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Level 1

16 points

Mysterious Data Usage in Middle of Night

Each night, between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM, I've noticed data usage of approximately 20 MB's. As a result, I've been forced to upgrade to the 2 GB plan, which I'm OK with, I guess. However, 20 MB's times 30 days = 600 MB's! That's over 25% of my alloted usage for the month, completely NOT on my behalf! Ouch!

Unfortunately, in my line of work, I cannot simply turn off cellular data or turn off the phone entirely (as instructed by AT&T). I need to accept emails at anytime, day or night.

When I setup my phone, I specifically opted out of sending diagnostic data to Apple, in order to avoid any erroneous data usage.

Is anyone else noticing this? Is there any way to avoid this?

Thanks!

Posted on Jul 8, 2010 5:08 AM

Best reply

Faethor

Level 1

100 points

Posted on Jul 8, 2010 5:14 AM

How are you monitoring it to prove that amount of data is being sent/received at that particular time?

View in context

50 replies

Jul 22, 2010 9:27 PM in response to glideslope

i wonder if it has anything to do with iAds thats in os 4? you can try opting out by this link and see if it will stop the transfers

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20010190-233.html

Jul 23, 2010 1:18 AM in response to studmonkey

This nightly data transfer isnt just an AT&T issue. Nor is it exclusively iPhone 4. I am in the UK, carrier is O2. My phone was showing 1.2gb of data used in a week, but when I called O2 to query this, i was told my data usage was about 19mb from 15th July to 22nd July. He also said that every midnight, there was a data transfer of between 1 and 5mb!
I asked him to check my previous bills which he did and even when I had my iPhone 3 the same data was being transferred at midnight every day and has been doing so since April 2009. I always had an unlimited Data plan so never needed to check before.
Now, all new data plans with O2 have a 500mb cap.
My total data usage per month since April 09 ranges from 54 mb to 325mb with an average of about 150mb, most of this appears to be the midnight data usage. He could give no explanation as to why that happened, he had no access ( Data protection act!!!) to analyse my data use either.

He also said that when the phone goes into standby it turns off WiFi so all data used then will count against your monthly limit.

I have a Mobile Me account. I wonder if that is syncing at midnight and causing the nighly data usage. I am trying to get hold of Apple to see if that is possible. Still waiting........

Does anybody else with the nightly data transfer issue have a Mobile Me account?

Jul 23, 2010 1:57 AM in response to Allan Macdonald

I just got off with chatting to Mobile me support.
He confirmed that my Mobile me account syncs every midnight and that the data usage is correct ( up to 5mb) Looks like the mysterious data usage isnt a mystery anymore, well, not to me!

He told me to change to manual sync, as follows. "Once you set it to Manual, once you have wi-fi on, change it back to sync every 24 hours or ever how long. Power off the phone and back on and this will change the time"

I will probably look at a way to keep my phone from going into standby every night so data usage is via my WiFi link not the carriers.
Allan

Jul 23, 2010 4:49 AM in response to Allan Macdonald

I don't have a MobileMe account and I see the data trasnfers too.

Maybe there should be a user option to turn off wifi when the phone goes to standby/sleep if this is the culprit.

However over the last few days, the transfers have happened during the day when I know I wasn't on the phone.

Has anyone actually been charged for going over their limit? It is interesting that the usage stated on my phone is different than the usage on the AT&T website and they should be the same since I reset the usage on the billing date.

Jul 23, 2010 5:06 AM in response to Rick Wilson

When does the phone go into standby and how does that differ from sleep? Is it in standby when it is locked (either automatically or by pressing the lock button)?

Jul 23, 2010 7:14 AM in response to Rick Wilson

Well, I have another "answer" on the data usage, this time from Apple.
Apparently, instead of your data being taken off your allowance in bits throughout the day, they add it all together ( including my Mobile Me account data) and take it all off in one go, after midnight.

This is why we only see big chunks disappearing in the early hours.

Works for me!

Allan

Jul 23, 2010 9:52 AM in response to Allan Macdonald

That doesn't explain why Jeff on the previous page is not seeing those data transfers after switching back to the unlimited plan.

Nor why people who say their usage has not changed are seeing 20-30 MB chunks in the middle of the night, effectively eating up a 200MB data plan in less than 2 weeks.

Jul 23, 2010 10:57 AM in response to liquidzoo

No, your right, it doesnt. All I can say is that it appears I am now using about the same amount of data as my iPhone 3. Since April 2009 my bill shows around 5mb to 8mb of data transferred around midnight every day. I got my iPhone 4 on 16th July and my data usage is still around 5 to 8mb per day, transferred at midnight.

Jul 23, 2010 6:15 PM in response to Allan Macdonald

Allan

That would be great except that I have several small charges during the day and then larger charges during time of non-use. If they waited then there should only be 1 charge daily.

BTW, What AT&T says online is totally different from what my phone says has been sent and received. How is this data going over 3G and not showing up in the iphone usage lists?

dimiko

Level 1

0 points

Nov 3, 2010 7:50 AM in response to Stephend7

I too have trouble with mysterious data usage on my 3GS in the middle of the night but not my 4. I intended to get a 200 MB plan for the 3GS until it used over 500 MB in the first week! It continues to do this and just last week it used 732 MB ... yes 732MB while we were sleeping! Other times it gets 100-200 mbs.

All apps get closed on this phone regularly, location service is off and any email(one account) is set to fetch - nothing is set to push. Facebook app is not on this phone.

I called apple, they were very helpful and actually replaced the phone and simm card. This didn't fix the problem. I made multiple calls to AT&T and they don't have an answer either. Fortunately I have the phone on an unlimited plan and continues to eat data at ridiculous quantities.

There are only a couple of apps on this phone and all of them are also on the iphone 4. The iphone 4 has all location services on, is synced with my work calendar and email (fetch only) and used 7 mb last month. What's up?

If anyone has any thoughts, please post them!

Aug 18, 2011 8:25 PM in response to dimiko

I have a thought! I had a 100+MB overnight data usage 'event' in the first week on a 3gs/AT&T on a 200MB plan. I've read all the forums about turning everything off. So why bother having a smartphone then? Apple has simply missed the mark. Their products are incompatible with infrequent internet phone users. You buy a low data plan thinking that you don't access the net or use email etc. on the phone outside your Wi-Fi only to find you get sucked dry in sleep mode.

We'll AT&T said we could return the 3gs within a month if it didn't work. Well guess what? This 3gs POS is going back to AT&T tomorrow...

iinami

Level 4

1,858 points

Aug 19, 2011 3:07 AM in response to patricia annette

i'm almost positive there has to be something turned on in your phone. i have the att 200mb plan and use my phone regularly and have never gone over 200mb. i even went on a 10 day roadtrip recently and used it way more than usual and didn't go over. i will say i don't stream video or audio unless on wifi, and i don't have email on my phone but other than that i'm a regular user. my wife has email on hers and she still only went over 200mb once. why don't you do a thorough check of your settings before returning the phone.

Rockmag

Level 1

0 points

Dec 5, 2011 11:35 AM in response to ramellam

My daughter is having the same issue right now. Did you find out what's going on? When I called ATT they said her phone's been hacked and told us to be careful using public Wifi. I'm sure lots people uses public Wifi these days since it's free and convenient when you are away from home. ATT agreed to refund us extra data charges but these activties are still happening even though she truned off Wifi....

Dec 5, 2011 11:40 AM in response to Rockmag

You posted to a thread that's almost 2 years old. I suggest starting your own thread so it will get better visibility.

Rockmag

Level 1

0 points

Dec 5, 2011 11:44 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

it's not 2years. The post was 3month ago...

Mysterious Data Usage in Middle of Night