The iPhone 5 uses Cellular Data over WiFi?

I've looked into this on my iPhone 4 up here in Canada and it seems to be leaking data usage as well. I called the Apple support and they had no knowledge of this issue. Hopefully it can get sorted out asap

This gets more strange by the minute. Whilst checking my battery drain and cellular date usage I have noticed that the phone runtime stats are garbage. I have had my phone in standby for an hour since the last charge, iCloud is deleted and cellular data is switched off....yet my usage time is 10 mins shy of my standby time! I haven't used the phone AT ALL! Either the stats are off....or my phone IS doing something continuously in the background, which would of course explain the battery drain.

So here is my update...

Since having the new exchanged iphone 5 since Sept 29th....my phone has logged 17.9 GB of incoming data (consumed). I get an alert last night from ATT that I was reaching my data limit (5 GB on unlimited) and that I would be throttled until my next billing cycle (which starts tomorrow luckily 10/16)....

The data ATT says I have used is 4.2 GB...quite the disparity on actual usage. This means that the data counter on the iphone is NOT to be trusted. As of last check using ATT's data counter (*data#), I am at 4.4 GB....

Apparently the phone logs much more data than is actually consumesd (or that att monitors). So my issue at least seems to be overblown as my phone would tell me...So as I already know, there was know way I was using 17 GB is 2.5 weeks time....just not possible for me. So my crisis is averted. On a somewhat related note, my battery life has much improved....as others have said, it may take a while for the battery system to calibrate...I left it on a charger at 100 percent for an entire day and that seems to have solved my issue. After 8 hours of use (not heavy) I am still in the 80's on percentage....whereas my old iphone 3GS (understandably 3 years old) would be in the 30's...

Hope this relates to someone..it appears we all have an issue or another with multiple causes....

Are you on ATT or Verizon? Which one? Or another?

Similar problems with battery life in i06. Support was free and polite;but they all wasted my time with restores, and other useless "fixes." I bought a new phone and it has the exact same problem. Apple obviously knows about the problems, even if they do not know what to do to fix it yet, but they have not acknowledged this and neither does any of their "support." I seemed to have stopped the drainage by either using 3G or disabling cellular data when using Wifi.

Steve Jobs is rolling over in his grave.

I'll just chime in as a new owner of two iOS6 devices. ATT service. 4s and a 5. Both purchased new with iOS6. They are both leaking cellular data while on WiFi. I've done all the suggestions of turning everything off that's not always neccessary to have on. Doesn't matter. Tonight at home it gobbled up 5 mb of cellular and 100 kb of Wifi in one hour of reading emails in my home with rock-solid wifi. In the first four days of owning the 4s, it used 180 mb of the 300 mb plan. ALL WHILE IN WIFI RANGE.

Yeah, this is nuts. There seems to be no way of having cellular data on, and staying in the smallest data plan offered. Seems I'm being taken for a ride by *somebody.* But who's to blame? ATT? Apple? How the heck can I tell if nobody can tell me what is using that data? And WHY it is using cellular when I'm actively using the phone on wifi?

I don't care if it is asleep and in my pocket. There's no way it should use 5 mb of cellular data in an hour.

Darell,

May I suggest you go carefully thru your settings once again.

For guidance, go to:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4348072?start=285&tstart=0

Robert J McInnes on Oct 9, 2012 1:41 AM

I and others experienced the same alarm when first setting up our iPhone 5 [or other iOS 6 devices]...

It would seem to me that many of the default iOS 6 settings are set to optimise the user experience, in responsiveness, connectivity, sharing, etc, based on using either the LTE Cellular Data connection or WiFi, at any particular point in time.

Be methodical; once you have got it right,you will be cruising.

Install DataWiz, and monitor what is going on for a while. Make sure you set it up to sync the start of billing day with your Telco [ATT] account. If you manually sync [by resetting the iPhone Cellar Usage, Settings, General, Usage, Cellular Usage, Reset Statistics (scroll right down to the bottom) manually, on the same day, I have found all three line up quite accurately [note that you must leave DataWiz running on the background all the time]

Here are some typical days usage of LTE Cellular Data from my iPhone 5. During these days, I have been out and about with iPhone 5 in my pocket, and Cellular Data turned on. As you can see very little going on now via Cellular Data connection.

Of course, I will see tens of Mega Bytes, if I go to Facebook, do a Speed.net test [10MB each time], open E-Mail to find someone has sent me a bunch of photos, do some Photo Streaming etc. But you know that already, I am sure.

I am not sure how Apple or Telco's [ATT] can come up with a magical solution, since all of these setting seem to be quite personal, and every one's needs are different. For a new iPhone, maybe. I beleive they could find a way to ensure all apps are set to prompt the user, for example to turn on Push Notifiaction etc, when needed.

Have fun...

Robert.

I thought I would chime in on this with my tale since I'm in the middle of this.

I bought a 5, had it for about two weeks, then returned it. I had burned through 2.7GB of data in a single day and hit close to 980MB in a single session while driving to work one morning with nothing else notable running on the phone.

AT&T credited me for my data plan for the month since I still had 18 days left until my billing cycle ended.

I returned the 5 the next day and reverted back to my old 4.

I am still burning through data and battery like mad. I'm throttled now, but that doesn't stop it from using data all the freaking time. I have logs both in DataWiz and through AT&T's billing to verify that at like 2am or midnight or sometime when it should be doing nothing, it's doing something. And this is on the iPhone 4, which was restored from the 5's icloud backup.

That leaves me no option but to say it's in the software.

As for me? Well, I've given AT&T my business for 7 years, got my wife a 4s last Christmas on AT&T, but I can't hack this anymore. The 5 was a birthday present my family bought me and I felt like I'd been punished for getting something nice in the tradeoff. AT&T's resolve was to have me wait until my billing cycle ended to do my own self-tech support on the 5, but I'm not a stupid consumer. I didn't want to risk an ETF over this. So, we're switching to Sprint.

In the face of actually having to deal wth the limits of my "unlimited" plan which comes with some pretty severe roadblocks, I'm opting for Sprint, where if the problem isn't solved yet, it can at least be ignored without guilt or worry over data usage, my iPhone will function like it should with FaceTime, and I don't have to be given the run around as to what I'm entitled to anymore.

I hope.

It seems as if the problem is with ATT. We have Verizon and have not seen leakage as reported. We have Cellular Data on, as well as LTE and some location services. Changes in data usage are modest (10 mb a day) and matchable to some usage outside of a wifi network. Are there any Verizon users still having trouble?

Robert -

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. Rest assured that while I have no way of reading your document (just comes out all pixellated on my end when I attempt to blow it up any bigger than it downloads) that I have read this entire thread, so have seen and headed all of the advice. I have been methodical, and I'm using almost none of the default settings on the phone. I have had DataWiz for a few days now - and this is how I know that my phone is using MB's of celluluar data while I'm in Wifi range. I have taken screen shots.

The odd part is that while being out and about NOT in wifi range, I don't leak cellular data. It is used when I'm using data, and at no other times. But when I'm home on wifi, it uses cellular data when it *should* be using Wifi. Not b's and not kb's but MB's worth of data. This makes no sense no matter how you slice it. I'm thrilled that you've managed to get a lid on it. Using the same techniques, I have not gotten a lid on it yet, it seems.

The ONLY thing that solves the problem is turning off Cellular. I think we all agree that should not be required. The phone works as well on wifi without cellular on - making me believe that whatever celluluar is doing "in the background" is not needed. But with cellular off, I don't get VM notices, nor can I check VM. Technology is supposed to be working for us, not the other way around (recent SNL skit not withstanding!)

I don't know if the Telco can come up with a magic solution... or Apple - but the device should not be allowed to stream cellular data when we're on Wifi. What phone setting "allows" that? Besides turning off cellular, what else could I possible turn off that would prevent it from happening while I am at home using the device on my Wifi? I understand the small leakage while the device is asleep at home. I don't understand the HUGE leakage while asleep or while in use.

I would prefer NO leakage of cell data while my phone is asleep in wifi, ESPECIALLY when it is plugged in and charging. I am logging up to at least 1MB of cell data leak while in wifi each day. this is minium 30MBs per month out of my paid for 200MB. NOT acceptable.

Everyone experiencing this problem please report it directly to Apple. If you're a developer, use bugreport.apple.com. If not, http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

We need Apple to receive *multiple* reports if they are to take this seriously.

Making Apple aware is good advice, but the primary source that Apple uses to ascertain the extent of issues is visits to the genius bar and calls to 800-my-iphon.

Darrelldd and others

You must be thorough in going thru the settings as listed in this thread by myself and others. I'll give you an example. I had gone thru all the settings on my iphone5 and was no longer having any serious leakage, even with Cellular on. Then I connected my phone to my computer to load music and had to go thru a phone reset to get the music to the phone. When I finished I went thru the settings again, but I missed a couple. When I got on wifi and downloaded a bunch of apps, I noticed that about 25 percent of the data came over cellular rather than wifi, about 120 mb. As soon as I went to settings, iTunes and App Stores and switched off Use Cellular Data and resumed downloading apps, no further cellular data was used. Again, reset network settings if you haven't yet, and turn off email push and fetch. Make sure you close your running apps by double tapping the home button and holding the icons until they wiggle and can be x'd out. That can save battery life as well. The various real-time system services when enabled will use power, and some can access cellular unless that option is individually switched off. I also noticed that some of the cellular leak issues predate 6.0 per other threads. I suspect there may be apps out there that are pushing a lot of data without the user knowing.

Bottom line is I'm good again, and keeping my iphone5. Love the LTE and other cool upgrades.