I haven't seen the article yet.  Lawrence, would you be so kind as to provide where this article can be viewed?

Or perhaps provided a link?

Thanks

But they still shouldn't send it over 3G/LTE when the device is on Wi-FI.  Different issue (valid, yes, but different)

The question about apps consuming a lot of bandwidth is not in question... mileage or data consumption varies between apps.

This thread is longer than what it should be.

The issues are not to be found with just one party---

Apple- can they build a better mousetrap?  Meaning, Apple needs to assure users that the customer is not getting billed for Apple's data collection or ANY data mining efforts.  Then, putting software and apps on a diet is mandatory.  Lastly, setting customer expectations instead of customers biting, swallowing and then getting sick over the results of using their "smart phone" as a tool. The other hanging issue is that Apps and Apple features do HANG and expecting users to shutdown every App is just as absurd as not setting user expectations when using a so called "smart-phone" connected as a radio device that works as good as the spectrum allocated and the conditions of that medium.  In short, it's still a radio no matter what you call it and it doesn't mean it's an efficient use for data communications.  It's a use but comes with a price.

Carriers- their billing practices lack the smell test.

APP Makers - they need to use less bandwidth and do more. (VALUE)

FCC & Government Regulators - the privacy issues and Google, CarrierIQ and Apple need to get nailed compensatorily speaking in such a way that all users get paid for data consumption and penalties.  Regulators made waves about privacy but failed to recognize that there is still "bandwidth consumption" regardless of how small or insignificant that anyone wants to play this-- that it still is billed to the customer and that is a secondary issue compared to the privacy issue.  Nonetheless both are important.

RootKit Discovered: Got Mobility Concerns Yet?

http://www.nojitter.com/post/232200723/rootkit-discovered-got-mobility-concerns- yet

Customers-- use DataMan to track, use ONAVO to get details and save some bandwidth.  DISABLE Siri!

Onavo: Beating the Man When It Comes to Wireless Data Usage

http://www.nojitter.com/post/232601985/onavo-beating-the-man-when-it-comes-to-wi reless-data-usage

iPhone Data Pains

http://www.nojitter.com/blog/231000937

Siri Impact: a Bandwidth Hog

http://www.nojitter.com/post/232400132/siri-impact-a-bandwidth-hog

Moving your service to Verizon?????

Apple iPhone Phantom Strikes Again

http://www.nojitter.com/blog/229218522

Hi all.  I've just been reading through this post and am amazed that not one person has been given a clear answer as to why they are paying extra costs for something they know nothing about. 

I've approached Apple on a couple of occasions today on their Facebook page and also now started a new thread on these "mystery" charges.  It's about time either Apple or AT&T were held accountable for something we the customer are being charged for, yet we don't know WHY the charges are happening.

Please, if anyone DOES find an actual answer, could you check for my thread and update it there ?

The link to the new one is:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3834992

Many thanks and looking forward to some CLEAR answers as to why we are being ripped off so clearly.

Neil

Been deleting an app every few days. Maybe it's coincidence mystery data significantly decreased after removing Pinterest app.

Hi all, just been reading through this thread as I'm on a bit of a Data Usage quest myself and I think I've found a quick solution.

Firstly, turn of all your data usage and reports, these will run randomly and as we've found out, the phones go into cellular data mode as soon as they are put into sleep mode.  These reports can run at any given time and can easily use up a large chunk of your data when accumulated. Those settings are through General > About.

Scroll to the bottom of this page and into Diagnostics and Usage BUT as below, there is yet another setting for this further in another area.  Set these to Don't Send.

Seeing as the phones go into cellular mode when they are in sleep mode, so they instantly start processing any data as cellular data, make sure your email and notifications are on manual only instead of auto-fetch as once any updates are noticed on a server, the phone will fetch those updates as well but also, go into:

Setting > Location Services

Scroll to the bottom and look for System Services

Turn off the options for DIAGNOSTICS AND USAGE.

Turn off the options for Location Based iAds

Turn off the options for traffic

I had the very same issue as so many seem to be having with extra high data usage through the night, around 70 - 80Mb which was killing my 200Mb data plan initially setup as I use an approx 90% WiFi connection. We've now already upgraded my plan to a 3Gig plan to avoid over-use and extra charges but now finding these settings, the phone barely uses 300Kb in any one day.

Something to try and would love to hear any more feedback if this helps you all too

Neil

I will try your ways. Few days ago, my iPhone sent over 70.000Kbs out at midnight while I was sleeping. Thanks God I found this topic.

This quite outrageous. I'm over 700MB 3rd day into my new billing cycle and it's from those late night / early morning phantom data usage (while under wifi).

<Edited by Host>

So far the latest article dealing with this issue is on Macworld, quotting this very thread.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1162603/att_overcharge.html

<Edited by Host>

I am on a grandfathered unlimited AT&T plan and started getting the "you have been using over 2 GB of data and may be throttled" text messages in Feb. What is odd is that my usage history has been less than 1 GB per month up until they started sending out those threatening SMS messages: http://i39.tinypic.com/zm1i5i.png

I checked my usage details and also saw large (100-200 MB) data usage charges usually early in the morning. After trying to narrow down the cause of the issue I concluded that (for me, anyway) the issue is Push e-mail.

I have 5 different Gmail accounts that I have setup as Exchange accounts so that I can get Push e-mail functionality. Once I went into my phone's Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data > Advanced menu and changed each account to Manual I no longer saw the crazy  usage numbers.

One thing that is strange is that when I enabled Push on just one account that contains a lot of messages and generally receives around 20-30 e-mails a night I saw the usage spike up again to the same 100-200 MB values, but when I instead enabled Push on an account that has much fewer messages in it and does not receive any messages at all (usually) there was no spike.

During the test periods my phone is always at home within range of my WiFi network, and is plugged in. (I work at home, so it's almost never away from WiFi.)

I also have the DataMan app installed, and the 3G data values are much much less than the 3G data spikes reported by AT&T's website. (The DataMan values match the phone's Settings > General > Usage > Cellular Usage numbers.) I am not sure why there is such a disagreement between the phone's usage numbers and AT&T's reports.

I am currently trying to narrow down which Gmail accounts cause the data spikes when Push is enabled and which ones do not, to see if I can find a pattern or similar cause.

I additionally find this odd because I changed all of my Gmail accounts from Gmail Fetch to Exchange Push on my phone last October, but didn't see any change in my 3G data usage until February. I don't know what changed in February, but there is definitely something not right with these huge daily 3G data charges.

This appears to have worked! I've been leaving my Cellular Data on for the last 2 nights after following Calineil's advice:

Setting > Location Services

Scroll to the bottom and look for System Services

Turn off the options for DIAGNOSTICS AND USAGE.

Turn off the options for Location Based iAds

Turn off the options for traffic

So far so good.

Great to hear that Brian, glad I could help for sure. Ive been monitoring mine since I did these changes and am now constantly only using less than 1Mb per day if I'm at home on the wi-fi and on checking with AT&amp;T text updates for my data usage and allowance that confirms the same. Glad I could help.

Hi there thezonie. On reading through your situation I'd say it would pay to check your Diagnostics and Usage reports settings but also check what your email server settings are. It sounds like the that is giving you the most trouble is downloading automatically everything on those emails at one time. Not just text and headers. You might need to check that out further with an email or Apple tech though. Also if one is on fetch at automatic intervals and the iPhones switch from wi-fi to 3G shortly after they enter sleep mode, your phone may very well be having server connection issues so it will take a LOT more data to use. May I suggest trying turning off the automatic push and retrieve your email manually if needed ? One of the updates in early Feb seems to have caused us all these issues. Something that still needs further investigation and pushing for some answers on I think.

You-are-all-you-need-to-be.blogspot.com has an article on iPhone usage and extremely high data usage that so many of us seem to be dealing with. I've included some tips and tricks there to cut down the usage in rather large ways. Please feel free to drop by and leave any comments or ideas if you'd like.

Neil

Thanks for the tips, Calineil. My phone's Settings > General > About > Diagnostics and Usage setting has been Don't Send for as long as I can remember, but the Location one is still on. (Actually all of the Location Services > System Services are still on.)

If I can't find a "smoking gun" in terms of which e-mail account(s) are causing the issue I will also try turning off the Location services you mentioned. I just want to try and change as few things as possible to try and track down the source.

When I first started trying to track this down I turned off everything: Locations, Notifications, changed all E-mail to manual, no Push for Calendars or Contacts, closed all background applications, etc. I then, each day, started re-enabling all of those options. The last option I re-enabled was Push e-mail, and that was when the usage spiked again.

The e-mail accounts are set to either Push or Manual ... No Fetch settings in the mix at this point. Putting every account on Manual definitely does fix the usage problem (for me) but I would still like to use Push e-mail to be alerted when messages arrive. I just don't think that the phone should be using hundreds of MB a day just to perform Push e-mail. Especially since it was doing just fine up until Feb.

I am going to keep exploring the problem to see if I can track down the cause of my issues. I will keep the thread posted. Unfortunately I can only perform a single test case per day since AT&T's data reporting is so inaccurate with respect to when data is actually used.