Ios6 causing excessive data usage?

Like Kave25 and others we don't use the podcast and our issue has to do with excessive data usage on our wifi. We are now turning the wifi off at night and although this has slowed things down we are now up to about 170 gig in less than 21 days. The only things we really use is our Apple TV to watch maybe one movie a week and we download a few (about 5) tv shows a week. The new update has not done anything to resolve the problem!

FYI.

Try this...

Settings -> iCloud -> Documents & Data -> turn off "Use Cellular Date".

HTH.

Oops.

Also -> iTunes & App Stores -> turn off "Use Cellular Data".

HTH...uhh anymore???

oh yeah...

turn off "Shared Photo Streams"...

Iphone 3GS. updated to iOS 6.0.1 Friday. Data usage until then about 300MB

Sunday Morning around 4am. Phone incredibly hot even though connected to charger and home Wifi network. Usage exceeds 3GB for month and extra 3.5GB. Total usage in 12 hours 6.5GB.

Sunday afternoon after receiving message from AT&T about excess data, turned off Cellular Data and 3G and limited to only Wifi.

Monday evening 2GB cellular data. Total data usage in 2 days 9GB????? W/T/F ???

Even when 3G and cellular data is turned OFF, 2GB used up?

Now, turned OFF Cellular data and Wifi and using it as a regular phone with texting and calling. Maybe will buy a regular phone and be done with all these useless charges. Someone should be held accountable here.

PO.

Thought I was just gonna chime in on this issue.

iPhone 4GS, currenly 6.0 (yet to update)

I got a text from my operator yesterday that I had exceeded the monthly limit for mobile data transfer (5GB). I was very confused and talked to them and they said that for instance on friday 2nd I had used 1.6 GB of mobile data transfer and just this saturday about 850 MB. I tried to recall what I had been doing but nothing came to mind and this just seemed absurd to me, in the 3½ years before I have never been over 2 GB in a whole month, now I had managed to use 5GB in 11 days.

Anyway, they agreed that it looked sketchy and gave me another GB to use and this morning I started monitoring and just like a lot of people allready have said in this thread it was 100% the new built in Podcaster app. I had it set to not sync subscriptions but to automatically download new episodes. However, the "Use cellular data" was off. Despite this, I started listening to a podcast this morning that I had allready downloaded and reset my usage to monitor. In just over 5 minutes I had 110 MB recieved data, only the Podcast app running. Note that all my subscriptions (only have four) should allready be fully downloaded and synced as I do this at home through WiFi.

I had to put the phone in Flight mode to stop it from downloading...whatever it is downloading. Note that whatever it is downloading isnt stored anywhere, the total data used on the phone hasnt grown at all, despite 100+ MB of fresh data was recieved. When I got to work I turned Flight mode off and it instantly resumed recieving data, it had downloaded 2 MB before I even had navigated to the usage display. When I killed the Podcast app, it stopped.

So in short: the Podcast app is running amok, downloading stuff (that it doesnt store in any way that can be seen at least). I called my carrier (Telia, Sweden) back this morning to inform them about this and also this thread because yesterday they said that they didnt know of anything that could cause this.

As expected based on the warning SMS from Italian Vodafone, even though I had informed their Customer Service and they told me that they would waive the extra charge for surpassing the data plan, I was invoiced additional 950 € last month. Mine is a business phone. I've asked our Purchasing dept to close all iPhone contracts for the whole Company and switch everybody to BB or whatever.

This is a problem with IOS6. Different apps may make the problem worse (such as podcast), but the problem is with the OS.

I just bought a phone (coming from Android); usage is very light - only a small group of apps and email is used. I average 200-400MB a month.

Got the iPhone 5 12 days ago - usage has been light compared to other posters here, but burned through 200MB in first few days. Am approaching 500MB for the 12 days so far.

Over weekend - I reset device; stripped everything off and did NOT reconfigure anything - no email, no apps, no iCloud, etc. Usage from Saturday morning through Saturday afternoon was approaching 30MB. Dug deeper and turned off all Location Services, including the list of "System Services" - this seems to have helped; my data leak is now down to about 15MB per day. Still unacceptable, though.

Restored apps, turned off all location services, cell syncing, etc (as described in other posts); open up Evernote and TripIt (just open them - no updating was necessary as they were already sync'd) - half a MB to just open those two apps.

I love the iPhone 5 and am willing to look past some of the OS shortcomings - but this data leak is too big a problem. The phone's going back until they get done with their beta testing. First Apple purchase ever and I end up with a not-ready-for-primetime product; figures!

Its not just the Podcast app. Downcast used 1.7 Gb to stream last Sundays episode of No Agenda.

Just had the good news that Vodafone will refund my 950 €.

Vodafone reported I had used 9 GB in Sept-Oct.

The iPhone "cell usage" function reported less than 3 GB - so there must be a bug here, or Vodafone is not able to measure the data usage (which would surprise me).

I've been using a 2 GB/month data plan for the last 3 years and NEVER used more than 300 MB per month.

In Sept-Oct I received Vofafone warning text messages after having opened the Podcast app for the first time, while I was under WIFI coverage and recharging the battery. It was in the evening. The morning after, I disconnected my phone from power and WIFI at 8 am and at 11 am it was warm with 17% battery. I found 2 warning messages from Vodafone: one saying I was about to use all my data plan and the second one saying I had used it all. They arrived just one after the other as only one arrival time was showing up.

Since then I've monitored my data usage regularily, and, according to the iPhone settings, data usage has been normal. But last week I got the warning message again and upgraded to iOS 6.0.1 the same day. AGAIN THE iPHONE SHOWS IT'S NOT USING MUCH DATA (around 250 MB) AND THE PROVIDER REPORTS THE OPPOSITE (nearly used 2 GB).

Same story here, I've never come close to 6GB half my data before getting the 5, it is the LTE, I've watched it rise from 0 to 25 MB of usage in under 5 minutes by just internet browsing. Track it with an app called ActMonitor. 😐

Adam - I run tech at the Public Radio Exchange (prx.org) where we both build iOS apps, and host podcasts. I have access to server bandwidth numbers for a few major podcasts (ours and others in public radio). We are seeing SIGNIFICANT increases in bandwidth bills for Oct, and somewhat less but still very high in Nov, and all due to iOS 6 user agents. From experimenting with our own devices and using proxy servers, we have logs showing very badly behaved download behavior from multiple iOS podcasting apps (esp. the new podcasting app), all of which behaved fine on iOS5. If you could get in touch, I am 'andrew at prx dot org'. I would love to compare notes and numbers, and then see about escalating to Apple, and the tech community. This is costing podcasters no small amount of dough. We're writing something up now.

It is definitely not related specifically to podcasts, as I saw the issue without having performed any podcast configuration on my phone. The bug appeared to be in allowing an operation to start on WiFi but then when transitioning to cellular not honoring the phone setting regarding cellular data usage.

In my case I had started downloading a very large playlist via iTunes Match while on WiFi, but then left my office without noticing that the downloads were continuing, even though I had cellular data set off for Music and iTunes Match.

I've been reluctant to retry this now that I have the iOS 6.0.1 update, but it's possible that the issue is now fixed.

Andrew,

We host our own podcast and are seeing the exact same 'bad' behaviour your describe.

It is my opinion that this is not related directly to podcast apps, but how the Apple tcp stack has been implemented and how the iOS6 download classes access files through http protocols

I have been trying to get tech press to cover this, to little avail, as they are apparently incapable of testing anything below the application layer.

The cost apple is adding to end users as well as hosters of content is not insignificant.

Please post to this list anything you write up so I can link to it as well.

AC

I have the same problem! I've just confirmed that while on wifi, my iPhone4 with iOS6.0.1 is using mobile data (Vodafone, The Netherlands, in case this matters...).

I'm on a 1GB per month plan, and never use more than 300mb per month. Now it's used up in 13 days, and even an E10 on additional data. I'm on wifi at home and at work. I'm on mobile data when I'm in my car commuting, but of course I'm not using my phone while driving...

I've turned off mobile data completely, and now use wifi only. Apple has to take care of this situation ASAP, this is a ridiculous screw up in iOS.

I'm using podcasts in the regular music player (sync using itunes only), and don't have the podcast app. I have an iCloud account attached, never used it, and with every sync option turned off. Haven't tested the delete account option yet.