Unexpected high data usage on the iPhone

has anyone tried to sign out of the app store?

i downloaded onavo count app yesterday and when i was laying in bed last night i checked the app and it said the app store used 2mb and app downloads was almost 5mb even though i has everything closed. i signed out and haven't seen any usage from them.

email over night used 244kb which isn't much to me....i think.

correction, thats 44kb for email.

I deleted iCloud and it might just be working for me. My usage counter was going up each time I turned my Cellular data on. It's now been on for 5 minutes and the counter is still the same. 5 minutes isn't long, but it's better than it was!

I spoke too soon.

It seems to me that some calDav syncs are a problem.

I remembered this morning that I've had the same issue with iOS 5.

Because of a jailbreak it was easier to find the source of this issue.

So this morning I deactivated three of this calDav syncs on the iPhone 5.

Yesterday I had a data usage of 25MB in 9 hours.

And today the data usage was 11,5 MB in 9 hours.

Nearly the half.

Here's an article I found that might explain some of the outgoing data... Let me know if this works...If it does take care of the most egregious of the data usage, then It's all apple. "Settings" "General" " About" "Advertising" Limit ad tracking "ON" (turning this ON opts you out of being tracked) Apple didn't advertise this enhancement quite so loud... its new mobile operating system, iOS 6, has started tracking users so that advertisers can target them again. Here's how it works. IFA or IDFA stands for "identifier for advertisers." It's a random, anonymous number that is assigned to a user and their device. It is temporary and can be blocked, like a cookie. When you look at an app, or browse the web, your presence generates a call for an ad. The publisher's site that you're looking at then passes the IFA to the ad server. The advertiser is then able to know that a specific iPhone user is looking at a specific publication and can serve an ad targeting that user. IFA becomes particularly useful, for instance, if an ad server notices that a particular IFA is looking at a lot of different car sites. Perhaps that user is interested in buying a new car. They'll likely start seeing a lot of car ads on their iPhone. More importantly, IFA will allow advertisers to track the user all the way to "conversion" — which for most advertisers consists of an app download. Previously, advertisers had no idea whether their ads actually drove people to download apps or buy things. Now IFA will tell them. The IFA does not identify you personally — it merely provides a bunch of aggregate audience data that advertisers can target with ads. Tracking is on by default The new iPhone operating system comes with three things that make tracking easier for advertisers and reduce the likelihood that you'll opt out. iOS 6 comes in a default "tracking on" position. You have to affirmatively switch it off if you do not want advertisers to see what you're up to. The tracking control in iPhone's settings is NOT contained where you might expect it, under the "Privacy" menu. Instead, it's found under "General," then "About," and then the "Advertising" section of the Settings menu. The tracking control is titled "Limit Ad Tracking," and must be turned to ON, not OFF, in order to work. That's slightly confusing — "ON" means ads are off! — so a large number of people will likely get this wrong. Those three factors combined mean that a huge proportion of iPhone users are unlikely to ever opt out of tracking. Here's the info I found, if you wanna read it yourself... http://www.businessinsider.com/ifa-apples-iphone-tracking-in-ios-6-2012-10

<Edited by host>

Hi all,

I have 4s on T-mobile, factory unlocked, and purchased from Apple. Never had a proble with data plan, until this month, recieved notification half way in, that I used 80% of 200 mb. Prior to this, never had problem, never came close to using all of my data.

I have discovered that the data is being used at night, when I turn off my wifi router. I can login into my Tmobile account and obtain detailed data usage, and found several high data usage loads while I am sleeping.

I have searched the web, google, apple, tmobile for answers, but nothing so far. have read several threads in this post and others, and I will try some of them including Onavo. I have increased my data for this month to determine how much data I use without restriction.

This should be interesting. I am at 50mb so far, one day on thirty day plan?!!!!!

I turned my Advertising to 'ON' and since Friday I have used up 3.1 MB sent and 6.1 MB received. I believe it has helped some.

I also got the AT&T text of excessive data useage. I found the problem in my case. I was using Safari to view my cameras I have in my house. When I quit Safari and locked my phone I thought the connection ended, but that is not the case. It is intended behavior for Safari to continue to download a page or file that you have requested, even after quitting. I believe that if you quit Safari on a web page that auto updates, Safari will grab those new pages causing excessive data usage.

I checked the data usage in the settings and previously when I quit Safari the Cell Usage would continue to increase, but if I close the open window in Safari first before quitting, my Cell Usage didn't increase at all.

Interested in hearing if this is the source of problem for any other users.

Like that hint about the tracking - discovered while scanning throiugh about data usage and wifi problems in iOS6. One of the main reasons data use is high appears to be that in iOS6 (despite showing wifi and signal strength) the iPhone is using mobile 3G data rather than selecting wifi by default. I discovered this on my iPhone 4 by accident as I was streaming music and then got a dat usage warning - I was very confused as all my music (spotify, iTunes match and Google music) are set so they only stream via WiFi. I double checked with my mobile phone provider to confirm the usage and they recommended Onavo (free in the app store) to check usage. This confirmed that the phone was by passing my settings when streaming and using 3G data rather than wifi.

Initially I had to turn off cellular data and 3G to stop the phone using data. I ended up resetting my wifi settings to get wifi working again. Have a look at the problems iPhone 4S and 5 users are getting with wifi greying out - no response yet from Apple. It would appear that this problem might be related! Please note this problem seems to be limited to iOS6.

I am so frustrated with dealing with Verizon and Apple concerning this. Applecare doesn't acknowledge there is a problem - it is apparent others are having issues from this thread. The first Apple person tonight dismissed the cnet.com article I shared with her about the iPhone5 and said that Apple doesn't support Cnet. i tried to tell her others are dealing with it, too. She was useless and did not document my call - transferred me over to Verizon (so I had to start over again for the 10th time this past month.) The Verizon guy thinks it's a Verizon problem and not the phone.

After finding this thread, I decided to call Apple back, only to be more frustrated (he didn't seem to acknowledge it either) - he did ask me halfway through the call that I could put a ticket in and pay for the support! I told him NOOOOO way!! This is NOT my problem!!! He was suppose to send me an e-mail to reset my phone - never got it. Has anyone tried that and has it worked? I have an iPhone 4S and my Apple store swapped a 'new' one out for me on the 10th of January - I used almost 3 gigs of data this month, (my month reset on the 4th) all being in my home with a WiFi connection. Same thing as a few others, my drainage is at night. I look forward to getting to the bottom of this - between the Apple store and the phone calls, I know I have more than 20 hours into this without it being resolved!!!

My son just moved back home this month and he has an iPhone 5 and is not having any issues and is not using data and he is on his phone ALL the time, both WiFi and Cellular - Verizon says that he has a different connection so it doesn't compare to mine. He is on my Verizon plan. I downloaded the update for IOS6.1 just in case it had a fix in it . . . apparently not.

Hello,

I just wanted to add that I have spent all day messing with my 4S on iOS6.1.2. after I realised with horror that it had used over 1GB of data in 3 weeks with me hardly using data services!

I tried turning off and deleting iCloud account and watched my usage stats - they still went up... so no joy there.

Then I fiddled around with system settings under location services in privacy and I think I've nearly cracked it.

*Something* in that section is eating, no DEVOURING, my data and costing me a load of money.

I am now going to spend the evening cautiously turning these off one at a time whilst disconnected from my wifi so that I can hopefully identify the culprit in my case!

Melissa

I have been having the same issues on iPhone 4.0 on both Os 4 and then later on OS 6.0 in the UK on Vodafone. They knew nothing about it and declared I was using the data.

Anyway I followed the guidance on here of a backup on iTunes followed by a factory reset and it seems to have done the trick. I also complained to Vodafone and they credited back the extra data charges. Strangely this reset has also cured a problem with accessing imap sky email so whilst its been a pain it's worked out well.