Q: Unknown data usage early morning

None2011,

Is this usage being included on the phone's counter in Settings? Or just on your AT&T bill? As I've pointed out elsewhere on this forum, there are two distinctly different issues I think, and it would be helpful if new posters would indicate if they think they're just having a billing issue or if it's a matter of the phone actually using data in an unexplained way.

You can install Dataman to see where and when data is being recorded by the phone (to the nearest 10 minutes), or just use the built-in settings app, taking note of before and after amounts, or resetting it at a certain time. (Be aware that there are some issues with using Dataman for this, namely that it takes a lot of battery power, and that it appears, in my home network at least, to keep your WiFi connection open, possibly affecting the very phenomenon you're trying to research.)

As you've no doubt read elsewhere in this massive topic, it can be hard to figure out which problem you're having (billing vs. rogue usage), because the time at which you use the data bears little resemblance to the time at which it gets posted to your account. For that reason the best way to compare is probably to turn off your phone completely for a good chunk of time (several hours, overnight) to sever all the connections and force AT&T to tally up usage, then restart it and reset the counter or make a note the starting values. Then compare your phone's usage with the phone company's over a period of several weeks, ideally a couple of billing periods. (Some people have suggested that AT&T may not post amounts to your account until you have shut down the phone for an extended period and then restarted it, so to be really sure you might want to shut it down for a few hours, then start it up for a while, then shut it down again overnight. Then when you start comparing your totals with theirs from then on you might be on the same page.)

If you have an app that's actually using data, it should be fairly apparent by watching the counters. I just had such an encounter myself on the new iPad with CNN's app, which I will post in a couple of minutes in its own post.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, it appears that there are different but related complaints in this thread, which I think can be broadly classified in two categories: (1) unexplained data usage that the phone is actually using (or which appears on the counter anyway), and (2) data being billed well in excess of what the phone seems to actually use based on the phone's counter.

Last night I ran across a what seemed to be a rogue app that may show how issue (1) can happen for some people. My wife had the new iPad with her last night when she was out waiting for my daughter at something. She used the [CNN iPad app|http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cnn-app-for-ipad/id407824176?mt=8|Click to see this app in the iTunes store] (not a universal app, so I don't know if the iPhone version would behave the same) for a few minutes, and then put the iPad to sleep without exiting the app.

Hours later, when I looked in Dataman I could see when she had used the app, as there was a couple of MB of data transferred, some of it apparently over the WiFi network of the place she was visiting. But then from the time she put the device to sleep onward there were continued data transfers *over 3G* for the rest of the night. They added up to about 17MB before I noticed. As soon as I terminated the app (by double clicking the home button and killing the app from the multi-tasking bar) the transfers stopped. Simply going to the home screen might have been sufficient too; it depends on whether this is one of the types of multi-tasking Apple allows. I didn't have time to test it and just wanted to kill it.

Another interesting thing about this is that in my previous tests on my home network I've confirmed that our iPhones and the iPad all maintain an active Wi-Fi connection to our home router even when they're asleep, if Dataman is running with the Precise Tracking feature on (and yes, this kills battery life, though it is less noticeable with the big iPad battery than it is on iPhones). Yet these data transfers which seemed to be associated with the CNN app all happened over 3G. I wonder if that's because they started when she was out of the house and so that's the connection that kept getting used even once the device was home.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to reproduce this (or even have time to try in the next few weeks), but the moral of the story is that apps can indeed use 3G data if they are left running, even if it would appear they shouldn't, even if you're at home on your home Wi-Fi network, etc.

I've always been in the habit of pressing the home button before I put my iDevices to sleep, so that apps are forced to stop running except for those with a "legitimate" background process. (I don't know if this really makes any difference though; you would think that just putting the device to sleep should have the same effect.) Even then some apps may keep talking to the world in the background, so if in doubt, either kill the app by double-clicking on the home button and touching and holding on that app's icon in the task bar, or kill them all by restarting the device by just powering it down as normal and then restarting it. (This will, of course, terminate all running processes. Contrary to what one "Genius" bar employee told me—he told me I needed to periodically restart the phone and clear all of the apps from the multitasking bar one by one!—your recently run apps are not all restarted when you restart your device. Their placeholders are still there in the multitasking bar as a convenience to you, but if you look at a list of running processes using a 3rd party tool they are not running or using any memory after a restart.)

I want to echo chcn's hypothesis that a rogue app(s) may be the culprit. In my wife's case, I think it is Reeder caching articles over 3g, despite being set to wifi caching only.

Here's my supposition:
- wife is viewing Reeder RSS feeds on home wifi before bed
- Reeder is caching via wifi unread articles, photos, etc. to speed up future reading
- wife and phone go to sleep
- Reeder app is still on in the multitask/fast app switching task bar when the phone goes to sleep
- Reeder continues to cache or caches again later -- but this time via 3g. I'm guessing that the app isn't smart enough to say "I was on wifi before, but now I'm on 3g, and I should stop"
- suspecting this after seeing several after-wife-is-definitely-asleep 10MB-20MB transmissions, I turned off caching entirely

Eight days after doing this, there are no more large mystery data chunks. Sure, there are still a few 50-500kb sessions, but no big ones.

I'll keep monitoring for awhile. But I feel like I've found the culprit. This is not to denigrate Reeder. I love the app, and maybe it is smart enough to switch wifi to 3g, etc., but I can't argue current results.

Good luck to others.

"Eight days after doing this, there are no more large mystery data chunks. Sure, there are still a few 50-500kb sessions, but no big ones."

that is okay with you? 500kb? i think that was what many people were complaining about to begin with.

iinami wrote:
"Eight days after doing this, there are no more large mystery data chunks. Sure, there are still a few 50-500kb sessions, but no big ones."

that is okay with you? 500kb? i think that was what many people were complaining about to begin with.

People complaining about 500KB transfers they don't understand need to get a life. It's a tiny quantity of data.

michaelc wrote:
- Reeder app is still on in the multitask/fast app switching task bar when the phone goes to sleep
- Reeder continues to cache or caches again later -- but this time via 3g. I'm guessing that the app isn't smart enough to say "I was on wifi before, but now I'm on 3g, and I should stop"

Great analysis! However, one minor point. The app does not decide whether to use 3G or WiFi. The app just tells the OS to "open a connection". The OS decides whether to use 3G or WiFi. If the phone is actively being used and WiFi is available the OS will use it for the connection. However, when the phone or iPad goes to sleep WiFi is turned off to conserve battery WiFi uses less power than 3G while actively exchanging data, but much more when it is idle as it must continuously maintain a connection to the router. 3G listens when the phone is on standby, and only every few minutes sends a brief message to the network saying "this is where I am".

You can force WiFi to stay on by turning Cellular Data off and leaving the device plugged in.

ed2020 wrote:

iinami wrote:
"Eight days after doing this, there are no more large mystery data chunks. Sure, there are still a few 50-500kb sessions, but no big ones."

that is okay with you? 500kb? i think that was what many people were complaining about to begin with.

People complaining about 500KB transfers they don't understand need to get a life. It's a tiny quantity of data.

I basically agree, though perhaps not with the exact size limits of what's reasonable; 500KB in one shot seems a bit big for the background noise that's normal (unless you receive push email, in which case it would be normal), but if that's actually a consolidated figure over a few hours, then perhaps not unreasonable. If I'm looking at the detailed (10-minute resolution) report in Dataman for an overnight period, for example, I generally see small transfers between 1KB and 15KB here and there (usually closer to 1KB). Over the course of a night they might add up to 100KB-200KB or so. (But each person's experience will vary according to their configuration and how many notifications they receive, etc.)

But generally, yes, small transfers throughout the day and night are to be expected. They are a result of things like push notifications, push email (including the Mobile Me Find my iPhone feature), and several other such things. The only way to get a smartphone to stop talking to the world entirely would be to turn off its network access completely (cellular data off or airplane mode). These little transfers just don't add up to much even for someone on a small plan.

The problem is unexplained transfers in the MBs, not a few KB here and there.

Lawrence Finch wrote:
Great analysis! However, one minor point. The app does not decide whether to use 3G or WiFi.

No, but I've used some apps that decide whether to download data based on whether your current connection is 3G or Wi-Fi. In these apps you specify whether to download information when on a 3G connection. Those apps query what kind of connection is present and don't download if the answer is 3G. There are a few such examples on my phone, but one I can point to quickly is the Economist iPhone app (the iPad version is different), which has among its settings "3G auto-download (On/Off)" and "Wi-Fi auto-download (On/Off)". I leave them both On, because it is well-behaved enough not to do anything unless it is the active app.

So, it's possible, as michaelc posited, that such apps don't always detect a change in connection type.

I'll add that I did more testing with the CNN iPad app and I've concluded that if it's just in the background (down on the taskbar but not the foreground process) it behaves itself. It's just if you leave that app on the screen and put the iPad to sleep that it keeps updating itself, and over 3G at that. Odd little design choice (mistake?), but the fix is easy enough for that one. Press home before going to sleep. I've always been in the habit of doing that anyway, now I know there is method to my OCD madness. (All the same, I think I will also report a problem to CNN on this in case this behaviour was not their intention.)

My partner has had his iPhone 4 for 6 months and had no problem until his last bill. This billing cycle is only 8 days old and he's already over his limit.
This can't just be an AT&T issue - we're in Australia, and the phone is with Telstra.

Just had same problem. Called AT&T, "Tasha" said she would take care of this bill. Got email address from her to send complaint to. I'm attaching a copy/paste of the email I sent which will also describe my issue. I included a link to this forum as well as a couple posts. I assumed since you put it all out there in this forum, and had talked to AT&T and Apple, you wouldn't have a problem with it. Just using you for more ammunition, dude, hope you don't mind.
Email follows:


I'm sending this email to try to bring attention to a problem that I, and apparently hundreds of other customers are having with the data usage on their iPhones.

This past week, for the first time since I've had my iPhone, (bought it 12/24/10), I received 2 texts and 2 emails informing me that I was approaching the limit on my Data Plan. I checked my account online, and the usage on my phone. My account showed astronomical packets of data transfer at all hours of the day and night, totaling, as of now, over 162 MB. The usage meter on my phone, which has never been reset since I bought it, shows 75.4MB sent, and 1GB received. Does not equate.

I hardly use the internet on my phone at all. I live in a rural area, so don't always get a signal, much less 3G. Any data that is transferred while I am at home, which is most of the time, goes through the WiFi, which my phone can access from anywhere in or around my house.

When I am away from home, I only use the internet occasionally. I don't leave any apps on, don't ever watch videos or stream music. My WiFi is turned off at night, sometimes the phone is off, sometimes not.

I understand that data billing is not necessarily logged at the actual time of the transfer. I retired from AT&T as a Central Office Tech, so have some idea of how these things work.

My usage of the phone is pretty consistent as to how much and what features I use, so I was astonished at the jump in usage shown in less than one billing cycle. I decided to research the issue online, and found that there seems to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of other people having the same problem. Dozens of forums show this same complaint. People are thinking that their spouses or significant other are having affairs because of the unexplainable billing that occurs during overnight hours. People are being billed for nonexistent data usage.

There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to why or how this happens. People have talked to Customer Service Reps, Customer Care Center people, and the National Urgent Case Team.

One forum I went almost all the way through is on the Apple Support site, which has over 84 pages just concerning this issue. One person has already been on a conference call with AT&T Engineering and Apple Customer Care, had the problem supposedly solved, then had the same issue come up again.

Apparently this has been going on for over 2 years. I'm including a link to the start page of the Apple Support Forum addressing this, and a copy of the post by the person who talked to AT&T and Apple.

The CSR I spoke with today addressed my problem as far as taking care of this bill; her name was Tasha and she was very helpful. But this issue needs to be addressed and corrected, for everyone. AT&T has a terrible reputation for customer service, and the fact that there are as many forums online about this problem and they all say that the CSRs they spoke with have no idea what's going on, (or some don't even know what the Internet/MEdia net usage means) just adds fuel to that fire.

In the meantime, all CSRs, Customer Care Reps, and anyone else who deals with customer billing problems need to be made aware of this so they can communicate to the customer that the company is aware of the problem and that efforts are being made to correct it.

This is the link to the Apple Support Forum page concerning this problem:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2450738&start=0&tstart=0



Here is a copy of a post by a customer that talked to AT&T and Apple:

I put my 2¢ worth in on this thread back on page 77 or 78. In that entry I mentioned that I had a call from Apple (call to my home phone 717-235-7466) and eventually talked to a second level Customer Service Rep. at Apple (Rasheed) about the problem. He, in turn, called a contact in AT&T's Project Management (or something very similar section) named James. After an hour or so on the phone, James and Rasheed determined that there was a serious error in AT&T's billing software that had not been caught during a recent update, I'm guessing shortly after the 200mb plans came into existence. This error was deducting "AT&T Maintenance Bandwidth" (server updates, etc.) from customers allocations. As I said at the time, these overages had probably been going on since day one but because it was then only an unlimited data plan, no one bothered to check nor cared. Once I and my wife went on to the 200mb plans is when we started paying attention, especially after she got a notice that she was sitting at 180mb of usage and that there were still upwards of two weeks before the end of our billing period.

I talked to Rasheed and James during the 10-11PM Eastern time frame close to the end of October. At the end of the conversation, James said he was putting in a work order to have it investigated. The next day I got two phone calls from AT&T, the first to go over the details of my complaint and verify some things on the work order and, later in the day, to advise that the work order had been submitted to those doing the trouble shooting and that they had started on it. No further calls were made but within a day, my phantom data usage disappeared, never to return.

I know it is a long shot but a call to Apple Customer Service in the same time frame just might find Rasheed on duty again and refreshing his memory and mentioning James at AT&T Project whatever it was might get some results. Unfortunately, the piece of paper I had everything written down on - including the AT&T work order number - had been sitting on my workbench for weeks and got trashed when I cleaned it off. My problem had been solved so I figured I didn't need it.

The name and cell phone numbers that were on the work order: John E. Simon, 717-586-2342, 717-586-2343. Good luck folks!!

(another post by same user):


JES42

Posts: 20
From: New Freedom, PA
Registered: Oct 28, 2008


Re: Unknown data usage early morning
Posted: Mar 22, 2011 4:22 PM in response to: lightsp33d
Click to reply to this topic Reply email Email

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


_______________________________________________________________________

These people are not stupid.


People shouldn't have to call the FCC to correct this type of problem, but they're doing it just to get some resolution.


I would appreciate it if someone would get back to me and let me know that this was actually read and that maybe someone gives a ****.


Thank you for your time,
Teresa Morton

I am on 200mb per month, last night I got a text from ATT that I went over my limits and they add 15$ for an additional 200mb.
I checked my recent activity online and it shows

04/10 09:30 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 210622KB

I talked to one of the REp this morning, I told her I had my phone since last June and I never reach 100mb.
She told that if I let my phone under 50% battery life it switches to 3G . I was like WFT lady you know what you talking about.
I had to switch to 2Gig plan for now. I love apply products but ATT really *****

What makes you think the problem is with AT&T?

Somehow, my phone used 915 MB for one item at around midnight when the phone was off. AT&T says it's all my fault, though I changed nothing in how I shut down the phone. Unless I turn off the cellular data button every time the phone is not in use, I'll never know if this would happen again. Kind of puts a crimp in the convenience factor. I'm really upset with the phone and with AT&T.

It did not download 915 MB at midnight. If you read this thread (which is a ridiculous thing to waste time doing) what you will learn is that your phone exchanged 913 MB of data in the previous day (or more) which was reported on your bill at the time it was summarized and posted. Unless it didn't and AT&T's billing system messed up. The way to tell is by tracking the usage recorded by your phone (settings/general/usage). If the reported usage is substantially different from what was billed you can discuss it with AT&T, and if you don't get satisfaction file a complaint with the FCC on their web site (fcc.gov).

However, if the two agree you have an app that is using a LOT of data, and you'd better find out which one it is. Turning off cellular data at night is not a solution if you are truly using that amount of data, because you will simply use it whenever you turn data back on.