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Unknown data usage early morning

With the changes to the data plans, i decided to look at my wifes data usage on her iphone. What i have found is odd and a bit concerning. Overall her data usage is pretty much nothing, except for something that occurs every morning around 1 or 2 am. I have included data usage on the AT&T account below. As you can see, something happens around 1 or 2 am every morning, i just dont know what it is. The amount of data being transferred is REALLY high if you ask me, as high as 75336KB back on the 17th. I called AT&T support and they said it was the phone updating or mail being downloaded, basically they have no idea. I have the mail set to fetch manually already. Anyway to determine what is going on???

06/04 01:22 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 3368KB
06/03 01:45 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 18906KB
06/02 01:45 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 6878KB
06/01 01:45 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9460KB
05/31 07:45 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1918KB
05/31 01:27 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 7551KB
05/30 02:27 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1224KB
05/30 01:17 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2685KB
05/29 01:39 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 8120KB
05/28 01:39 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5410KB
05/28 01:07 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5068KB
05/27 10:42 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 21778KB
05/27 01:06 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 10419KB
05/26 09:26 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 20657KB
05/26 01:50 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 8467KB
05/25 02:21 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 18086KB
05/25 01:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 5249KB
05/24 01:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 1012KB
05/23 01:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 12978KB
05/22 01:25 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9749KB
05/21 01:41 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 19166KB
05/20 01:17 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 23860KB
05/18 11:56 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 15440KB
05/18 01:06 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 29900KB
05/17 01:12 AM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 75336KB

Posted on Jun 5, 2010 4:56 AM

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2,094 replies

Jul 9, 2010 1:09 PM in response to Jeff Hallgren

I am having the same issue, however I am getting large amount of data chaged to my account not only early in the morning but at other times. Many of those times I am on a wifi network. It is almost as if the phone is showing me connected to Wifi but it is still using 3g. I have been on the phone with AT&T for hours at a time. They have now concluded that it is the phone and not them. They suggested that I make an appointment with apple and tell them I have a defective phone. I do not believe it is an Apple prolem. Meanwhile I went through my 200mb data plan in 4 days and I was not even using my phone. AT&T has been useless.

Oct 9, 2018 1:06 AM in response to cnpeyton

Hey, just caught onto this thread, I have started having these issues in the past month. My IPhone's average usage per month in the first 35 months i had a contract with this company was 124mb a month (1gb a month package). In the past month, since I had updated to IOS 6, i had the past month of 3.38 gb of data, with the data collection for the day showing between 11mb and 567mb in a day where i do nothing but listen to music and text.


I am not saying that this is IOS 6, just that this is when it started for me, and i have factory reset my phone, and disabled many options to no avail. To anyone that has this issue in Canada like myself, I am with Telus.


Just was curious if anyone had any information that may differ to my company from the AT&T, Verizon and other non Canadian companies. Thank you.

Dec 7, 2012 9:21 AM in response to nancy_j

Dear Nancy:


As I and a number of other people have noted in previous posts on this topic, here are a few key points re unusual data usage, WiFi and cellular links:


> AT&T's billing system generated excessive and erroneous data charges on my son's iPhone, including a period when he was in the hospital, his iPhone was not being used, and had no power. To AT&T's credit, I was able to speak to a customer service manager who removed these overcharges. This happened at least three times in one year. To successfully negotiate a credit, however, it is very helpful to have a third party data logger, e.g. Onavo or Dataman Pro, which will also identify data use by application, to help you find any 'data hogs'. When I described our Dataman Pro logs to the AT&T manager and offered to send him a copy, he quickly agreed to credit our account.


> If you notice massive data charges that always seem to occur around midnight, these are supposedly "rollups", where AT&T's billing system aggregates data charges that occured across multiple areas throughout the day. The curious thing: if you completely disable cellular service at night (see the notes below), these 'rollups' disappear.


> If you turn off cellular service at night and do not connect your iPhone to a charger, it will automatically revert to cellular service -- without any notice. So... to ensure that your iPhone doesn't "wake up" and allow all of those cellular data charges to start flowing again, disable cellular service AND make sure your iPhone is plugged into a charger. (Our son just selects 'Airplane mode' when he plugs his phone into the charger, which is quicker and easier.)


> In addition to all of the above, some apps can gobble large volumes of data -- without any notice. Automated iCloud backups, for example. 'Free' email apps also push graphic, audio and video ads, which can quickly add megabytes to your bill. For example, the TextFree messaging app from Pinger continues to push ads 'behind the scenes' -- even if you pay for the "ad free" option! (The ads are simply hidden, but not the data charges!) As noted above, tools are available to help you identify 'data hogs', e.g. Onavo and Dataman Pro.


I hope this is helpful to you and others. Please search for "MHays" for more details on our problems with AT&T, and the things we found.


Mark Hays

Apr 19, 2017 8:35 AM in response to cnpeyton

Settings/ cellular/ WiFi assist (at the bottom), turn it off...

This will stop any data usage even when you are on WiFi.

I know, when you are on WiFi you shouldn't be using data... I thought so too!

But acording to my provider, you are. So turn it off and that way you will be using one or the other (not both at the same time).


But to get back to the real subject, I also get unknown (WiFi) usage, between 200mb and 1Gig every morning when I first turn on my phone...

This is getting to be aggravating when I have a limited monthly plan with my wifi provider.

If it's Apple collecting data, how can it be turned off?

Jun 5, 2010 5:07 AM in response to cnpeyton

It is the phone sending diagnostic information to Apple. I was on the phone a long time with ATT yesterday about this. They had no idea. But after being given to Tech Support there they called Apple while I waited. There is no question that's what it is, they said. But are we to be billed for it once the meter starts running? As of yesterday morning (6/5) they had no idea!

The diagnostic was a voluntary check box when the phone was first set up.

Jun 5, 2010 5:24 AM in response to Eddie Strauss

That is too much information to be diagnostics data from apple....
MEdia Net is the internet service from AT&T right?:
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/messaging-internet/media-entertainment/faq.jsp

I'd press AT&T, maybe your SIM is using some sort of service with AT&T?
I never got a checkbox requesting that I send apple information, so if you had a checkbox, are you sure it wasn't for an AT&T service??

Jun 5, 2010 5:41 AM in response to Eddie Strauss

The only thing I checked, was an option to send application crash reports, when I connect to iTunes. Not over the Internet.

I don't really believe it is apple data. It is simply too much information! statistics or error reports are a couple of bytes at the most....
I use internet extensively, I have my apps maxed out, and I don't have that data charge on my network, so I'd wager it's another thing.

Couple of things to note: from my research, a lot of people on the phone, and over the internet, are having the same problem, though I've only found reports on AT&T. Not on other networks (rest of the world...).

AT&T seems to charge in blocks: so this means that, if you use an X amount of data, they charge you at the end of a cycle. Each person's cycle is probably different, this is done so the payment system is not overburdened.

Look at your data use, does it conincide with your use? I'm not asking the one from 2am, I am asking throughout the day. Do you have many small data packets listed, or do they come in bigger chunks? Am I making sense? =)

Some people also seem to have problems with some IMAP accounts (e.g.: google), where it gets stuck repeatedly trying to push information, ending up in greater ammounts of internet and battery usage.

Anyways, check all your extract. If you use you connection intermittently, or have push notifications active, you should have a really big internet usage list. If it's payed by chunks, that explains the 2am. It's not that you sent data at 2am, it's that from the last chunk, up to 2am, you used all that data.

Jun 5, 2010 5:59 AM in response to jinx.pt

jinx, yes that makes perfect sense. I thought it might be a one time cumulative charge of all the random internet usage I had during the day. But for this:

This month so far, the night report of data use is already 60MB. (That is over 1/4 of a theoretical 200MB allotment) and the active bill is only for 6 days. Add to that I now have an iPad. I only use the phone for reading news when at lunch or dinner. Less than half an hour for each.

Jun 5, 2010 6:05 AM in response to Eddie Strauss

I kinda lost you there.
Anyways, one step at a time.
It's impossible that you have an average 10MB of statistical/crash report data. that's too much data for that kind of information. Something else must be going on.
I have literally hundreds of apps ("hello, I am jinx, and I am an appaholic"). Many of them crash. In my country, I currently can only afford a 150MB internet data usage/month. I constantly check my e-mail, and do an occasional web search (on opera, spends less data), and even the eventual google maps small trip to find a nearby place, and I don't go over the limit.

So, something else must be going on there. Do you use push/IMAP accounts? people have reported heavy data issues with those, try to reset them.

Maybe it is apple, but I very much doubt it. Not that amount of data.

Jun 5, 2010 6:14 AM in response to jinx.pt

The thing that i don't get is that at home, the iphone run on WIFI over my home network. So why at 1 or 2 am when the phone is on the charger at home, is there these huge data transfers over the 3G network?

This is way to much data for stats, i have some nights at 20 MB, 30 MG, even 70 MB. I am going to make sure the phone is set to fetch manually, but outside of that, i can't imagine what is going on.

Chris

Jun 6, 2010 8:21 AM in response to cnpeyton

I have the same issues. My phone is almost always on WIFI so my cell data usage is fairly low but I went to look at my history at AT&T and discovered the same thing - unauthorized, unexplained cellular data transfers in the early morning (1 to 3 am). At this point in my billing cycle, these unexplained transfers account for almost 2/3's of my usage. My transfers range from 50KB to 2MB, which is orders of magnitude more than "collecting simple statistics". But your amounts !! wow, what is going on there? This stuff combined with some normal usage could put you over the 200MB cap in less than a week and end up costing you money.

I've looked on the web and only found other people wondering what is going on - no good answers.

I've seen the "send diagnostic data to Apple" check box in iTunes a couple times (I've have 2 phones and an iPad) and I've never opted to send data to apple.

If you have an iPhone on AT&T check your data usage before suggesting to us about all the things you think we're doing wrong - explain your own usage first (thanks).

Unknown data usage early morning

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