According to this article it is neither a Wifi issue, nor is it an Apple issue. They claim that this could be data collection from the carriers, ie. Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint. If that is the case, then wouldn't there be similar usage statistics on other smartphones besides the iPhone? I followed the steps in that article and we will see if I can pinpoint where the data is coming from.

I Just want to add my name to the pool here. I have tried this several times, both before and after a full, clean restore "as a new phone":

While connected to Wifi with a good strong signal, anything I do on my iPhone that involves any kind of transfer of data adds 10-20 KB to my cellular usage. This includes checking email, updating the Weather app, opening a web page....anything. At no time during these tests does my iPhone go to sleep, and I've reproduced this dozens of times. Resetting and restoring has no effect.

I'm quite sure this is not expected behavior.

are you saying when phone is being charged and wifi is on it will not use 3G data even it's asleep? i charged my phone for 5 days stright, and every night I still get this unidentified 3G usage, under 100K per day tho.

I started to think it's the wifi hotspots the phone scanned during the day. actually it was discovered a while back, here:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/iphone-tracks/

Apple made an official explaination saying it's not tracking your location but mapping all the wifi spots. So it makes a lot sense that Apple is not the one behind this, the carrier is. But how could this thing be stopped?

so Lawrence why did my phone transmit 237 MB! data last night....while plugged in and charging...no apps open or in background?  2 linked uverse routers, so never more than 20 ft from routers at anytime...no doubt that wireless was available.

Att says it was "personally induced data transfer"...Sleep surfing I suppose.....pinging sleeping phone always results in strong transfer and no losses...so one has to assume that the wifi is still on....

How do you know it transmitted it last night? If you were using Dataman to monitor it, or you checked the Usage on the phone in the evening and in the morning then it did occur overnight, however, if you are going by the line item online or on your bill that is accumulated usage over the previous day. It did not occur at the time on the usage listing online, that is the time it was reported to the billing system.

I’ve been having the same problem – random usage of the cellular data network overnight while connected to power and WiFi.

I did another test last night – phone plugged in, cellular data on, all apps closed in the dock except 2 (highly recommended) diagnostic apps – Dataman & Onavo. I didn’t touch the phone from about Midnight until around 8:30am  I have a steady strong WiFi connection.

I used Dataman to track usage, both cellular and WiFi, and Onavo to track what app was the culprit.

The verdict:

Dataman:

Data used – 10.1 MB downloaded on the cellular data network and 1.8 uploaded.

Onavo:

The culprit – and here's the real shocker to me –  "100%  “iTunes/AppStore."

I have no idea what is going on.

First, the phone is connected to a power source, so it should be strictly on WiFi. Second, I have everything set on the phone so this sort of thing shouldn't happen.  Store is set to not use cellular data, automatic downloads off, no fetch or push, totally manual email,  etc. I have checked every possible setting I could find on the phone to eliminate any automatic data transfer. The other weird thing is that when the phone is using the cellular network, it is always using WiFi as well!

Typical example:

5:36am      348.2 KB  Cellular,   300.9  KB   WiFi
5:45am      347.5 KB  Cellular,   423.2  KB   WiFi
5:55am      438.7 KB  Cellular,   354.4  KB   WiFi

Most of the time it is just small amounts on both Cellular and WiFi at the same time.

Typical example:

5:07am           .2 KB Cellular,         17.9 KB  WiFi

I have cured the symptom – just turn off cellular data when not needed– but I want to cure the disease.

The AT&T reps I have spoken to are less than clueless. I am going to make an appointment for the Genius Bar at the Apple Store (Polaris, Columbus, Ohio) next week.  I plan to go armed with this hard data. Maybe the geniuses can shed some light on this.

In the meantime, does anyone have any idea what unwanted data can be being sent from iTunes/AppStore?

Max,

I think you're on to something here.  I've been travelling the world for the last 6 months, and ONLY when I get to US soil and onto the 3G network does my phone become HOT and it drains it from 100% battery to 0% in about 1 hour.  I was in India first half of January, on their cell network, and I did not experience this issue at all, and only upon re-entering the US did my phone start doing major uploads on the data plan.  I saw a 16GB "other data" area in iTunes, and after a few days, it went down to only 2GB.  I don't know what that "other data" is that's being stored in my phone. 

Last week, I came back from overseas again, and same thing, phone was fine, fully charged, and upon leaving customs, my phone drained out.   I watch the data with a data monitor, and it's all upload, and it's uploaded almost 5GB just this week.  AT&T accused me of abusing their data services in the past, and I don't know how to stop these uploads.  They threatened to start charging me thousands of dollars a month if the data doesn't slow down and they said they were perfect at detecting what I was doing and all of my data usage, but I can't get them to share their perfect knowledge with me.  I always thought only Steve Jobs and the Dalai LLama were that awesome, I'm glad AT&T realized perfection as well, I just wish they'd share it with me what the heck is draining my phone and uploading gigs of data off of my phone when every app is shut.

Signed,

Frustrated

Has anyone else tried using the Onavo app to see exactly what is using the data on the phone? (See my post above.)

My results were 100% iTunes/App store which makes no sense at all.

My most recent overnight test showed 10+ MB downloaded – iTunes/App Store.

I’d be interested to know anyone else’s test results.

Onavo is a free app, and while it’s mainly intended to save on cellular data charges by rerouting the data through its servers and compressing it, you can skip that step and just use it to see what is using the data.

Max - Where did you see that you can skip routing through the Onavo servers?  If that's true, I will use it. I downloaded it while it's free, but haven't installed it yet.  Waiting for the answer.  So far, it's the only app that shows 3G/wifi usage by app.  Onavo says they are working on selective app routing. 

Adding that I haven't had a problem with excessive data usage since the first time.  I leave 3G on, as Find My iPhone won't work without it.  I don't use any AT&T apps, and only use the App Store while on wifi and connected to power cord.  Always close it when done.

In the Onavo settings, just set Savings to "off" leaving Service Status as "on". Worked for me.

I was under the impression that just eliminated showing the savings, not re-routing.  Would love to be wrong. This is something we can ask Onavo about.  Will head over there.  Thanks!

I just checked my data usage and am quite shocked now -

I was home at the time and my iphone was not in use, at least not by me.

what process/app could've sent 109MB of data without me knowing????

and I found many more occurances of the "unknown" data usage ranging from several MB to 30MB+ and, guess what, all of the data usage records indicate "sent" (from my iphone), none received.

what the heck is going on?

I'm extremely troubled and concerned now.

another interesting thing - from "Data Usage Trend" report, my data usage almost doubled since Dec 2010 - from 428MB/mo to 799MB/mo.

prior to Dec 2010, the data usage was less than 166MB/mo.

I've never had a decent signal at work since the first iphone in 2007 and always use WiFi when I'm home, meaning I don't do much with my iphone until I get home and use the WiFi.

it's impossible to send several hundred MB of data via cellular data network.

I hope someone with the right tools can pinpoint what the cause is to all this.

thanks!

Read the headlines

AT&T customers surprised by 'unlimited data' limit

you can find this article on Yahoo. As I said earlier my solution I got rid of my Iphone for now as I am not going to worry about this bs.

kooltechie wrote:

 

I just checked my data usage and am quite shocked now -

02/12

02:43 PM

phone

Internet/MEdia Net

Sent

109622KB

I was home at the time and my iphone was not in use, at least not by me.

 

I guess you didn't read any of the thread. The usage did not occur at 2:43 PM; that is the time cumulative data for a period of time was recorded in the billing system, and it includes both sent and received data.

I found this discussion thread while searching for an answer to a problem with the internet connection yesterday.

I did not read the whole 109 pages of this thread, but read a handful number of posts.

even if what you said is true, it seems wrong to show "sent" only, don't you think?

and you also mentioned it's for a period of time that's recorded in the billing system, how does the following make sense?

the timestamps seem very random.

and what caused the 109MB of data usage, regardless of whether "received" or "sent", without me knowing?

will I get the answer if I read every post in this thread of 109 pages?

I'm sorry, but what you wrote doesn't help much.