to continue.

BTW, for any with time and money in their hands there is a way to look into the traffic generated. You would need to buy an AT&T 3G Microcell and connect it to a laptop on which you are running wireShark (www.wireshark.org).

Happy hunting .... and I am sorry to say, do not expect any answers from either of the duo. Not voluntarily anyways

Message was edited by: N.Abatzis

They can see where the data is being sent to, but not much more than that unless they had additional kit to examine the contents of the packets. Not everyone would want their service provider to be routinely examing their internet traffic (regardless of the reason for doing so) as it has considerable privacy implications. I'm not sure about the US but in the UK it may even be unlawful.
 
Even if AT&T did tell you what the traffic was, and where it was going to, they still wouldn't be able to tell you what process on your phone was generating the traffic. Only the phone's operating system can do this. If it is advertising data then the information AT&T could give you is pretty much worthless as you still won't know how to stop it happening in future. Apple don't provide the facility to monitor this level of detail and they don't allow third party developers to provide applications through the App Store that do this kind of thing either. The shortcoming isn't AT&T's, it's Apple's. I doubt all of the usage people are seeing is advertising data (my record so far is over 1GB in a single day) but I'm almost certain the lack of transparency on Apple's part is because they don't want people knowing what data is being collected and transmitted.

AnthonyNC wrote:

VinUnleaded wrote:
It appears you are barking up the wrong tree Anthony. AT&T is only a service provider, they only bill you for the traffic going through their network (coming from your phone). They really have no idea what is requesting those traffic on your phone. Thats like asking your electrical company which machine is drawing power and causing usage on your electrical bill.

"They dont charge me a text message to notify me that my bill is due. So why the data?"

Are you assuming those data usage you cant explain is because of your internet provider? Lets not fall into the logic of "if I cant explain this, it must be this".

Message was edited by: VinUnleaded

I dont wish to disagree with you for the sake of disagreeing and I dont want to assume anything for the sake of assumption, but the general consensus, based on feedback from the service provider at hand, is, that they are pulling usage data late at night to reconcile billing systems. Fine. I dont think anyone takes issue with that.

That's certainly not the conclusion I've reached from reading this thread, nor from my own investigations. Even if the phone was storing every packet sent and received, and AT&T were pulling a complete copy of it, it wouldn't account for some of the data volumns being reported here. And AT&T have absolutely no need to verify their network monitoring kit against potentially hundreds of thousands (or millions?) of end user device records.
 
Verification of the source, destination and content of a device's network traffic logically sits with the operating system itself. Relying on the network service provider to do this is ludicrous as you will never have a complete picture of what is occurring and it will never be in real time. iOS's facilities to monitor and control its lower level functions are woefully inadequate unless you're prepared to sacrifice your warranty and do that which must not be mentioned on these forums!

Message was edited by: ed2020

"They dont charge me a text message to notify me that my bill is due. So why the data?"

Maybe they didn't charge you for bill notification BUT their third party AD company charged me to text message our phones to send advertising for ringtones.

After staying on AT&T for 3-4 months of billing they removed ALL the charges and put blocks (restrictions) on all our phones.

"Not everyone would want their service provider to be routinely examing their internet traffic (regardless of the reason for doing so) as it has considerable privacy implications. I'm not sure about the US but in the UK it may even be unlawful."

Un-tested in the US courts and system. EtherReal or WireShark one and the same along with dozens of other sniffers not only play out the packets but play the conversations---- kind of funny when you think about it and how the tools can be used negatively.

Even still, there's a lot of proprietary info and if Apple and or the app makers are encrypting supercookies, cookies or other collection methods then it's a painful road to figure out. However, someone mentioned they were looking at their data with WireShark and the size of the transmissions and time/date stamp should reveal something (eg) "a traffic pattern" or "content pattern."

Most within this thread may not know or ever have heard of the TWX and TELEX systems. Both were run by carriers Western Union and AT&T and then the IRC's (International Record Carriers). They ALL had a simple FLAW in their billing system related to "answer supervision" because it did not exist. Meaning when on TWX/TELEX operator would call another (device/machine) and after X-rings about 6, then the call would peg as a 1 minute TWX/TELEX call to that station. Most companies did not know or know to complain. For those that did they would get credits. The FCC did nothing but field the complaints and then the IRC's would respond within 30 days to the FCC and complaining customer.

The solution?

Call the carrier(s) each month and challenge those 1 minute charges on your bill. For large enterprise this was a bit taxing because of the time it took to review hundreds and even thousands of TWX/TELEX calls each month.

Hopefully, this will not be the default solution. GLAD to hear Microsoft and other users having the same situation which is interesting crossing platforms.

Just to restate: the late night billing is an AT&T data dump that is not timed to perfection. The issue is unexplained data usage.

Third party that works for the carriers is starting to look interesting.

Here's another LINK of interest for complaining to the "public" forum.

It indexes on the web pretty well use: "iPhone Phantom Data Usage"

http://reboot.fcc.gov/consumers/blog?entryId=951109&sblog=y&#respond

Message was edited by: BackPacker57

I feel your pain Anthony. If I was not on an unlimited data plan I would probably raise h* too. But it would take a few geniouses like Bill Gates to attempt to locate and assemble the data packets to even try to guess what program on your phone is rquesting those (they need to have your phone with them). Well those people make millions an hour, I dont think AT&T will employ people like that just to solve $50 disputes.

"...unless you're prepared to sacrifice your warranty and do that which must not be mentioned on these forums!"
THANK YOU

VinUnleaded wrote:
"...unless you're prepared to sacrifice your warranty and do that which must not be mentioned on these forums!"
THANK YOU

Welcome.

Unpicking all the information probably won't be too hard, however reconciling it all might be time consuming. I intend to do it though. I've already discovered some very interesting facts which I've mentioned earlier in the thread. I've got a lot more digging to do yet.

{quote:title=N.Abatzis wrote:}
BTW, for any with time and money in their hands there is a way to look into the traffic generated. You would need to buy an AT&T 3G Microcell and connect it to a laptop on which you are running wireShark (www.wireshark.org).

Happy hunting .... and I am sorry to say, do not expect any answers from either of the duo. Not voluntarily anyways

... and you had to give it away. (tcpdump would also work)

At this moment I'm expecting either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal to conduct this test and publish its results.

ed can you give me the URLs to those posts you mentioned? I'd like to hear about what you found

This issue is turning into a tragic comedy.

Here's what the Chairman of the FCC just said at the CES show http://www.cesweb.org/ in Las Vegas:

"As evidenced by the trade show floor, the consumer electronics industry is going wireless, and the future success of this industry and our innovation future depends on whether our government acts quickly to unleash more spectrum -- the oxygen that sustains our mobile devices.

We’re in the early stages of a mobile revolution that is sparking an explosion in wireless traffic. Without action, demand for spectrum will soon outstrip supply.

To seize the opportunities of our mobile future, we need to tackle the threats to our invisible infrastructure. We need to free up more spectrum."

Hey, IDEA! Get the iPhone issue to stop EATING UP unnecessary bandwidth not caused by customers.

lightsp33d wrote:

At this moment I'm expecting either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal to conduct this test and publish its results.

You might could get The Washington Post to do it... They are asking for "contributions" to their still-ongoing, two-years-long "Top Secret America" investigation which covers the whole gamut:
http://paradisemobi.posterous.com/top-secret-america-by-the-washington-post-on
What they have accumulated so far will air on PBS-Frontline Tuesday night 1/18/11 at 9pm.

Network 23 wrote:

macs4bg wrote:
Thanks. You're probably right re that latter comment. I just thought if I could completely disconnect it while not using it, I might could "cut down" on their "snooping opportunities." :-/

Depends. A legitimate carrier can simply collect data on the device until the next time you put it back on the network, and then upload it. So instead of uploading 100K every hour, it might do one 400K upload after you turn the network back on after four hours. And a malicious app can do the same thing.

Thanks Network 23... Sort of like a 7/11 Convenience Store, whether they close at 11 or stay open all night, they could get robbed either way.

I don't know what Airplane Mode does, if anything, when it is turned on...

You know when you're on an airplane and they say "You can't use phones or radios during flight"? When you turn on Airplane mode, all transmitters and receivers on the phone are shut off. That's why it was suggested to you, because it's a central switch to shut off all wireless (cell, wifi, Bluetooth).

Ah, yes, I knew what it would do on an airplane, but wasn't sure what it would accomplish "on the ground," if anything, so thank you!