Q: Unknown data usage early morning

Call AT&T and ask for at least a second level supervisor in Network Engineering, that is where the problem lies. Read over my entries between page 72 and page 83 and then give them ****. I will be on the phone with them bright an early Monday morning. My phone numbers are in one of the latest entries, quote them and go from there. You just might get luck! If you do, don't forget to take notes and pass on everything they tell you they are doing.

It doesn't hurt to file a complaint with the FCC. Eventually you will get a phone call from AT&T, and most likely a refund. I did. Also this lends credibility to everyone else who has these problems.

Even though they seem reluctant to acknowledge any problem, they seem eager to mollify individuals who complain.

JDBartram,

I have posted a complaint online with FCC regarding AT&T's charges for use of the data network, which I don't believe were caused by my use. We'll see where that leads....

Thanks for the suggestion.

This thread is very long, so sorry if this has been answered, but I am experiencing very precise and intermittent data usage since 4.3, and cannot pin point it at all

All day and night, even with Wi-Fi on, I still get small data packets through cellular data.

I installed Dataman to monitor over night last night, and saw a pattern that every 5-10 minutes for about 5 hours after putting device to sleep it would receive small quantities of data (between 1-5kb) then eventually it tapered off a little only doing this every 20-30 minutes until waking the device again.

What is this?

And btw, this happens on a newly restored device set up as new.

Message was edited by: Ashin

I didn't read all 80 some pages of this but I had a similar situation on my mothers iPhone.
We vacation in Maine and they have horrible reception towers and the data speeds might be slower than 1kb/s, she changed to an iPhone after unlimited data was gone so she pays for her own data but is connected to our wifi at home most of the time. After looking at her data online she was getting huge data charges at the strangest times of 1-4 am. When we went to AT&T to see why this was happening because it had pretty much filled her 2GB in a matter of a few days they had no idea how it was happening but eventually assumed that she would open her email app and with a horrible connection it would not load for maybe 2-3 hours and by the time it was all loaded the wifi was not on as it auto shuts off and she would not be billed for the data till it was completely finished. I'm not sure if this is the same encounter you are having but perhaps it will help to find the ultimate solution.

The last post re: rural Maine, makes sense, as all of our thoughts around this issue have, however I first had the issue in a remote area where we have a summer place up on the Canadian/us border, and I considered the same. The problem was my husband's iphone did not have the issue. Same place, same system, pretty similar use. major difference in data use, all in the middle of the night last july. Started after the new plans came out. At&T's answer to me was vague, with lots of "you have unlimited data, why worry?"

AT&T Phantom Data Suit On Hold Pending SCOTUS Decision

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/118550/20110303/at-t-class-action-suit-phantom-d ata-supreme-court.htm#ixzz1HHkUaB6d

Been laying low and not having problems with excessive data billing until rec'd e mail a couple days ago that wife's phone was over 200 MB limit. Turns out on one day she had 150 MB "sent" from her phone. Phone reads 51 MB sent & rec'd since last billing period began. Called AT&T who assured me their billing was accurate. I told them thousands of customers disagree. I said look at our history, we never go above 200 MB on any of three phones. CSR said maybe our phone is defective. I asked what one could do to possibly incur 150 MB in one session. He gave the usual YouTube, music streaming, etc answer. I said she didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He said he would request our bill be examined and credit given after billing period is over "as a one time favor" because we're such loyal customers. I asked him to e mail that. He claimed not to have access to e mail (give me a break). He said he would send a text. I said be specific, mention the credit, give a reference number. I got a text that said "you will be receiving an e mail from AT&T." I told the CSR too many times AT&T has promised to do something, to have someone call, follow up and they don't do it. They are so screwed up. I feel sorry for those T Mobile customers who will get to experience AT&T's special brand of crappy service.

BackPacker57 wrote:
AT&T Phantom Data Suit On Hold Pending SCOTUS Decision

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/118550/20110303/at-t-class-action-suit-phantom-d ata-supreme-court.htm#ixzz1HHkUaB6d

Thank you for posting this link BackPacker57. The SCOTUS decision will have a far greater influence than AT&T consistently overbilling its customers: will SCOTUS side with California, and thus respecting state's laws, or will they strike it down siding with Federal laws (mules for lobbying corporations).

This is going to be lengthy so bear with me. To date I have had "3 Case IDs" opened with AT&T concerning the "phantom" data use, the most recent being on the 14th. As with the first one last September, the problem was resolved on my wife's phone in 3 days . Here is something you might want to do, when you call in to AT&T about your problem ask to be connected with Customer CARE not Customer Service. Customer Care will more than likely respond more quickly as they have. The second thing to do is document in 500 characters or less on their "Contact Us" page using "Other" as the subject line. This seemed to speed up things for me.

The following is my most recent exchange with them, this time from a person on the "National Urgent Case Team". Her entire email is at the bottom but my responses to her advice (in bold) is at the top. I don't think this problem will go away for everyone soon but we have to keep trying.
***********
Thanks for the response. Here are my comments on what you had to say:

+*Please be aware that this is valid usage.*+
If this is the case, provide me with the IP addresses that the data was sent to and which App generated it. Please note that my WiFi is on 24/7/365.

+*The data session can contain billing for all the data that was transmitted throughout the day.*+
Evidently, all "maintenance data" between your server and either of our phones is being included. Here is the point I am trying to make yet no one at AT&T seems to be able to understand it - not only me and my wife but hundreds of other users are complaining about the same thing. That "same thing" is anywhere from 2mb to figures in the 20mb and 30mb ranges. If you read the entire Apple Customer Service thread (and I'd suggest everyone there do just that) you will see that all sorts of things have been tried to alleviate the problem. Apps are removed, all push notifications are disabled, all "data sessions" are ended, and on and on and on yet the "phantom data use" continues. In my particular case, from the time I acquired my iPhone 3GS and the unlimited data plan in 2009, over the course of a year I logged about 75 or 80mb of use, never resetting the statistics. This particular problem did not start occurring until I got my wife an iPhone and we both signed on for the 200mb data plan.

+*Push capabilities are common with many social networking (Facebook), news, weather and e-mail applications.*+
None of these are used by either of us, we've got computers at home and at work and the wife has a WiFi only iPad that is a permanent fixture in her hands during the hours she is at home.

Have you actually reviewed my account and noted the times and the size of the data feeds you are referring to? Hasn't it struck you as being odd that despite normally low usage, all of a sudden we started consuming huge amounts of data, much to our surprise, on both phones last September? Equally odd, to me at least, is that after I reported it, had Case ID 20100930_13278028 generated and sent to Network Engineering, the problem went away! I again reported it earlier this month (Case ID 20110314_18510305) when my wife's phone began "using" large amounts of data and 3 days after it was submitted, the excessive bandwidth usage on her phone ceased happening!! Was it "MAGIC" or did someone really find something that wasn't correct?? If they did, did they globally institute the fix so that all the others with the same problem would get relief? I somehow doubt it as the entries on the Apple thread keeps growing.

Despite your efforts to explain it, I am still convinced that AT&T has a software billing problem that is either being overlooked or fixed on a piecemeal basis per customer complaint. It is not fair to customers who use bandwidth they are paying for for their own personal use yet are also being charged for "maintenance bandwidth" when your servers update customer's devices. Look back at my account for phone ******-2343 between the 10th of March and the 17th of March and note the excessive amounts charged. I'd really like these removed even though we are not getting close to our limit. More importantly, I'd like this problem escalated to the highest levels of management at AT&T and some real effort put into permanently resolving it, not just for me but for all the other thousands of customers experiencing the identical problem. As I mentioned above, read the Apple Customer Service thread from beginning to end and you will see the enormity of this problem. Someone should be losing their job for ignoring it for as long as they have. You are aware, I'm sure, of a couple of Class Action suits regarding this issue as well as several submissions to the FCC about it. That could get ugly!! It isn't only iPhone users but other devices as well. I think it is time someone stood up, accepted responsibility, and got it fixed. Where do they start? I'd say back when the 200mb plans were introduced and new billing software was written, give it a through review or get some new people in to fix it. Lemme know..........Jack

On 22 Mar 2011, at 12:35, AT&T Email Customer Care for Wireless wrote:

Dear Jack,

I apologize for any confusion the late night data session billing may have caused. Please be aware that this is valid usage. I have added information for you below.

? Billing occurs for data that is sent or received by the customer?s device through our network. Data usage is recorded once a data session is ended on the device (e.g. phone is powered off, the customer manually ends the data session, or lost network connection). Many Smartphones (including iPhones) are ?always on? data devices. They establish a data connection with our network and keep it open even if there is no data being transmitted. If the customer does not end their data session, it is recorded during a nightly feed to the billing system. The data session can contain billing for all the data that was transmitted throughout the day.

? Push capabilities are common with many social networking (Facebook), news, weather and e-mail applications. Push capabilities provide real-time data transfer as it is made available, (e.g. weather or news alerts occur in real-time as they happen and are ?pushed? to the device which consumes data). If the phone has push notifications active this may result in an open data session. To capture ongoing data consumption records, our systems are designed to send all accumulated data after a predetermined time each night.


Sincerely,


Tressa T****
AT&T
National Urgent Case Team

Message was edited by: JES42

You should probably edit out your phone number while you still can. Also note that Apple tends to remove posts that include a word that is an anagram of use.

I'm not disagreeing with you, BTW, just being sensitive to the way the forum works.

This sounds like a bunch of garbage to me from AT&T...

*+They establish a data connection with our network and keep it open even if there is no data being transmitted. If the customer does not end their data session, it is recorded during a nightly feed to the billing system. The data session can contain billing for all the data that was transmitted throughout the day.+*

So if I am to believe this, AT&T accumulates all data usage throughout the day and bills it in a chunk overnight? Then why 2 and 3 chunks? Why not one? There is a huge flaw in their billing and recording of data usage then. It's like a lawyer taking a case and billing the client 24/7. Nothing is itemized so how do I know the correct amount is being billed? How do I know the data session was ended properly?

*+Push capabilities are common with many social networking (Facebook), news, weather and e-mail applications. Push capabilities provide real-time data transfer as it is made available, (e.g. weather or news alerts occur in real-time as they happen and are ?pushed? to the device which consumes data). If the phone has push notifications active this may result in an open data session. To capture ongoing data consumption records, our systems are designed to send all accumulated data after a predetermined time each night.+*

So let me see if I understand this. I am getting a pushed a notification. My connection fails, AT&T knows my connection fails but continues to download all the data? I'm supposed to believe AT&T is storing all this data being pushed to me!!! WOW - - THAT IS TOTALLY A LIE!!! Push items are the app's server holding the info then sending it to the device. The cellular network is just the gateway to get it there Just like your wifi hooked up to your modem is the gateway.

Now that I think about it...

This also means Apple's push notifications is flawed and skewed to the advantage of the AT&T and now probably Verizon. When the phone goes to sleep, wifi is off, if push is on, it is receiving data on the cellular network and not wifi? WiFi is off to conserve the battery and stick the consumer with high data usage. Why the heck would I even want to use push notifications then if my data is coming in over the cellular network in my home with wifi?

Oddly enough, and we've done nothing different, the mysterious data usage has stopped. I am now into 13 days of the billing cycle and it shows only 8% of the allowed 200mb used so far. It is now back to what it has been every month since she got the phone last August. The only thing I did was threaten AT&T to reset usage on the phone at 12am the start of my billing cycle, screen shoot it and email it to myself. Then do the same at the end of the billing cycle, which shows the date plainly when I reset it. If her phone didn't agree with the billed usage, the FCC would hear about it.

If Apple really wants to do a major upgrade to the OS, time for a tight data usage monitor, wifi sleep or not, push restrictions by connection type, and a priority force to wifi ending a cellular network connection when a wifi connection is present and allowed use.

Tom

Peter A. wrote:
Been laying low and not having problems with excessive data billing until rec'd e mail a couple days ago that wife's phone was over 200 MB limit. Turns out on one day she had 150 MB "sent" from her phone. Phone reads 51 MB sent & rec'd since last billing period began. Called AT&T who assured me their billing was accurate. I told them thousands of customers disagree. I said look at our history, we never go above 200 MB on any of three phones. CSR said maybe our phone is defective. I asked what one could do to possibly incur 150 MB in one session. He gave the usual YouTube, music streaming, etc answer. I said she didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He said he would request our bill be examined and credit given after billing period is over "as a one time favor" because we're such loyal customers. I asked him to e mail that. He claimed not to have access to e mail (give me a break). He said he would send a text. I said be specific, mention the credit, give a reference number. I got a text that said "you will be receiving an e mail from AT&T." I told the CSR too many times AT&T has promised to do something, to have someone call, follow up and they don't do it. They are so screwed up. I feel sorry for those T Mobile customers who will get to experience AT&T's special brand of crappy service.

Funny I just came here today after getting notices on my wife's phone. I looked up and found 75 MB of data in less than 24 hours in three large chunks (trust me, she is not that kind of user, maps is about it). I am on hold with AT&T which went through the same basic "Pandora, downloads, etc" as I pointed out that this is simply not possible.

I can't believe this has gone on this long without anyone doing anything about it.

Welcome to the "waiting and watching" list. My first post here was last June (coincident ) with the new data plans.....hmmmmm...no correlation I have been assured. Since then I moved to an iPad with wifi, and don't buy the data...waiting and watching. My contract on iPhone is coming up. Don't know what to do. I was sure it would get fixed with all this evidence...but so far....waiting and watching. Stay with us...our only hope.

After researching this for a bit, I found an interesting article. Add up the amount of KB used during the day and see if it equals the last amount sent during that day (mine is sent at 10:30-10:45pm each night). AT&T is gathering the amount you used during the whole day at once to record on your bill instead of sending it while you are using it.

http://www.ismashphone.com/2010/07/att-nighttime-data-usage-is-nothing-to-worry- about.html

Also, if you use WiFi at home and have WiFi turned on while you are asleep (when these usages show up) you shouldn't be charged for them. Either way, you shouldn't be charged for them.