Ios6 causing excessive data usage?

So a quick update for anyone still struggling with this.

Originally i got my phone from Phones4U. Massive data leakage. Took it back. Swapped it under warranty for another phone at Phones4U. Set this one up as a new phone. No Icloud, No Itunes, no apps. Just phone, sim in and forced it onto wifi by entering information manually as 'other.' This one held the wifi, but still massive data leakage. Phoned O2. Got the usual 'You're the first person to complain about this...' nonsense. Pointed him to this thread, then similar one on the O2 forum. Also articles in the Guardian and the flood of articles on tech blogs relating to Verizon, Rodgers etc in States and Canada. Found out a few things:

1) Those large data uploads happening at midnight are only because O2's billing cycle updates for the day at mdnight with everything you've used that last day.

2) However, the transfers happening at 3am, 5am and 6am when I'm not awake, phone is plugged in and on wifi are definitely weird/unexplainable.

3) They agreed the sheer quantity of data is odd, especially as my phone leaked even when cellular data was switched to 'off'!!

There advice was 'speak to Apple.' So I did.

(NB: Big thanks to Aaron at the Regent's St branch who helped me get an appointment, top customer service).

I explained I was on my second Iphone 5. I took the data logs. I was told 'You're the first person, blah, blah, blah.' Turns out the guy on the stool next to me was there for the same thing, being told the same thing. Ridiculous. Also printed out this article to show them:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/17/iphone-5-iphone

At that point they basically conceeded it could be the phone. Agreed to swap it out under warranty for a new phone. Doubtful, they said, that it could possibly be the same hardware fault three times in a row. I agreed, but not so doubtful if it's a problem with ios6? 'Then everyone would have it,' they said, which doesn't necessarily follow at all. They tried to pass the buck to O2.

Anyway, took the new phone. Set up as new phone. Not connected to any computer. No Icloud, no Itunes sync. Added exchange account, apps, etc, guess what?

Works like a dream!

Used only 15mbs since Friday, even with maps, social networking apps and everything else.

The problem is definitely, absolutely not with the carrier. It's with some of the phones themselves (possibly all the ones Phones4U have in stock? Hence the same problem twice?) Or it's in ios6 and (possibly) the software is corrupting something in the firmware (hence the same fault being copied from phone 1 to phone 2).

Either way, if you have a problem, go back to Apple, take the evidence and politely ask for it to be exchanged under warranty.

It's not right that you should buy a hundred pound plus handset and it not work on something as basic as holding wifi/not leaking data. But as always, everyone blames everyone else. Apple need to own up and sort this problem out fast.

Good luck everyone.

Just had similar experience. Am really disappointed with Apple's handling of this. Their "senior support tech" was very unhelpful for me. They are going to lose market share over this in the long run.

Good evening,

I'm in Italy and I want to contribute to the thred, with my experience.

Today, after 15 days of discussion with the support, feeling say more times:

- "Is the first time we hear about this problem."😕

- "We haven't reports of this problem"😕

- "We do not consider what is written in the forum"😕

- Etc. Etc.

Finally, the last "Specialist" was very rude, presumptuous and arrogant.😠

Only after speaking with a manager, after testing navigation, admitted that it is a problem of the iPhone 5.

Do not yet know the cause, but at least they have admitted that there is a problem.

In the end I have replaced the phone once again, knowing that the problem was not solved.

I hope that the release of "Cupertino" soon a new patch to fix the problem.

also the mobile operators understand the problem.

Message was edited by: cristian.marino

I had the same issue with Telstra in Oz with a 4S on iOS6, getting a sms in November saying the phone had used 80% in half a month, despite the fact that the phone's own usage meter says it hasn't used that much in total since January 2012.

For over a month I've been talking to various unhelpful people at Telstra who have promised callbacks and offered excess data packs, but all I want is a guarantee that I won't be charged for data used by the defective phone, but they won't even acknowledge it's defective despite admitting to the issue.

I turned off wifi backups and got rid of the Podcast app and installed PodGrasp instead for downloading/listening to podcasts.

I've been closely monitoring my usage for a month and it seems to have helped.

I am facing similar situation here in Bangalore, IND with my iPhone 4. I was on a short vaccation to Goa for New Year eve. I hardly browsed while in Goa for two reasons: a) 3G network coverage is not that good in most parts of this city & b) I had to be careful to not let the battery completely drain out as I was away from hotel most of time. So here is what happen. I had been keeping a check on my cellular data usage through the Cellular Network Data(sent, rec) available in the iPhone on day to day basis, resetting it everytime on the onset of new bill Cycle(26th to 25th of following month). The usage data read some 262MB before I started off for Bangalore somewhere in the evening of 1st Jan, 2013 around 8PM from Goa. I remembered keeping my cellular netwok off till 11pm of that night, after which I had turn it on to read some updates on Facebook for 5/10 min. Then locked the phone and I was back to sleep as the bus started off again for Bangalore. When I reached home around 8 am, I happenned to check the usage again just to find out that cellular network data showed 8.2 GB sent and 8 GB recieved. Shocked & surprised, I turn off my cellur data and its been off since then. I have also been continously checking with my service provider to find out if the usage had been reflected at their end. They had confimed that the usage till 2nd Jan, 2013 is just 262.98MB. The sms reply to the query on 3GUSE from customer care also indicates the same usage till this reply was posted. But, I am still wondering what might be the reson behind all this situation of excessive data usage within a short duration? And also what should I do if the service provider update me in days to come with the information that the usage had happen and the delay in providing this info was due to the fact that the updates on the data usage at their end/server happens after a gap of 24/48 Hours?

I have 2.33 GB monthly plan and I have been sticking to this plan for quite long time now with no problems on excessive data usage before updating to iOS 6.0.1.

I got 2 iphone5s around November 6. Mine works fine as far as data usage. Both phones have the latest IOS version.

My phone averages 1-2 MB a day. We have wifi turned on on both phones.

My wife's iphone 5 started blowing through data as of December 15, about 50 to 200 MB a day. We have already gone over our 2GB monthly allowance with Verizon. I called to express concern and asked them to research this. My case is pending, and they should call me within a week. I requested that their IT folks take a look and see what is going on. All I want to know is what's going on. Several reps said they can't look and see because of privacy laws. I am not sure what verizon can do.

I am not blaming Apple or Verison at this time. But something very strange is going on. I have rebooted her phone several times.

We have wireless wifi at home, and it is happening there as well as out and about. When at home, it's happening with wifi and at wee hours of the night and morning. The phone is in her purse, locked in standby. I have turned it off at night a few nights to save data. On the iphone you can see your cellular data usage by "received" or "sent." All of this weird excessive data usage is data "sent" not data received. *** No social network apps are installed. She had the facebook app but I uninstalled it to see if that was the problem. Nope. Excessive data usage still happening. She has her work e-mail setup on the phone. I am having that deleted and removed from the phone to see if that's causing it.

I backed up her phone on icloud and iTunes, and will likely do a full reset and restore if the e-mail is not the problem. If the email is not the problem, there is nothing else to try except a reset.

This is a copy and paste of our data usage report of her phone. Units are in Megabytes (MB). This data usage is not sustainable on our plan. I think she has gone through 2.5 GB since Dec 15.

Try this setting:

Settings

General

About

Diagnostics and Usage

Don't send

I will check this. Thanks. My phone has this turned off. If her's is turned off as well, I plan to do a complete reset and restore the backup.

Here is the data usage from the last few days. This phone is eating me alive. I can state for a fact that I had her phone turned off all night, and I turned it on at 6:56 AM, and I noticed my wireless wifi box lights were blinking very fast, and the phone appears to have used 223 MB of data when I turned the phone on at home with wifi. Something is wrong.

Units are in KB (not MB)

I've seeing the same issue. I'm using Onavo Count and see that I had 32MB of "App Downloads" overnight when the phone was not being in used and in the presence of my WiFi.

Anyone else see this?

So I got a itouch 5g with ios 6, I had the iphone 4 but got a droid because of LTE (even ditched the unlimited data for it.) I am living in denmark for 9 months so I don't have landline internet, I use my phone for wifi which has a 10 GB plan. I picked up my ipod when I wook up and it said that icould had no more space. and I looked on my phone, and it said tha 600 MB was used, It turned out that an app called idownloader tried to back-up 2.1 GB twit files to icloud. I admin that this is partly my fault but this thould be opt in instead of opt out. I know a lot of people here that use mobile broadband for internet. Luckly for me, After the 10 GB, I get throltted to 128 Kb/s (isn't that bad. Can transfer 500 MB overnight). I still like android better and have no plans on getting another apple product.

Checked and diagnostic usage was set to "don't send."

I just reset to factory settings using the "erase all content and settings"

I have restored backup from icloud. Hope the bug was not backed up. I will update tomorrow as I monitor data usage.

Yes erose and Deadhead and Todd, I am experiencing same thing.

Purchased 2 new iphones from Verizon. Excessive unexplained data usage. Downloanded iOS 6.02, also currently running carrier Verizon version 13.3. Things are much better after downloaded update but still not perfect.

Recently changed setting to Don't Send as recommended above.

Similar to Deadhead my wife's phone uses more unexplained data than mine. Not sure why, she does have more apps and uses social media. I don't use facebook.

What is bothersome is that for both phones it always uses at miniumum small amounts of cellular data (sometimes more) when connected to wifi, particularly noteable in the middle of the night. I think this may fit within our data plan but not sure. I like things to work right--it should not be pulling any data.

We seem to have a fine wifi at home, works great for my Apple Macbook Air and her dell, video conferencing and skype.

Finally, satisfied with everything but this data issue--it just makes me nervous about usage. Have until the Jan 15th to return phones and cancel. What to do...

I did a few things and have some interesting info to share. I am putting together a video spotlighting this problem on my youtube channel. It might be several days before I have time to do that.

I am holding off on giving an update until I get more cellular data history from Verizon since Friday night when I took matters into my own hands. I have been going to their web-site to track the data usage. However, they have not posted any data usage on that phone over 24 hours ago at about 1:20 PM yesterday. They have already posted data usage for my phone today. Not sure what's going on there. Until Verizon decides to post data usage updates for my other phone , I am at a standstill. I can't make any conclusions without more data if what I did worked or not. .

Ok sports fans here are some results. I am not ready to spike the football or dance in the end-zone yet but the phone appears to be operating normal now as of 1/5. Between the end of 1/3 and the end of 1/4, the phone blew through about 558 MB, half a gig. ***.

On the night of 1/4 around 9 PM. I did the following.

1) "Erase All Content and Settings" under the reset option.

2) Restored phone backup from icloud

3) Under safari in settings, "clear cookies and data" and under advanced, "remove all website data."

From that point forward, the data usage appears within a normal range. Before you do this, do an icloud phone backup first. You can use iTunes but icloud is what I used. I backed up the phone on both but only restored from iCloud.

The only thing I can point to is this. The data usage went haywire on Dec 15. On Dec 13 Facebook released an update, and I installed it for her on either the 13th or 14th. I can't say for sure if the facebook app was bugged to cause data leakeage but that is the only thing that was done or installed just before the data usage went through the roof.

I see Meature above wife's phone went crazy, and it appears she has facebook. I am curious if those having issues have the Dec 13 Facebook app update. I don't, and my phone is fine.

At first I uninstalled all apps but that did not fix the problem. I will keep an eye on this.

Units are in KB

Thanks for this update. My wife has Facebook after Dec 14. However, her data is nothing like your wife's explosion. I am talking may 12,000 KB in the middle of the night not 100,000 KB.

Nonetheless even my phone uses some and I am bothered by any data use when it is on wifi.