The iPhone 5 uses Cellular Data over WiFi?

djfj wrote:

Now everything connects fine and my iphone 3G did as well initially but it keeps dropping connectivity back to 3G cellular. usually when the screen goes to sleep i turn it on, and its on 3G again instead of wifi. this didnt happen with my old router, so does anyone know if its just the settings on the router that need to be configured correctly? i do realize it shouldnt be this difficult to connect your phone to wifi, but it must be the router and not the phone right? or am i totally off here?

Every iPhone since the beginning of iPhone time in 2007 has always disconnected from WiFi when the phone goes to sleep, unless the phone is connected to power or Cellular Data is turned off. The reason is that WiFi, unlike cellular, must maintain a constant stream of "handshake" data between the phone and the router, even when there is no data to send or receive. This is a requirement of the WiFi standard, not something specific to the iPhone. If WiFi remained on all the time the battery would run down in a few hours, which wouldn't make users happy either. This isn't something that happened suddenly to you; it has always worked that way.

If you want the phone to stay connected to WiFi when asleep either leave it plugged in or turn off Cellular Data.

Yesterday, I responded to an alert on my iphone and now have Carrier = 13.1. To determine if the problem has been fixed, I reset the cellular usage statistics at 8:18a this morning and set my iphone back down on the table. I didn't touch it until 8:59a and checked the statistics again. It now shows SENT = 17.0 KB and RECEIVED = 194 KB. I haven't received any mail in that time, I am in a part of my house that gets a wifi signal - not strong, but the signal is there. If this problem were solved, I shouldn't have any cellular usage - right? I realize that mail and some other apps push data and do some activity while the phone is asleep and that 200KB is not a major amount of data, but do use that data over the cellular while asleep and while in the wifi signal area - it seems like something is still not right.

goto setting - about and wait for the carrier update message. Should take a few seconds

I have just moved. I have always had WiFi set up in my home, using an Apple WiFi router. Now, I'm not sure what happens with other routers, but whenever I wake my iPhone or iPad from sleep, it shows the Apple router (and it is secure). In other locations on WiFi, I get a disconnect on sleep and have to reconnect—so I think if it's an Apple router the iPad and iPhone is set to always show it's there (whether or not your are connected) and negotiate through security as needed on wake, whereas with the Linksys and other routers it's set to disconnect.

Of course this makes the user experience with the Apple product superior. Or, maybe Linksys and the others have a preference to close the connection and one may change that in the setup.

Since I moved, I have a much stronger cellular signal. It was so bad in my former location that cellular calls would go straight to voicemail and the most I ever saw was two bars (AT&T are claiming that they covered the area just fine, but I think they needed an additional cell tower). I think that 4G LTE speeds would tend to be faster than WiFi, which would certainly blow through my data plan on my iPad (and iPhone 5, were I to get one) very quickly.

Since I have a "grandfathered" Unlimited data plan on my phone, that's not such a bad thing—though I think AT&T would "decide" that I was one of their "top data users" and start to limit data rates for me at the end of the billing month. But the only way I can think of to handle this issue on my iPad is to turn off the cellular data "radio" until or unless I absolutely need it.

I can certainly confirm, using the DataMan App, that data usage over cellular data happens simultaneously in WiFi zones. And, with 4G you'll see yourself blow through your data plan pretty quickly.

John Hartge wrote:

I haven't received any mail in that time, I am in a part of my house that gets a wifi signal - not strong, but the signal is there. If this problem were solved, I shouldn't have any cellular usage - right? I realize that mail and some other apps push data and do some activity while the phone is asleep and that 200KB is not a major amount of data, but do use that data over the cellular while asleep and while in the wifi signal area - it seems like something is still not right.

I don't know how many times it's necessary to repeat this, but if the phone is asleep, meaning the screen is not on, WiFi is turned off to preserve battery - unless the phone is connected to power or cellular data is turned off. So if the phone was asleep, even it it had an available WiFi signal, any app that gets or sends data in background will use cellular data, not WiFi.

Why, oh why, are Apple not acknowledging the wifi/cellular data problems? I have an iphone 5, realised the battery drainage was probably linked to high cellular data usage when connected to wifi and when not. Showed screen shots to Apple genius who said it must be third party apps, but I had already turned off almost all loc services, no push notifications etc and my average monthly data usage was 76MB prior to switching to ios6 and iphone5 - 400MB were used in approx 4 days with iphone 5. Orange gave me new phone - it is set as new phone - no third party apps, no contacts, no email, all loc services etc off, and I am still using cellular data on and off wifi.

My carrier suggested i try mydatamanager app, but you cant get it in here in UK. Apple 2 level tech told me to turn cellular data off - as if i havent done that!

Please someone tell me that Apple will fix this....

thanks lawrence, i guess it was just me who thought it was dropping 🙂 happy to know its still working

You answered my question so thanks. I reset mine last night with wifi on and have 400+ kb used. But over night when plugged in it didn't use anymore. Btw I'm on AT&T. I was checking cuz I heard of the Verizon update.

I am in Canada and believe it is happening on the bell network. A friend on the Rogers network thinks its happening there too. He's used 5.6G in 22 days which is not his normal useage. I just got an iPhone the day it was released and i am over 100MB even though with blackberry i've only hit that a few times in a whole month. i'm on wifi at work, home, hockeyrink, etc.

I've just began on a new billing cycle less than a week ago, and I noticed that I've already racked up 1/4 of my usage in 4 days. I've always had wifi at home, and the signal is strong, last night I caught up on a tv show streaming through an app, and right afterwards, my usage went up by 40 MB, probably the length of the show. so is Apple and/or AT&T going to do something about this? Acknowledge this? I'm on the cheapest plan because I'm always within wifi coverage.

Yes I too have this problem in Australia.

Sunday I supposedly used 1.5 GB and I only have 2 GB allowance all month.!!

I've complained to Telstra ( they said yes we've received a few complaints, turn off Cellular data when not needed until there is a fix and we will not charge you excess data )

I've also rung Apple and lodged a complaint. They played coy and didn't say much except to confirm their Engineers were indeed looking at the issue but they didn't know when it would be fixed.

I've also logged an online feedback complaint to Apple.

Now, reading this forum I checked my settings and the carrier is 13.1 I'm pretty sure I haven't updated the carrier in the last week so the problem must have occurred using 13.1?

Incidentally my wife has an i Phone 4 using iOS 5 with only 30 MB monthly allowance. A few days ago her actual months data jumped from 5 MB used to 30 MB in one day when she hadn't used the phone!! At the time I rang

Telstra to say this was BS and they gave me another 250 MB on her account!! This was before my own 1.5 GB use and before I came across the issue. But I guess they are both the same problem.

Oh and most importantly I should mention that with my 1.5 GB data usage problem I have not used or have available any Wi Fi networks to log into. ( on holidays and the parents don't have Wi Fi )

So this happened without Wi Fi

Call AT&T! Tell them that your data usage is completely out of any rational comparison with previous months before your new iPhone. Tell them you're not going to pay for an increased data plan and, that if they cannot give you satisfaction you will call your state's Attorney General.

Then register the complaint with your Attorney General. Send AT&T a copy of your complaint. That absolutely will get their attention.

IF the Verizon "fix" actually does work, then the code exists out there to fix the problem and Apple will encourage AT&T (or show them how) to fix the issue.

Remember, folks, this is the first month with the new 4G iPhone. The last thing Apple and the Telcos want is an Attorney General sniffing around, looking to protect consumers.

This isn't just an i phone 5 issue.

My phone is a 4S and my wife's a 4.

This is an iOS 6 issue.

In cases like this it is critically important to track your usage on your phone - Settings/General/Usage, or with an app such as Dataman. If the usage counter on the phone matches what your carrier reports then there really is an app using that data. If it doesn't match it is an error on the carrier's side. Take screen shots of the usage report for backup (press and release both HOME and SLEEP to take a screen shot) then contact the carrier.