Q: Unknown data usage early morning

ATT sent me this today.. Unacceptable and pure BS. I've asked them to provide documentation that gmail push transmits 53mb when no email in inbound or outbound. And only 1 email has been sent to and from the phone with zero attachments.

Every time the iPhone 4 is turned on, large amounts of data is sent.

ATT response;

"Here is the information I was provided.


Both phones have gmail with push turned on. There is nothing unique about iPhone all smartphones can establish long running data sessions and see their daily usage accumulated into a single day's worth of kilobytes. Your BB has the exact same experience if you look at the billed and unbilled usage...again, smartphones are "always on" and there is nothing new/different/unusual about the apple product in this regard.



Push capabilities or the processing of standard data records are most likely why you're seeing early morning data activity.

· Push capabilities are common with many social networking, news and weather apps. For example, you want weather or news alerts in real-time as they happen - that's made possible by a push notification which consumes data. Email also uses push capabilities, meaning you receive emails as they are sent rather than when you actively retrieve them. There are ways to turn off push notifications if you prefer (SEE PUSH INSTRUCTIONS BELOW)



· Data records - based on customer-driven data activity - help ensure customers are billed in a timely manner for their recent data usage. These records reflect an aggregate sum total of recent data activity - in many cases an entire day's usage - and show as one, collective number versus line-by-line listings. These records are typically created after long periods of inactivity or at preprogrammed times, such as early in the morning.



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Ø To remove push email capability:

o Customers can customize their email settings to "fetch" emails instead of having messages pushed directly to the device: Settings>Mail, Contacts and Calendars> Fetch New Data>Touch Push button and "toggle off"



Ø To remove the push feature from apps - as example, Facebook:

Settings>Scroll to the bottom of the screen - Facebook> Push Notification> turn on/off notification categories"

I've been following this a while and have read most if not all the posts. I, too, sometimes see the big transfers at around 2 a.m., and sometimes other times.

My iPhone is always in a charging dock when I'm at home and always (capable of being) on WiFi during that time. I'm pretty much never awake then.

I have had instances where I'm almost positive that it's a "summary" of my day's activity - case in point, last Sunday, I was out of WiFi all day, checked email, checked traffic/maps, pulled up a web page. NO activity during the day at all, but one big ~40MB that night at 2 a.m. Seems like a summary.

In other cases, however, I get activity on and off through the day, and nothing at night. Or activity on and off through the day and a small one at night. Many variations. The other day, I had a huge transfer at 8:22 a.m. - almost exactly the moment my daughter and I left for school (and therefore drove out of WiFi..).

I'm also not at all convinced that these "summaries" are accurate - as others have said, they don't match what the phone's total says.

So, to me, it's puzzling in that:

1. It's not consistent - if ALL we had was one big transfer every night, and that was the summary, fine. (Honestly, I'd like the option to turn on the old detailed billing, with the new data options and ebilling). Why is it that some data usage is "summarized" and some is not? (if that's really what's happening).

2. There are many times where the usage doesn't seem to jibe with reality - user experience, the iPhone's internal tracking etc. This is, of course, really annoying.

Yes, indeed. With how big a problem this appears to be, I'm surprised someone hasn't done a technical analysis of this with a packet sniffer or whatever. Somebody with a bit more technical ability than me should be able to jailbreak the phone and install a network analyser to log the transmissions. This would resolve questions like these:

1) Is there really is a transfer at 2AM or it is a billing aggregation (though the fact that turning the phone off or to airplane mode seems to postpone the transfer suggests there really is a transfer)?
2) To whom is the transfer?
3) How/by whom is the transfer initiated?
4) What's in it?

Anybody out there up to collecting this kind of data?

EXACTLY THE POINT! It cannot be a summary. A summary would use numerical values to tell AT&T how much data was transferred. And would be much smaller than an aggregate of the actual data transferred. And the ACTUAL data cannot be held for transfer at a later date. It is actively being sent and recevied while you are using the internet.

But another thoought has occurred to me. Since all the "cellular" data passes through an AT&T server it is not necessary for the phone to report usage. AT&T already has that data. But they would not ahve usage for "WIRELESS" transfers.

Transfers over a wireless connection are independant of AT&T and would not pass through their servers but through the ISP proving the internet connection. So for aT&T to bill the user for this usage they would have to have some application on the phone or in the OS to report to them how much data the phone used from other ISPs over wireless networks. This is data AT&T DID NOT PROVIDE and that did not use their network. They would be essentially charging us for data they do not provide at all. We are being charged because the data passess though an AT&T phone. Lawrence F.... do you think this is the "Aggregation????

brm123, not sure if you meant to reply to me or to one of Lawrence's posts.

In any event, I think you may be misunderstanding the aggregation theory (and it's just a theory). Nobody has suggested that the phone is transmitting a summary of usage. (Likewise, nobody has suggested that they are charging you for data you use on a WiFi (802.11/Wireless LAN/whatever you want to call it) connection.) The theory is that the various parts of AT&T's infrastructure track your data usage on their network, and then periodically their billing system consolidates those figures and adds it to your bill in one lump; the timestamp you're seeing would be the timestamp of that consolidation rather than the time of the usage. It's not true that it would always have to be at the same time each day, as there might be many things that would trigger the aggregation, such as a period of inactivity, leaving/rejoining the network, etc. The 2AM aggregation might just be one of many.

As has been pointed out, there are some problems with this theory, such as the fact that turning off the phone seems to delay the reporting of the transfer on the bill, but is this happening for sure? And is the delay indefinite? Or was it a coincidence? Proper analysis of the mystery network traffic (if it even exists) using a packet sniffer might solve the mystery. Someone would need to jailbreak their phone (which of course I would not publicly advocate on an Apply forum), install some packet analysis software, and then observe and analyze the mystery transfers.

brm123 wrote:
EXACTLY THE POINT! It cannot be a summary. A summary would use numerical values to tell AT&T how much data was transferred. And would be much smaller than an aggregate of the actual data transferred. And the ACTUAL data cannot be held for transfer at a later date. It is actively being sent and recevied while you are using the internet.

But another thoought has occurred to me. Since all the "cellular" data passes through an AT&T server it is not necessary for the phone to report usage. AT&T already has that data. But they would not ahve usage for "WIRELESS" transfers.

Transfers over a wireless connection are independant of AT&T and would not pass through their servers but through the ISP proving the internet connection. So for aT&T to bill the user for this usage they would have to have some application on the phone or in the OS to report to them how much data the phone used from other ISPs over wireless networks. This is data AT&T DID NOT PROVIDE and that did not use their network. They would be essentially charging us for data they do not provide at all. We are being charged because the data passess though an AT&T phone. Lawrence F.... do you think this is the "Aggregation????

AT&T does NOT charge for data that goes over WiFi. They only charge for data that goes over the cellular (3G, EDGE or GPRS) network. The phone's own usage counter only measures data that goes over the cellular network. It does not measure data that goes over WiFi. So the usage data and the phone's own data should match fairly closely (not exactly, because AT&T measures in increments of 1Kb and the phone measure is exact).

The 2 AM data report IS NOT summary sent from the phone at all. Nothing is sent from the phone at 2 AM unless you have an app running. It is internally generated in AT&T's billing system and reported at 2 AM.

I did an experiment last night. I took a screen shot of usage at midnight, and another at 6 AM. The total usage was 200 Kb. The amount reported by AT&T was 760 Kb. BUT THE TOTAL SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE BILLING CYCLE agreed with the usage reported on the phone. I find that pretty convincing that the 2AM report was the accumulated data since the previous line item on the bill, NOT sent by the phone, but calculated by the billing system.

As to why there is more than one entry on a day it could be accumulating in each MTSO (regional central Office) and then forwarded upstream to the billing system. So as you move out of one MTSO's range (or disconnect from the MTSO) and into another the first sends a summary and the second then starts accumulating. Thus, if you stay in one place all day and your phone is connected all the time you should have one number for the day.

I am new to the iphone world or should I say my wife is. I am a BB user and have been x5 years. As for the unknown date usage in the early morning, she has had an iphone 4 since Aug 16 and has experienced the same issue. I have been scraping the web for a solution and came across this discussion group, but not before talking with AT&T and Apple CSR's. To my amazement, I reached an AT&T CSR who had actually heard of this issue and admitted it to me, although she stated it was not an AT&T issue, and they (sic) did not have any idea what was causing the problem. She gave me a number for Apple CS and I tried them. Got zero info from Apple and the rep swore it was not Apple's issues and that he had not even heard of this problem. Okay, nothing new there. I have experienced every problem with time, data block sizes, etc., that everyone else has, so no rehash. I am in the middle of an experiment right now with the iphone 4; I have opt'ed out of the customer experience info gathering and have deleted all added apps from the phone and turned off the cellular data since 5 pm on Sept 10. Reviewed my data on my AT&T account and found that while the cellular data radio was off, there was no transfer of data since 5 pm on Sept 10. I turned the cellular data radio back on at 2:05 pm on Sept 11 and began sending traffic (text meassages) for about 10 minutes. So there were text and MMS messages that showed up from 2:05 pm til 2:15 pm and nothing else. I just checked the bill again and there was a new data transfer (5.159 MB) that was logged at 11:01 am. This is impossible as the cellular data radio was off and I was no where near a wi-fi connection. I don't see this as a problem with an application and will not be forced into paying more for data service. This is too much effort. I am still within the thirty day return cycle and the phone goes back, I have had enough.

09/11 02:15 PM Text/IM Messaging Sent 1Msg < Good
09/11 02:15 PM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg < Good
09/11 02:15 PM Multimedia Messaging Sent 1Msg < Good
09/11 02:14 PM Text/IM Messaging Sent 1Msg < Good
09/11 02:09 PM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg < Good
09/11 02:08 PM Text/IM Messaging Sent 1Msg < Good
09/11 02:07 PM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg < Cellular Data on
09/11 11:01 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5159KB < Cellular Data off ?
09/10 05:15 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 8KB < Cellular Data off
09/10 05:13 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 10KB
09/10 10:50 AM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg
09/10 10:44 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 62541KB < Phone not in use
09/10 05:51 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 397KB < Phone turned on
09/09 08:00 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 7KB < Phone turned off
09/09 07:59 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 7KB
09/09 07:27 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/09 07:06 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/09 06:57 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/09 06:07 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1191KB < Phone not in use
09/09 01:10 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 4KB
09/08 09:10 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 19KB
09/08 09:06 PM Text/IM Messaging Sent 1Msg
09/08 09:05 PM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg
09/08 09:03 PM Multimedia Messaging Sent 1Msg
09/08 09:01 PM Text/IM Messaging Sent 1Msg
09/08 05:34 PM Multimedia Messaging Sent 1Msg
09/08 05:15 PM Multimedia Messaging Sent 1Msg
09/08 02:09 PM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg
09/08 02:07 PM Text/IM Messaging Sent 1Msg
09/08 08:13 AM Text/IM Messaging Sent 1Msg
09/08 06:26 AM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg
09/08 06:25 AM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg
09/08 06:24 AM Text/IM Messaging Sent 1Msg
09/08 05:43 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 4278KB < Asleep in bed
09/08 05:32 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 8KB
09/07 07:50 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 7KB
09/07 04:42 PM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg
09/07 04:41 PM Multimedia Messaging Sent 1Msg
09/07 05:58 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 43314KB < Asleep in bed
09/07 01:10 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 4KB
09/06 06:10 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 11KB
09/06 05:28 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 18KB
09/06 08:35 AM Text/IM Messaging Received 1Msg
09/06 03:08 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 59KB
09/05 08:13 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9KB
09/05 02:59 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 12KB
09/05 10:04 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2130KB < Phone not in use
09/05 01:55 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5KB
09/04 08:55 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 20KB
09/04 01:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 4489KB < Asleep in bed

Message was edited by: Telcomspec

Message was edited by: Telcomspec

Somewhat related to this thread, I've noticed my usage in my iPhone settings will indicate when I've accessed the Internet, even when I'm using Wi-Fi. According to the iPhone's user manual, the usage setting is supposed to be only for cellular data.

Thanks,

Paul

I have never seen this behavior. The counter on my phone only counts cellular data, not WiFi data.

Perhaps what you are noticing is the fact that some data goes over the cellular network even when a WiFi connection is available. This can happen when the phone is still in the process of signing onto a WiFi network, when the phone is asleep, etc.

Chcn,

I've been testing it only on my home's WiFi network. So I don't believe there's a reason for it to be switching over from a data network. But I just found a setting to turn off the data network. I assumed it would use ONLY Wifi, if it was available, but apparently, that's not the case. I'm going to try this for a while, but still leave 3G enabled, in the settings.

Thanks,

Paul

Chcn,

Shutting off the data network, worked. Good to know...

Paul

Data gouge doesn't matter anymore, I returned the iphone 4 today. FYI, AT&T staff are starting to acknowledge that users are complaining about the data usage, but they still are coming up with some of the same excuses I have seen in this forum. Especially the one where they told me we actually used the data and it was just being taken off later. Well good luck to you all with your possessed iphones.

brm123 wrote:
If it were a consolidation of the usage it seems to me it would occur at or near the same time every day and only once a day.

The consolidation seems to vary according to usage, which seems logical; in the extreme, one data session in the month vs. 500 per day (which app-based sessions could easily produce) would require different reporting in postal hardcopy.

I'm not sure what the basis of the variation of the consolidation function might be, and though I have some guesses I don't think that's relevant at this point. The point (a point, at least) is that not every user is being reported in the bills in precisely the same way.

This may have been stated previously, but...
I went back and looked at old statements for comparison. The previous post mentioned consolidating data use on the bill; I noticed mine started doing the 2-3 am dumps on June 13, '10. Isn't that about same time when AT&T announced they were no longer offering the unlimited data plan for new users?? Prior to that, the data usage showed up 2-5 times/day at different times throughout the day.

Something else I noticed in June, you can graph your usage online...While I had typcally been using between 75K and 120K/month (w/the exception of Spring Break/March), June and July both jumped to an almost equal 162K. Again, this falling at the same time as the AM dumps and the elimination of unlimited data for new users.

I have unlimited data but am considering buy an iPhone for a 16th b-day gift. Since I will have a limited plan, this unexplaineable usage/billing concerns me.

I really feel this IS just a consolidation of the data used; however, I can't explain the previous poster's deleting of all apps and shutting off everything.