Trying to catch up with this thread but here is my experience with Vodafone in Australia for my wife's iPhone

For 6 months We have not exceeded the data plan which is 1gig per month, usage is some email, maybe 5 per day, Facebook, what's app, and games downloaded from the apple app store. Most is done on the wifi at home, I have never checked the usage until I got a text 3 weeks ago telling me that the data usage was over the limit to the tune of $700!!! I got straight onto customer service (a name that is a misrepresentation) they could not help at all and after several hours I asked for the disconnection team as I wanted to cancel my contract, anyway after some assistance from this team they agreed to reduce my bill by $500 as they could see that the usage was unusual and not in the usual pattern.

The usage was in the early hours of the morning across 3 separate days (when the wifi was not on) and totalled a massive $ 700 of data

My new billing cycle has been running for 21 days and I can see a lot of usage at all hours but the duration seems to be odd, below is a sample 8hours and 2 seconds and there are a lot of this time frame, very odd as she does not sit connected to the net etc for hours on end,

19/12/2011     09:48:38      PKT      Internet 158494Kb      04:41:03     All Day     $35.17     $0.00

18/12/2011     18:30:09      PKT      Internet 99Kb      08:00:02     All Day     $0.02     $0.00

18/12/2011     10:30:05      PKT      Internet 410Kb      08:00:02     All Day     $0.09     $0.00

17/12/2011     22:56:50      PKT      Internet 287Kb      04:00:00     All Day     $0.06     $0.00

17/12/2011     14:56:48      PKT      Internet 970Kb      08:00:02     All Day     $0.22     $0.00

No one can seem to offer an explanation or any assistance - this month she is up to 950 mb with 7 days to run and I know that that is a massive amount of 3G traffic bearing in mind most browsing etc is via wif, on the voda site they say a gig of usage would give thousands of emails, many hours of streaming video etc - it's ridiculous and I have started putting e phone in flight mode at night to prevent over usage

Any pointers or assistance would be great !!!!

Oh and I am running IOS 5 !

REMEMBER-- the issues associated with data usage billing for iPhones and other smartphones remains a "PERFECT STORM" scenario---- the carriers billing practices doesn't preclude carriers from any culpability.

"As data travels between the UE (User Equipment--the phone) and the Internet it will pass through several different nodes, several (or all) of these nodes will generate CDRs (Charging Data Records). These CDRs will be compared against each other to make sure that everything is OK. Normal policy for operators is that if they detect something wrong with a CDR it (and possibly earlier and later CDRs) will be discarded. This means that the operator will lose money and the user will get some data usage for free, but the alternative is that the operator might charge for something the user hasn’t done, which is a big no-no (can turn ugly if brought to court)."

The comment is from a post found at:

How a law firm tested "phantom" AT&T smartphone data use

Then again, the app makers are and share responsibility too:

It's not surprising, since there isn't a clear understanding of iPhones' and other smartphones' data consumption. The OS, apps, and then the concerns over privacy and security may also be culprits consuming data unbeknownst to the user. Then, when users think they exit an app, does the app really stop? My apps don't, and according to Kengwei, "Some apps can go on for 10 minutes before the iOS watchdog kills it. It depends on how an app is designed by the developers."

iPhone Data Pains

Then since you mentioned the TIO ---- I will dig around for a contact across the pond who maybe in your neck of the woods.  First name is Tim and he worked a "project" to discover using the "project" as a University of Maryland extended in Australia classroom exercise of sorts -----  anyway he is an excellent guy to know.

bladrick9----

I encourage you to make -----contact----

@Lawrence

Another set of issues that I think need further discussion is the sandbox theory of Apple regarding iPhone security.

Docking the iPhone to the Mac or PC I would think, still poses a security threat.  Malware seemingly can gain entry to the iPhone through docking.

What I find interesting is Nicolas Seriot's report back in 2010 on iPhone Privacy.

Nicolas shows the historical breeches of iPhone security with different OS releases.

I also can't help but wonder is some easy social engineering on violated webpages could easily prompt users to download a ficticious security certificate?

Another key concern that Nicolas points out are the SSH issues

Then again, as I've posted before, there's even the concerns with WiFi security and once again, WiFi isn't secure. 

Lastly, as I've stated numerous times before, the issue isn't solely resident within the carrier space, nor is it pinned on the app developers.  Apple shares responsibility as does the FCC that seemingly have their heads sandboxed in arrears if you catch my drift.  This industry is one money lapping dog that has taken advantage of consumers.  The latest example of Carrier IQ trying to use corporate intimidation against the kid revealing their misuse/misdeeds implanted on Apple's OS.

Privacy is in the minds of the talking heads on Capital Hill.  This isn't a privacy issue, that's the distraction.  The issue is money.

What say you?

P.S. Anything that can  be measured is capturable, encrypted or not.

my wife's iphone is doing the same thing. ATT has no clue. mine is fine. both are updated to OS 5.  she carried over our old land line number. i wonder if this is the common thread of all phones doing this.

Well I also argued with ATT and went to the Apple store with no answers do you really think I am going to have to take the time to go into a app and shut it off everytime and I mostly use Face book, so I have shut off my I phone and went back to a regular phone for now, because I am positive I did nothing out of the ordinary to cause out of control data usage. Also it makes me coureous as to why ATT no longer has the unlimited data plan offered, I think they know there is a problem and once my contract expires goodbye att and why do  I have to have a contract for this kind of service. Will think twice about any future apple products.

Mysterious nightly data usage issue—partial explanation.

Background:

I recently signed up with AT&T for the 200 MB plan and got my 1^st smart phone: iPhone 4s.  Then, noticed that my average daily data usage was exceeding 6+MB (in order to stay within the 200MB limit).  I was mostly using internet at home using WiFi.  But, at work, I had to rely on AT&T network for emails and occasional web browsing.  On some days, the usage was 17MB which I couldn’t comprehend.  And, the time stamps were like 12:38 a.m. when I was sleeping with the phone in stand by/sleep mode.

I called AT&T twice, read the discussion threads of the Apple Support Communities, discussed it with experienced smart phone users, and then did my own research as AT&T reps couldn’t explain what’s going on other than providing me boiler-plate responses.

Explanation:

1. Time to time, the iPhone sends data usage statistics to AT&T; I believe the frequency is at least once a day.  The time stamp is the 1^st AT&T network data usage by your phone since the last time iPhone send the stats.  The data volume is the total of sent and received starting from the reported time stamp until the next time iPhone sends the stats.  The time stamp should have been the reporting time.  You may see multiple entries on any given day.  Keep in mind that your phone uses AT&T network when you are within a WiFi network, but your phone is in standby mode.
2. Applications like location services, facebook, google maps, etc. continuously exchange data with your iPhone.  When you open facebook, you see the most current state and instantly get all the updates which is cool.  But, this requires your facebook to constantly communicate with your iPhone using the AT&T network when your phone is not in a WiFi network or it is in standby.  Plus, these websites have lots of graphics--they quickly add up.
3. The junk and marketing emails that you delete without even looking all add up to MBs every day.  These come with lots of graphics.

Remedy:

1. If you don’t like to headache, pay $10/month extra to move to the 2GB/month plan.  I am not ready to do it now.
2. Turn the General>Network>Cellular Data option ON only when you need it.
3. Log out of any web site after your visit so that the data exchange mentioned above stops for applications like facebook.
4. Kill applications that run in the background even when you quit, e.g. Maps—double tap on the home button, put your finger softly on any application and hold until they show the red-circle with a negative sign—click on the “-“ sign one by one so that they are not running on the back ground.

In order to experiment yourself, play with the General>Usage>Cellular Usage>Reset Statistics along with turning the General>Network>Cellular Data option ON and OFF to monitor your usage and get a feel for how you are doing.  Based on the limited information available to me and those provided by the AT&T reps, I’m confident that the data usage information is accurate.

I hope this helps.

See within the quote below for my comments to this, marked with -->

winmass66 wrote:

 

Mysterious nightly data usage issue—partial explanation.

 

...

 

Explanation:

1. Time to time, the iPhone sends data usage statistics to AT&T; I believe the frequency is at least once a day.  The time stamp is the 1^st AT&T network data usage by your phone since the last time iPhone send the stats.  The data volume is the total of sent and received starting from the reported time stamp until the next time iPhone sends the stats.  The time stamp should have been the reporting time.  You may see multiple entries on any given day.  Keep in mind that your phone uses AT&T network when you are within a WiFi network, but your phone is in standby mode.
   
   --> This is almost right, except that data usage is reported by the carrier's own equipment, not by the phone. In other words, AT&T does not rely on your iPhone to report how much data it sent and received. AT&T already knows this. The usage information is reported by the various "switches" (or whatever the right term is) that serviced your phone within the network.
    
   
2. Applications like location services, facebook, google maps, etc. continuously exchange data with your iPhone.  When you open facebook, you see the most current state and instantly get all the updates which is cool.  But, this requires your facebook to constantly communicate with your iPhone using the AT&T network when your phone is not in a WiFi network or it is in standby.  Plus, these websites have lots of graphics--they quickly add up.
   
   --> That has not been my experience with the Facebook and Maps apps. Facebook usually updates to the latest information slightly after I open it, whether or not I killed the app after last using it. A well-designed app should not use large amounts of data in the background unless there is a clear reason for it, like continuing to download a song or something. There are apps that do use some background data to keep a connection, like Skype, mMil, all the iCloud stuff (including things like Find My iPhone/Find My Friends), etc., but my experience is that most of these (especially the built-in ones) use only trivial amounts of background data to do their thing.
   
   --> That said, I have occasionaly seen situations where this breaks down: At one time the CNN iPad app was bad about continuous background updating, and I had to remind my wife not to just put the device to sleep with the app in the foreground. For good measure we even took to killing it instead of just pressing the home button. I don't know if they have fixed this as I've not tested it lately. I also had a situation once with the Facebook app where I started to watch a video and then changed my mind after I realized it was huge. (I don't remember if it was a Facebook video or a YouTube video linked through Facebook or something else. I think it may have been a video on a Safari web page displayed within the Facebook app.) Even though I pressed the home button to leave the app, by looking at the usage stats on my phone (both the built-in one and DataMan), I could see that it was still downloading the video. In that case I had to force kill the Facebook app. But again normally this doesn't seem to be required. (I've also read in this thread where some people thought their mail client got stuck in some sort of loop. That would definitely use a lot of data and the best solution for that would be to reboot the phone and/or reconfigure the mail account, since I'm not sure killing the mail client from the task manager actually kills its associated background processes.)
   
   --> I've also developped a habit of always pressing the Home button before putting the phone to sleep. At one time I thought this would tell iOS that I wanted everything to behave as if it were in the background (meaning no processing and no downloading unless necessary). However, I don't know if this is or ever was necessary, because you'd think when you put the device to sleep iOS would put everything in the background anyway. But this is just something I do now out of habit and an abundance of caution. But that's usually where I leave it. Unless I have reason to be suspicious of a particular app, like CNN, or an aborted download, or sometimes something like Skype, I don't usually kill background apps. I think it's overkill. I rely on the OS to manage memory, background downloading, etc., and it usually works fine for me.
     
   
3. The junk and marketing emails that you delete without even looking all add up to MBs every day.  These come with lots of graphics.
   
   --> Maybe, but my iPhone (only using IMAP accounts) downloads only headers and part of the message at first. If I delete the message without opening it, not much would be downloaded. Even if I open it, if it's a very large message the iPhone only downloads some of the message at first when you're on a 3G connection. You have to tap a button at the bottom of the message to get the rest. Compared with things discussed above (like apps stuck in a loop, or downloading large videos you didn't mean to download), I don't think junk mail add up to all that much.
    
   

Remedy:

1. If you don’t like to headache, pay $10/month extra to move to the 2GB/month plan.  I am not ready to do it now.
   
   --> I'll admit I couldn't easily live within 200MB anymore, though I used to. See below.
    
   
2. Turn the General>Network>Cellular Data option ON only when you need it.
   
   --> I think this is overkill unless you are one of the relative few who has some rogue app they have not been able to track down.
    
   
3. Log out of any web site after your visit so that the data exchange mentioned above stops for applications like facebook.
   
   --> I usually leave lots of pages open in mobile Safari with no noticeable data consumption resulting therefrom. However, certain pages with scripted refreshes or something could in theory be a problem, so this is probably good advice. (Though again, I'm not sure how much Safari is supposed to be doing much when it's in the background.)
    
   
4. Kill applications that run in the background even when you quit, e.g. Maps—double tap on the home button, put your finger softly on any application and hold until they show the red-circle with a negative sign—click on the “-“ sign one by one so that they are not running on the back ground.
   
   --> Again, I think this is overkill for most folks, except if there is a particular app that you suspect of being troublesome. Maps uses lots of data when in use, sure, but I've never in three years noticed it using any background data. Apple did not design the device to require you to regularly kill all the background apps. The OS generally does a good job of giving things processor time and memory only when they need them, etc. It's not perfect (especially with memory management), but problems with unexpected downloads seem to be the exception for me, not the rule, and I've a heavy and experienced user.
    
   

In order to experiment yourself, play with the General>Usage>Cellular Usage>Reset Statistics along with turning the General>Network>Cellular Data option ON and OFF to monitor your usage and get a feel for how you are doing.

--> This I agree with. Use this and/or Dataman to get a feel for what uses data. Be aware that using DataMan in the Precise Tracking mode will use a lot of battery power, especially if you are connected to WiFi, as it seems to keep the WiFi connection alive instead of allowing the lower-power 3G to take over. Instead I leave Precise Tracking turned off and just launch it a few times a day to update it. I launch it especially after doing something I suspect was data intensive to see what the result was. If you're using it this way note that it's a good idea to launch it right before bed and first thing in the morning so the daily totals are right. You must also launch DataMan right before you power down the phone to capture the latest usage. Also, whether using Precise Tracking or not, you must launch the app again upon rebooting so that it starts tracking usage again.
 
Based on the limited information available to me and those provided by the AT&T reps, I’m confident that the data usage information is accurate.

I hope this helps.

Now, to be fair, I don't think I could live within a 200MB plan anymore. (I could a couple of years ago.) I've become a pretty heavy user, especially now that I (a) work somewhere with no WiFi, and (b) use iCloud for calendaring (which uses a noticeable amount of data to push events to my iPhone on days when I'm doing a lot of editing of appointments in Outlook or in iCloud online). In a typical month I now use something between 300MB-600MB (on a 1GB plan). I monitor usage fairly closely and have a good idea by now where the data goes, and I don't think following the advice above would get that number significantly lower.

Message was edited by: chcn (formatting and added some more comments on how to use DataMan)

There are easier remedies.  I used to turn off cellular, then I realized that if I lost the phone, the Find My Phone app would be useless.  Leave cell on, and turn off Push for everything.  Combining that with closing any app that uses data has solved the problem for me.  Also, as stated by myself and others previously, get DataMan Pro to really see what your phone is doing by way of cellular and wifi usage.  No need to visit settings all the time and reset constantly.  You can also set warning threshholds with DMP.  This once saved me from cell data overage when I had forgotten that I'd turned off my wifi for an extended vacation, came home and began to update apps.

I, too, am victim to this in Australia except from Telstra. I am on a 1GB plan and have been so for over 12 months. I use the ipad at home connected to WiFi and then on Fridays I drive up to Brisbane (2 hours away) and use the ipad extensively over the weekend but am on WiFi at that end too. Every month the bill has been $19. This month it's over $350. When I checked the individual pages it showed that on a particular day at 4:00pm it had  up/downloaded over 1 GB of data from a location that I just drive past on my way to Brisbane i.e. the ipad is asleep, I am driving past one of the mobile towers, it has somehow latched onto it and moved my whole allowance in 30 hours (again, I thought there were only 24 hours in one day). I spoke to Telstra Small Business reps over the Xmas New Year period whose responses varied from  "yes I will credit you $100 immediately and the rest needs to be verified from management"  (neither of which happened) to "you need to upgrade to more usage" (as I see so many of you have been told). This seems to be a problem that is just creeping into Australia. After having spoken in person to a Telstra franchise manager today who was going to see what he could do I have decided if there is no change I will be going to the media. This is an OUTTRAGEOUS rip off. I have ALWAYS had the Fetch Data set to Manual and Data Roaming off. I have never needed to turn off Cellular Data in over 2 years of use. When I downloaded all my bills I see a trend of the ipad "interrogating" the various mobile towers on my drive up to Brisbane only in the last few months. As I said, the ipad is not in use on my drive up yet it shows a usage from that tower of 30 or so hours a day which is a) impossible as I am not in range of those towers and b) impossible as there are only 24 hours in a day!!

I will let you all know how it turns out. This is going to be a HUGE story.......

The media probably won't give a toss. Telstra spends too much advertising money with all the majors. Best bet is to go to the telecommunications ombudsman. I've done this a few times with telstra and always resolved in my favour very quickly.

Had the same issue with unexplained data usage last year. Rang Telstra and they were aware of it with the IPhone 4. Rang a few months later and they denied there ever had been an issue. Typical Telstra. They are a dishonest company and full of b###s##t. They are a blight on the face of the earth. Anyway my data usage involved really big chunks of data while I, and the phone, were asleep.

Then the problem just went away and it doesn't matter a hoot what apps I have open, what mail settings I use, whether my home wifi is on or not. The problem is just not there. I upgraded to ios5 and everything is still fine. I have watched this thread for a while and seen all the theories but I think it is an issue with the ios. It has to be as it happens in too many countries and providers and phone and Ipad configurations to be simply user settings. The only common denominator is the ios, and because in the scheme of things it is only giving a relatively small number of users grief Apple don't really care. The I4S for example has/had battery issues and the thread on this site regarding that attracted over 800,000 hits so Apple jumped to attention and did something. This data thing is insignificant compared to that so why should they bother. Also a company that expects its customers to accept the worst piece of software ever, Itunes, probably doesn't care a lot. Thank God there is software now that overcomes Itunes staggering shortfalls.

I am having the same issue as everyone else here. My wife had a 3GS, it was using around 2-2.5GB a month for years, in the first month (November) I had the 4S, we went over 3GB. In December we went over 5GB and we were home for 2 weeks on wifi! She is using the same apps she has used for years, nothing new. She does text but rarely sends pics.

As soon as I noticed the data increasing I started searching around and found lots of others complaining. I ended up turning off location services, siri, icloud sync/back ups, no music matching, using restrictions to disable Ping and apple diagnostic/usage sending. Also started turning off cellular data at night. The phone is still using excessive data. I called AT&T and was able to get a credit for all the overage fees but they still don't have an answer and said it would be up to me to figure out what the phone is doing.

AT&T is logging large data transfers of 170-320MB in the early hours when we're sleeping. I thought maybe there was a delay in the useage logging but there is activity all day long that is consistent with what I'm tracking on the phone in the Settings | General | Useage | Cellular data. Also, at home we are on wifi so no clue what is happening.

On Jan 1st my AT&T acct showed 0 sent/received and I reset the phone stats for cellular data as suggested by AT&T. Now, 6 days later, the phone shows a total of 572.8 MB (sent+received), the AT&T site is showing 1073.34 MB. So in just 6 days they are showing almost double what the phone thinks it used. So in another 6 days I can expect the overage charges to start piling up.  We are on 5.0.1.

I'm considering a factory reset, possibly requesting a new sim and/or phone. I also received a 4S during this same time and my useage is consistent with the iPhone 4 my 4S replaced.

Any progress on this issue by anyone?

There have been quite a few threads on this subject.  In the UK, there are many instances of data usage on all networks happening exactly at midnight.

Both my wife and I have 4S on Vodafone, and EVERY night at exactly midnight, there is a cellular data download of between 500k and 15Mb!  Of course, Vodafone say that they have never heard of the problem but from forum posts both here and on other sites (including their own), they are not telling the truth!

Vodafone's answer is that it must be an app, and the solution is to switch off Cellular data.  Very useful!

randyfrompinckney wrote:

 

 

AT&T is logging large data transfers of 170-320MB in the early hours when we're sleeping. I thought maybe there was a delay in the useage logging but there is activity all day long that is consistent with what I'm tracking on the phone in the Settings | General | Useage | Cellular data. Also, at home we are on wifi so no clue what is happening.

 

I (and many others) have repeated this many times in this thread, but no one seems to notice:

WiFi is OFF whenever the phone is on Standby to preserve battery. Even if you think you are on WiFi at home. So any data transfers will go over 3G. The exception is if the phone is connected to power; if it is WiFi will stay on when the phone is asleep. So keep it plugged in and it will use WiFi instead of 3G.

There are many apps that update overnight, including news apps, FaceBook, etc, and now iCloud backup (although it only does it when on WiFi and plugged in). However, the early morning data transfers on your bill are accumulated data from the last cell tower you were connected to at the time of the report. The other data transfers on your bill represent data from cells you have left during the day (when you leave a cell it reports accumulated data). So the time stamp of the data transfer does not correlate with the actual time of the data transfer.