IPhone Cellular Data use same time each night?

Question

Level 1

4 points

IPhone Cellular Data use same time each night?

I noticed that my daughter (iPhone 7) and I (iPhone 6) both show some Cellular Data usage each night when we are connected to WiFi. With hers it is a lot more sometimes up to 300MB. This is consuming a lot of our cellular data and almost caused us to go over our plan limit last month.

I am always connected to WiFi at home. She is connected at home or at friends place. We see the cellular usage no matter where we are. Our plan is through Verizon. I checked my backup time last night and it was it 6:34am. The unexplained Cellular usage was at 5:14am. So it appears to not be related to backup.

My unexplained usage is about the same time each night. Her unexplained usage is at about 3:57 each night. How can I find out what is causing this and correct it?

iPhone 6, iOS 12

Posted on May 11, 2019 4:08 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Lawrence Finch

Level 10

203,712 points

May 11, 2019 4:35 PM in response to dmthomas49

Carriers do not report cellular data usage in real time. They accumulate it in their switches and post it to the billing system periodically. What you are seeing is the accumulated usage from a previous time period that is reported at that time. They are not charging to transfer that usage; they already have it in their network switches. The amount that you see posted is the data used in a previous time period. As I recall Verizon posts usage every 3 hours, unless it has changed since I worked on their billing system.

Reply

Answer 2

ChrisJ4203

Level 10

230,389 points

May 11, 2019 4:15 PM in response to dmthomas49

Check with Verizon. Are you seeing this timing on your Verizon bill? If so, most cellular carriers do their usage dumps during the night, while it really isn't use on the phone at that time, it is when the servers dump the daily usage for billing purposes.

Reply

Answer 3

May 11, 2019 5:10 PM in response to dmthomas49

Ah, so they've gone to 12 hours. Interesting. AT&T reports each time your phone leaves one switch and connects to a different one, so it can look random. The previous switch then reports its usage. Then at midnight PST it reports usage for the last switch your phone was connected to.

Reply