Q: Unknown data usage early morning

I have been in a battle with AT&T for a week over this problem, the final straw being a 50 megabyte charge 2 hours into my new billing cycle. After a week's worth of calls and walks into AT&T stores, I got a call back yesterday from someone who was assigned to my case because I had made such an effort to get this settled. The woman who called told me that the early morning data charges had just been brought to their attention and they were working on the problem. She also told me that AT&T is unaware of what causes the problem but it affects iPhone 3gs and 4, and possibly iPhone 3g as well. I suggest that you attempt to call AT&T and complain about the charges if they are still happening to you.

Can any1 please tell me how to do this, or a webpage.
I have searched almost 10-15 pages on this thread to get get an answer.

Thanks

andywyndom wrote:
Has anyone seen this dialog. I went in and check and change settings using itunes and got this dialog.
"You can help Apple improve its products by sending use anonymous diagnostic and usage information about your iphone.
By clicking agreee you agree that apple may periodically collect and use this information as part of its support services and to improve its products. "

If you choose show details it shows you the files that it has, they are all under 10k.

I chose disagree. I am not sure if this was agreed to earlier by my kids.

shortduck wrote:
Can any1 please tell me how to do this, or a webpage.
I have searched almost 10-15 pages on this thread to get get an answer.

Thanks

Try the post at the end of http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12033716 - about 12 pages back, so you can't have been really looking 10-15 pages back...

Related?

BBC News - O2 yet to resolve iPhone data roaming glitch
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11155947

Chaosdude78 wrote:
I have been in a battle with AT&T for a week over this problem, the final straw being a 50 megabyte charge 2 hours into my new billing cycle. After a week's worth of calls and walks into AT&T stores, I got a call back yesterday from someone who was assigned to my case because I had made such an effort to get this settled. The woman who called told me that the early morning data charges had just been brought to their attention and they were working on the problem. She also told me that AT&T is unaware of what causes the problem but it affects iPhone 3gs and 4, and possibly iPhone 3g as well. I suggest that you attempt to call AT&T and complain about the charges if they are still happening to you.

I spent days with AT&T, and then Apple a couple of weeks back and gave up. If you have made headway then many congrats. I was just being given a line by ATT that the charges MUST be correct and that I was using the data no matter what I said. Apple reps was much more helpful and knowledgeable but couldn't do anything.

I ended up going back to the unlimited plan. Please keep us posted.

For those who still insist that the overnight charges are simply a tally of the previous days charges, here is what showed up for my account on AT&T's web site this morning.

09/02 03:59 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 14KB
09/02 03:47 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 03:36 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 03:24 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 03:07 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 02:57 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 02:37 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 02:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 02:03 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 01:09 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 12:55 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 12:44 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 12:20 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/02 12:09 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/01 11:56 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 16KB
09/01 11:31 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/01 11:19 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/01 11:03 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/01 10:50 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/01 10:39 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/01 10:25 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/01 10:06 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/01 09:15 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 985KB
09/01 08:42 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5514KB
09/01 08:29 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 105KB
09/01 08:11 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 225KB
09/01 06:44 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 174KB
09/01 06:37 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 49KB
09/01 04:33 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 4525KB

The usage leading up to 9:15 PM matches the usage that I recorded in my log from the time that I got home from work until I went to bed at 9:30 PM. I checked my phone before I went to bed to make sure that no apps were running, Notifications were turned off, Fetch New Data was off, Tethering was off and Data Roaming was off. I put the iPhone to sleep and plugged it into the charger. I believe this is the first time I have seen the overnight charges broken up into smaller chunks. In fact, the frequency at which the data usage report on AT&T's site is updated has been fluctuating for the past week. Almost makes me think that they know they have a problem and are tinkering with their billing to try and figure it out. But that is just speculation on my part. My billing period ends on Saturday so I will have a detailed log of one complete billing cycle as evidence to backup my claims of erroneous billing by AT&T. As of this morning, my iPhone reports that I have used 253.9MB of data but AT&T's web site claims that I have used 729.61MB. That is not just a rounding error. We need to keep hammering on AT&T and Apple to get them to figure this out.

The more I look into my usage as reported on the ATT site the more I think it's some sort of billing error on ATT's side of things. I got my iPhone 4 on 20-Aug smack in the middle of my billing cycle so there is a discrepancy between what my phone has registered and what ATT shows. To be expected. O also show a HUGE spike in usage for the July billing cycle at over 6 Gb. Can't figure out that one.

If I look at my billing data from the 20th on there is a change on the 23rd to how data is being reported. Until then I get a minute by minute log of my connections and amount of data transferred. After the 23rd I get what appears to be a summary of the daily dtabtransfers. This happens in the 0'dark thirty time frame. Clearly at a time when I am sleeping I know for a fact that yesterday I used my data connection throughout the day yet I have no record of any connections aside from an 0122 connection worth 19Mb. So far for today I have another 0123 data ping for a grand total of 1Kb and I bet that when I check tomorrow it will show an 0'dark thirty transfer for the data I used today.

I am thinking that there was some form of disconnect inside ATT about how to track and report data usage. Something along the lines of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing the outcome of which was that people are being tracked on a daily basis as well as on an ongoing basis. Is there still an option for detailed billing? If so how many with the seriously out of whack data charts have it?

I'll reset everything on Sunday before bed and see if the theory goes anywhere.

Anybody else see this message on their account on the AT&T web site?

U1536: Due to a recent data/messaging feature change, your included in plan usage may not be accurately displayed at this time.

I have not made any changes to my account. I called AT&T and of course they are clueless. The account rep could not see any changes made to my account and then started spewing the BS about sometimes it can take a couple of days for updates to show on the web site.

I had that message for a coue of days after I upgraded my phone. I still get it when I use the ATT app, but not when I use a desktop browser.

My theory re the billing FUBAR is not seeming so solid. My records for yesterday are detailed again. I shut my phone of last night at 2330 and reset my counters to see how things pan out for the day. Don't have a huge transfer at 0120ish and nithj g foe the day, but it's early b

I'm another victim of this mystery. My apologies if I've missed this in this very long thread, but why do ALL of the items listed in my data usage appear as "out"? That is, sent. I do not have one entry that is listed as "received", or "in". How can that be? The usage that is shown on my phone indicates that about 90% of my data transfer is "received", about 10% is sent. This makes sense to me - so why doesn't AT&T list anything as received???

I also have inexplicable very high MB transfers (all listed as "out"). Plan to give it my best with AT&T - glad to know I'm not alone but not encouraged that so many people are having this issue and there is no resolution...

Thanks

bsn321 wrote:
I'm another victim of this mystery. My apologies if I've missed this in this very long thread, but why do ALL of the items listed in my data usage appear as "out"? That is, sent. I do not have one entry that is listed as "received", or "in". How can that be? The usage that is shown on my phone indicates that about 90% of my data transfer is "received", about 10% is sent. This makes sense to me - so why doesn't AT&T list anything as received???

About a year ago AT&T started consolidating usage. With the original iPhone a bill could run to hundreds of pages, as each data transfer was listed individually as "in" or "out". The record, as I recall, was a 3,000 page bill. At the same time they started consolidating they started labeling all data as "out".

I also have inexplicable very high MB transfers (all listed as "out"). Plan to give it my best with AT&T - glad to know I'm not alone but not encouraged that so many people are having this issue and there is no resolution...

One important thing to check is whether the usage on your bill matches the accumulated usage on your phone. I have started resetting the usage data on my phone at the beginning of the billing cycle. Tuis far the numbers are in approximate agreement for me, but some people have reported large discrepancies between data usage recorded on the phone and data usage billed.

bsn321 wrote:
I'm another victim of this mystery. My apologies if I've missed this in this very long thread, but why do ALL of the items listed in my data usage appear as "out"? That is, sent. I do not have one entry that is listed as "received", or "in". How can that be? The usage that is shown on my phone indicates that about 90% of my data transfer is "received", about 10% is sent. This makes sense to me - so why doesn't AT&T list anything as received???

You see everything as "sent" because this is the nature of the connection between your iPhone and the internet as a whole. While it appears to you that messages are received by your iPhone from other machines out there on the internet, in reality your phone initiates a 3G connection to the cellular provider, and then establishes a connection through that to, for instance, your email provider. Only once this connection is established do you receive messages. Even the "push email" is actually implemented using a connection which the iPhone establishes and leaves open for the remote side to send messages down to you. Another example you you download a web page or app the iPhone is establishing a connection to the remote server, and pulling down the content.

Whenever the iPhone establishes the connection, AT&T shows the item as Sent.

The only time you will see a Received is when you receive a SMS or MMS message. These messages are actually pushed out to the iPhone without requiring an established 3G session.

That said, with some coding work I am sure that AT&T could split out the actual bytes received vs. bytes sent if they really wanted to (just like the counter on your phone does)...

Josh

Okay my sister's iPhone 4 has started doing this, in 5 days she is over her 200mb limit. My mom's isn't doing the phantom data and my blackberry has never done anything like this.

I raised **** on twitter after 611 supports said " SURE this is a feature of the iphone, you know it's like a mini computer" I hung up.

So far a tech is suppose to explain why the iphone does this sometime tomorrow. You know what, I bought 2 new iphone for them, AT&T or APPLE better step up and resolved this because I don't have time to be on the phone with AT&T all day.

A. Fix the issue it's not us , It's you (AT&T or APPLE)
B. give my money back
C. remove my contract totally if you still want to BS and let me live my
life over somewhere else please.

Any chance updating 4.1 addresses this issue? I just upgraded my wife's phone to 4.1 and at first glance seems to coincide with a lack of the usual 2am data charge. She did not change any other behavior - the phone is still on and sleeping all night and we didn't change any data/push settings or anything. Fingers crossed. Hss anyone else tested, or noticed this after upgrading to 4.1?

I still have ~2 AM data usage reported after upgrading to 4.1.