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Unexplained constant data usage on iPhone 5

My wife and I just received iPhone 5's yesterday, our first smartphones. We're enjoying them but then last night I noticed something strange. Whenever the phone is on cellular data there is a constant data usage taking place. When I go into settings and look at usage of cellular data I can see it increase by a couple of KB each time I recheck it. Going back and then back in takes only about a second. So very rough calculations indicates that this adds up to about 170 MB per day when on cellular! I've even turned off everything I can think of to try and address background data usage: push notifications, location services, all iCloud services, etc. it still uses it.


Is this normal? I did some searching here and saw posts on folks having mysterious data transfers post midnight. But this is something that's happening constantly. ANy ideas?

iPhone 5, iOS 6

Posted on Sep 23, 2012 6:48 AM

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61 replies

Sep 23, 2012 6:54 AM in response to Donbaloo

It could be a lot of things. iCloud backup, checking email, getting push notifications, etc. Might even be the act of checking usage, if it checks your carrier's data to calculate usage (don't know about that.)


If you are really concerned, right down the usage amount before a day when you aren't going to use it. Then check it again 24 hours later and see how much you used versus how much data you actually received.


-Jack

Sep 23, 2012 8:10 AM in response to Donbaloo

Hi Don and wife.


We're having the same issue.


My husband and I got iPhone5's on Friday night. He did pretty much nothing with his, while I set up my Yahoo mail, facebook, twitter, instagram, the Walgreen's app and the Weather Channel app (they should package these together as an Old People's Suite) and turned on iCloud.


While connected to my wifi, the phone used 425MB of data, nearly all showed up as 'received' data.


I have read that the phone drops wifi when it goes to sleep, so it's reasonable to believe some of this happened overnight. I have also heard that you can't rely on your carrier's breadown of data usage, because the time stamps are not always accurate. A data transfer shown at 5:00am might have taken place at any time that day... I don't know if I believe that, seems weird. Why even have it reported more than once a day then? Anyway...


So, even though I have nothing stored in iCloud (nothing AT ALL), I turned it off. While I watched the phone, it used 5 more MBs in a half hour.


So I uninstalled the Weather Channel. Then I turned off all location services except for the default weather widget, turned off automatic error reporting (Settings>General>About>Diagnostics & Usage), and turned off nearly all auto fetching and push notifications, especially those for facebook and my email.


Still kept racking up data while awake and on wifi. 100-200KB every few minutes, typically, versus my husband's 2KB over 2 hours.


So I uninstalled facebook. It seems to have helped. I've read a few posts that suggest that some apps use cellular data instead of wifi even when it's available. Maybe this is one of those.


I am also doing my best to remember to switch cellular data capability off at night (in settings). Would be GREAT if this could be turned on automatically.


So far, so good. But now I have a super duper expensive iPhone that is pretty much nothing more than a phone. I still have twitter on here but with no notifications enabled. I plan to wait a couple months and reinstall some of those other apps.


Amy and husband.

Sep 23, 2012 8:49 AM in response to Boerne

It's not the act of checking usage. I can give it 5 or 10 minutes, then check and it's used the same amount as if I'd been checking the whole time. And I'm discounting out of hand that it could be some service in the background but I've turned off everything I can reasonably think of: No iCloud, location services off, no push notifications, no open apps, etc. It still maintains that tiny data "leak".


As for the suggestion to write down and monitor it one day when I'm not using it much. We just went to the grocery store, about an hour round trip, and obviously off of wifi during the whole time. My phone used almost 1 MB of data for that hour I didn't even use it. Plus all the services I mentioned were off. We don't have Facebook or Twitter or anything like that on the phones. I take that back, we do have G+ on there, so I'll look into whether that's maybe causing some of this (thanks for the recommendation Lazykins).

Sep 23, 2012 9:38 AM in response to Donbaloo

I've found that my data usage does not coincide with what Verizon is reporting. Now, I'm not sure if takes a while for Verizon to update, but my iPhone seems to be doubling the number Verizon is showing. Like most of you, I have WiFi on all the time, and even when I don't, I hardly use my data.


4G LTE is just faster data, so if your data habits don't change from your last phone, the number won't go up. Unless you're the type of user that enjoys the speed data loads and decides to use more and more, you shouldn't see a bump. Even with Facebook or Twitter or score updates running, it's the same data as 3G, just faster.


My guess right now is that the iPhone polls ALL the data you use, wifi+4G included. I guess we won't know until our bills come I though.

Sep 23, 2012 9:46 AM in response to Baumer582

Yep, I've found the same thing with Verizon, Baumer582. Just about double but I'm watching carefully, as I doubt very much they are up-to-date. Probably anywhere from a 24 to 72 hour lag, like my last carrier.


But this is not my first Smart Phone so I am familiar with my usage patterns. With the same apps (platform aside), I am still using in hours what I used in days before. Went through a half a gig in 24 hours, where that would last me a half month with my previous phone and plan. Verizon rep didn't even know whether the totals were up to date and was no help with the usage mystery. Did suggest a higher plan, though. hee hee.

Sep 23, 2012 9:52 AM in response to Donbaloo

So, just for kicks, here's a challenge for anyone reading this thread. Turn the wifi off of your phone so that it switches to cellular. Go into settings>general>>usage>cellular usage. Reset the statistics. Go back a level to "usage" then back into cellular usage.


In that brief time, how much cellular data usage does your phone log? Can you figure out how to stop that tiny data usage each second?

Sep 26, 2012 7:18 PM in response to Baumer582

Switched over to VZ from ATT on Friday with the iPhone 5 and hit my data cap yesterday of 4 GB. All my setup was done over WiFi and VZ actually has a nice usage report that shows the blocks of data used and the time. While the phone was in my pocket with no open apps it sucked down 622 MB of data. Other VZ users are reporting this as well.


I also have a Verizon MiFi device on the 4G LTE network, so I shut off cellular data and used my iPhone 5 on that...the data usage was back to normal.


Spent some time with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tier tech support at Verizon this afternoon, and did a Google search and found this same issue is happening all over the world.


I think we're going to find a big issue with the iPhone 5 on LTE networks and the accuracy of data being reported.


I'm an iPhone user going back to the very first iPhone and know exactly how much data I'm supposed to used with my patterns, apps and settings - and this is most definately not a configuration issue or related to settings, location settings, downloads, etc...there is a major issue!

Sep 26, 2012 8:29 PM in response to tmjackso

Well please keep us updated if you get the chance tmjackson. I spent a little time on the phone with CS myself but got nowhere. My data "leakage" isn't as extreme as yours though so maybe they can find some more concrete solutions with your situation.


So youre saying that when on your 4g MiFi your iPhone doesnt seem to behave irregular but only when on its on LTE itself? That's interesting


We're very rural so we've had to rely on an old sprint wireless modem for years now and it's been growing worse and worse (max speeds of about 200Kb/s these days) so when I realIzed that VZ's LTE was in range with the iPhones I thought we'd just switch over for all of our internet service with Verizon and just buy a bigger data chunk. We're very hesitant to do that right now though as its looking like we'd mysteriously use a ton of data once our phones were constantly on cellular data. I hope they/we can get something figured out.


By the way, how do you view your detailed data usage report? I haven't been able to find that through the app or the online site.

Unexplained constant data usage on iPhone 5

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