Q: Unknown data usage early morning

Sorry I am new to Iphone, just have one silly question.
Is there a way to turn off 3G completely? because I have the 200MB plan. I don't to get charge if I go over it.
thanks.

Well, I followed your recommendation and we'll see what happens. Did you do anything else too? Like disable Push or Notifications or shut off in the evenings at the same time? Just wondering if you changed one factor or multiple. I have been continuing to shut off Push and Notifications each evening and gets rid of the 2-3am data posting but still there is often a large transmission sometime between 5-8am which could correlate with when I reactivate push/notifications in the morning. Although in truth there really is no rhyme or reason to the data charges since some mornings they are there and others they are not. I really think it is a "daily accounting" of the previous day, but it is just so inconsistent.

I reserved an iPhone4 the other day (like many I experienced ever ordering crash senario in the book) and I'll likely keep my unlimited plan for a few months until I see what kind of data usage I rack up on the new model. Once I switch away, there is no turning back!

TinhMaiMongCho wrote:
Sorry I am new to Iphone, just have one silly question.
Is there a way to turn off 3G completely? because I have the 200MB plan. I don't to get charge if I go over it.
thanks.

Settings App -> General -> Network -> Enable 3G

Useful for keeping your phone from rapidly consuming data unless you need it. Right below that is how you turn data roaming on/off. Combined, these are the most important switches when traveling internationally. Only switch data roaming on when you need to check email/etc, then only switch on 3G for speed. Obviously switch all push/pull automatic fetching of mail and other nonsense in these situations, too.

Hope that helps. It's also useful in marginal areas to keep the phone from draining the battery, like a coworker and I found would happen at certain remote customer sites.

When I heard about the 200MB plan, I thought it was total insanity. I ran over in a single week in a foreign country, even with the above carefully controlled consumption. I couldn't imagine anyone that uses it much at all would avoid overages. AT&T is evil.

Asked this earlier and got no response (which might be an answer in itself). Is there any possibility that downloading something brought along a malware app that is now uploading spam? The 50-70 MB uploads don't really make any sense otherwise.

So, this is NOT late night data usage. What you're actually seeing is AT&T's billing cycle. So at late night they aggregate all of your data usage for the day and then bill it, and then start aggregation for the next cycle. Notice how none of your other data usage is logged? Test this by downloading a large free app over cellular data at like 1pm, and then use your phone normally for the rest of the day. Then in the morning look at your data usage again. Why else would it be at almost the same time each day on your bill?

AT&T doesn't give us up-to-the minute logging, and you should call AT&T and ask to talk to someone in billing that understands how this works. I got a good education on it when I called.

Hi all, like all of you I am here because I recently started paying attention to data usuage in light of the recent changes. I as well have noticed the 2am data usuage. I called AT&T a couple of weekends ago and all it accomplished was wasting a half hour of my life I will never get back. I did go back and examine my data usage for several weeks. Having a predictable routine in life I did notice a pattern that I hope may help you all, which I believe I confirmed through a week of experimentation. Please bear with me as the explanation is somewhat lengthy.

When I drive to and from work, I constantly stream music. I go to work about 7:30am and come home about 4:30pm. On my phone I have Pandora, LastFM, and SlackerRadio. I notice on my data usuage that on some days I had usage show up at around 7:30am and 4:30pm. Some days that does not show up and that night (or more accurately between 2:00am and 2:45am the following morning) I see the usage. For the past six days I have been alternating between LastFM and SlackerRadio exclusively. No other data usage except over WiFi at home. When I use SlackerRadio, I see the 7:30am and 4:30pm usage on AT&T's website. When I use LastFM, no usage shows up for 7:30am or 4:30pm. However, that night/moring I get the "mysterious" 2:00am data transfer.

My theory is some apps transfer (or report) data in a lump sum (LastFM) and some do it in relative real-time (SlackerRadio). When I add up the totals for the 7:30 and 4:30 usage on SlackerRadio days, they are approximately the same size as the total 2:00am tranfer on the LastFM days. Makes sense, LastFM would be reporting both the drive to and from work together.

I have one more experiment I am going to try this weekend. Tomorrow night, at home, I am going to stream 1/2 hour of LastFM with my WiFi on in the house. Saturday night I am going to stream 1/2 hour of LastFM at home but disable WiFi on the phone and force it through the 3G network.

My wife's phone has some 2:00am usage as well but never near the data usage that I see. She does less with her phone as a rule so I'm guessing she has some apps that do the same thing. Report all at once after the day.

Hope someone finds this helpful!

Message was edited by: trypticsoy

Message was edited by: trypticsoy

It's not data-usage at all. What you're seeing is AT&T aggregating your daily usage. Do you have Push enabled? If you do it'll always be at the same time every day. The only other times it does it otherwise is if you have a long period of inactivity with push disabled or if you power-cycle your phone. Those trigger billing. Their billing reports are really confusing, and could be a bit more helpful in this regard by offering a clearer FAQ as to what is going on.

So FarmerJim my question is this - if AT&T aggregates daily usage, why, when I use SlackerRadio exclusively for a day do I see data usage for the actual times that I am using it and no 2:00am usage following it but when I use LastFM I see no data usage for the actual times I am using it but there are 2:00am usages following that day? If it was AT&T aggregating wouldn't it be consistent?

Message was edited by: trypticsoy

More importantly, why do I have to keep editing my own messages? I know how to spell usage. My fingers type "usuage" every single time!

Do you have Push notifications enabled? It's my understanding that after periods of inactivity they stop aggregating and bill, but with push you don't get that since the phone is always talking to the network. They may have other things that can trigger the billing events, but you're not seeing large chunks of data used late at night. Your usage seems tied to how the 3rd parties are utilizing the cellular data connection, the only party that can explain that better is AT&T and the application developer. I'd call them and bark up the tree until someone can explain it properly. It's what helped me get some explanations on push vs no-push, and the data aggregations.

lol at the typos. I re-wrote a big chunk of my last message because of those. Sometimes the brain moves faster than the fingers. We're all victims of it. :P

No, sorry, forgot to address that part in the last post. I have always had push shut down.

FarmerJim wrote:
So, this is NOT late night data usage. What you're actually seeing is AT&T's billing cycle. So at late night they aggregate all of your data usage for the day and then bill it, and then start aggregation for the next cycle. Notice how none of your other data usage is logged? Test this by downloading a large free app over cellular data at like 1pm, and then use your phone normally for the rest of the day. Then in the morning look at your data usage again. Why else would it be at almost the same time each day on your bill?

To be blunt, I don't believe it. Why? Because if what you say is true that data blob would occur around the same time every night whether the phone is off or on. But it doesn't. If I turn the phone off at night the large data transfer doesn't appear on my bill until a couple of minutes after I turn it on.

Further, my data usage is logged throughout the day. Not just once at night.

Call AT&T and ask them to explain how they bill for data usage then. It's what I did. When the first agent couldn't answer it, I politely asked to talk to someone who did. I continued to push until I got my answer. Only they can explain why they don't bill at exactly the same time each night.

As I said in my first post, I called AT&T. Anyone else following this please learn from me and DON'T DO IT. It will only waste your time (a sizeable chunk) and raise your blood pressure.

I agree FarmerJim that it must be a design of the app developer. Again, I have purposely kept track of what I used over 3G the past week. My drive to work and back is about a half an hour each way. When I add up both real time usages on Slacker days they are always within about 1000kb of the 2:00am charges on LastFM days. I know I am using this data it is just being recorded and reflected in two different ways. I don't think it is a big AT&T conspiracy as a lot of people in this thread seems to but is simply app-related.