Q: Unknown data usage early morning

Here's my test.

Reset Statistics - shut off phone - charged to 97% - turned phone back on and confirmed stats are 0.

All apps are closed, Locations Svc, Wi-Fi, Notifications, Mail Fetch New Data, New Invitation Alerts and Bluetooth are OFF.

Opened Mail app, made one phone call then checked stats:

9:53 am 1KB sent - I did not send anything

9:54 am 9.0KB rec'd - email received is 6.9KB in size

9:55 am made one 55 second phone call

9:57 am 11.0KB sent - I did not send anything

9:57 am 34.0KB rec'd - email received is 3.3KB in size

10;21 AM STATS show Cellular Network Data sent=14.0KB and received 45.0KB (Between 9:57 and 10:21 an increase in data sent and received is shown, I did not send or receive ANY data during that time.)

Results: I sent no emails, made one 55 second phone call, and received 2 emails size 6.9 KB and 3.3 KB. Opened two apps; mail and phone.  STATS show sent 14.0KB and received 45.0 KB - fuzzy math?

When you open the email app it SENDS a request to the server(s) asking if there is any email. There is a multistep handshake where the server responds that there is, the iPhone asks for it, the server sends it in 1 Kb blocks, the iPhone acknowledges receipt of each block, the server says BYE and the iPhone says BYE.  So your stats seem about right. BTW, this is the way the POP3 and IMAP protocols work with ANY mail client; it is not unique to the iPhone.

REMEMBER--- AT&T's responses and there have been several published, each different.

Per AT&T respondant to FCC complaints:

Sept, 2010

Note two key reasons that AT&T states to the customer as contributing to phantom data usage: "Overhead data" and "Many devices including iPhone transmit and receive data without user intervention"

Feb, 2011

"Many smart phones including (iPhones) are "always on" data devices. They establish a data connection with the AT&T network and keep it open even if there is no data being transmitted."

"Data usage is recorded once a data session is ended on the device (phone is powered off, the customer manually ends the data session, or lost network connection)"

"To capture ongoing data consumption records, the AT&T systems are designed to send all accumulated data after a predetermined time each night. If a customer's device is connected to WiFi when the accumulated data is sent, the usage would not be billed as data."

What's fuzzy is the methodology that the iPhones and smartphones use and what the carriers don't tell.

The last note from AT&T above--- so--- "If a customer's device is connected to WiFi when the accumulated data is sent, the usage would not be billed as data"   THEN if a customer's device is not connected to WiFi when the accumulated data is sent, the usage to send the billing data is billable?

Just one example. 

Of course, an iPhone is NEVER connected to WiFi when the phone is asleep.

I got my own iPhone July 22 and, being aware of these data issues (though my wife's experiences dating back to last Oct.), I was extremely careful with data usage.  I made sure I was on WiFi at home, etc....In checking data usage, I noticed my wife had a 500MB data usage one night.  She had not used this much data in the past 4 months.  In speaking to the rep, I got the same crap runaround...open apps, wifi going out, going to 3G when phone is in sleep.  None of this explains why someone's data usage - with no new apps or streaming being used - would spike this way. The rep said there was no way to tell WHAT the data was being used for, ir by which app.  He insisted it was a poblem with my WiFi network (his claim - my network must go out at 12:41 EVERY NIGHT and that ATT or some mystery app happens to use that precise moment to transfer huge amounts of data). 

I asked the rep if I could then speak to the legal department.  Since there are at least 2 lawsuits pending against ATT for this issue, I have to suspect that their legal department will have a more specific response to the judge than "we're not sure" or "it must be some app."  I never got that far.  The supervisor came on, gave me the same spiel, a $50 credit and brushed me off. So I made a couple calls and am now party to the class action (if it is allowed to go forward).

In the meantime, my wife and I have taken to keeping 3G off at all times, unless we are away from wifi for an extended period and need to check e-mail or a web site or something.  Guess what...? No problems so far. 

We still get calls and texts, just have to manually check mail.  Pain but seems to be a reasonable solution for the time being.

Interestingly, the rep also told me the iPhone data usage meter was never accurate and I could not use that to track usage.  More interestingly, when I got my 1st month statement, my phone data usage and the statement data usage were within 100kb of one another.  I reset, and so far, both are showing accurate.  So they lie, too.

Source: iPhone Users: No Mercy For Phantom Data Usage

"AT&T argues that there is a misunderstanding on how users consume data and are billed for it after responding to another lawsuit brought against the carrier. Thornton, Davis & Fein, a law firm of Miami, FL paid independent researchers $80,000 to test the iPhone data usage and found that AT&T overcharged iPhone and iPad users between 7% and 300% for data usage. This is the second lawsuit, with a prior suit brought earlier in January that went to the Supreme Court in April that ruled 5-4 in AT&T's favor that companies can block unhappy customers (consumers and businesses) from banding together in a class-action lawsuit."

Are you certain you are part of a class-action?

BackPacker57 - No, I am not sure.  That is why I included the caveat "...if it is allowed to go forward."   Are you certain you bothered to read my entire post?

I read your post and no malice was intended.

The misinformation in this thread is astonishing and that was the basis of my question to you, nothing more.

There is no banding together of users for class-actions and that SCOTUS decision has yet to sink in to the public's mind.

As for this thread it means every user is on his/her own to seek relief and resolution however they can.

The remaining lawsuit is contested of course by AT&T however, on Capital Hill:

Senators Kohl, Klobuchar Press AT&T For More Clear And Accurate Billing Practices

I tried to read this 90+ pages and saw all the discussion about AT&T. I live in Turkey and on Turkcell has the exact same problems both on iphone 3gs and 4. In one instance, at the while ı was driving to work, Turkcell says I downloaded 0.5gb of data in one hour. Had similar unexpected downloads now and than since last year. Now I use an aplication called dataman and it alerts me when I reach certain limits. I had all the same arguments with Turkcell you had with AT&T. All the operators are the same I think. I had the same answers you got from AT&T the only difference is they were in Turkish .

Similar problmes were discussed in many froms with many carriers like Telstra, Vodafone etc. So I still think this must be an iphone issue. With dataman I was able to see the exact time of the phantom downloads and stopped arguing with Turkcell. I think we  need an application to show us which application was downloading data at specific time. Does any one know any application like that ? or it can be a good idea for developers to write an application for this purpose.

i don't think it's an iphone issue because within these 90 pages are people saying they have different phones, such as a blackberry, and the same problem. there are 2 iphone4's in my house and we don't have the problem. heck i just told my wife last night she needs to use more of her data plan...

this is from data manager application between 7am and 8am, I was at bath had breakfast and drive. look at the data downloads both from 3g and wifi. It can be some application but after 8 am ıt just stops without any intervention. Any ideas ? (iphone 4)

I had the same thing. In the end I just wiped the whole phone, reinstalled OS and voila! No more mystery charges. Now as to what is causing this, I don't know. Virus? Faulty code? But very annoying, especially having to deal with ATT service drones.

I have a Blackberry and get nothing like these every day large Sent Data charges that my wife is seeing on her iPhone 4.

I have the same exact problem. I'm not currently in the US, though. I'm on MTN. I've turned off all of the notifications and push features. It's been a while that i've been looking for an answer to this and there's been no success. I don't see this ever solve   I just keep my cellular data turned off while i don't need it. This is the only way to keep it under control.

Hi to all the bewildered gang........I've just joined tonight after having a warning text from O2 (my provider here in the UK) saying I'd also nearly used all my data allowance - which of course I hadn't, it was the mysterious midnight thief.

So, following the basic concensus of opinion that, in the short term at least, the best thing to do was to turn off the cellular network facility (on my iphone4), I happened to look at the account details for the cellular data network.

It gives the O2 website address that seems to be connected with the data usage (idata.o2.co.uk), and then a username and password that I've never set up!

Is that normal?

fizz