The iPhone 5 uses Cellular Data over WiFi?

Hi JimHdk - I agree that rjolmstead has been misled. My iPhone was plugged in to an external power source when I experienced 300 MB of cellular usage while streaming Pandora two feet away from my WiFi antenna. In that mode, the screen doesn't go black, it just dims.

If the screen being on or off has no bearing on the device switching to cellular data while in the presence of WiFi, could you elaborate on what could cause this strange occurance? I've been baffled for months here and haven't been able to find a cause. I love to troubleshoot but this is driving me nuts.

Barometer wrote:

If the screen being on or off has no bearing on the device switching to cellular data while in the presence of WiFi, could you elaborate on what could cause this strange occurance? I've been baffled for months here and haven't been able to find a cause. I love to troubleshoot but this is driving me nuts.

What could cause this problem is that, due to some problem in the iPhone or WiFi router, the WiFi connection is lost. In this case, the iPhone will switch to cellular data. If one doesn't notice that this has happened a large amount of cellular data can be used.

Note also, of course, that if you leave the small area of WiFi coverage your iPhone will also switch to cellular data. This is normal but, if you don't realize that this has happened, you can use quite a bit of cellular data if you do anything that requires network access, i.e., Safari, Email, Maps, etc.

If you are having WiFi problems it is necessary to isolate whether the problem is with your network or your iPhone. Note: Do NOT consider your network to be blameless if some other devices can connect to it.

First, test your iPhone on some other WiFi networks: a friends, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, etc.

If it works well there then the problem is probably with your network. Try restarting your WiFi router by removing power for 30 seconds. If that does not help check for a firmware update for your router. If none exists which corrects the problem consider replacing the router.

If your iPhone does not function well on other networks it possibly has a hardware problem. You could try Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings to see if that corrects the problem. If not, contact Apple Support or visit an Apple store for evaluation. They can provide a replacement if your iPhone is bad.

See also here: http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/wifi/

All of these posts just make me sad. There is no reason we should all be trying to trouble shoot this issue, or turn on or off features, or on or off Celular. It's not our job. This isn't a rare user error. This is a wide-spread bug that is effecting Apple users in a wide variety of situations. This is not an 'edge case' issue.

Apple. it's time to pay attention. Both Samsung and Nokia want me as a customer. Do you?

Here's my post on Forbes.

It already has 25,000 views in less than a day.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenrosenbaum/2013/04/09/apple-vs-att-turning-the- tables/

This is INSANE, not insanely great as Jobs would have had it. Even after you turn off 'Use Cellular Data for iCloud Documents, iTunes, Passbook Updates and Reading List (all under Settings/General/Cellular), I find that virtually all apps on the iPhone (4s 6.1.3) increment cellular data, but (so it appears) my router also increments the wireless traffic. Is it possible that the IOS is causing the apps to send both cell data and wireless packets? It sure looks that way to me. If so, it's an Apple issue that Apple needs to fix. I won't be upgrading to another iPhone unless this IOS isue is corrected, and may just have to move to the bizarre Android. Apple doesn't seem to want to acknowledge or fix this issue until it's costing them. I can smell big class related costs on the wind.

Before you call your lawyer make sure yo send feedback on the problem you are having with as much detail as possible here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

I've done that twice. it's a black hole without even a confirmation of a problem. Until there's a national cry from customers, this is just going to get ignored. Apple can afford to lose us as customers, the've got plenty.

Add your voice here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenrosenbaum/2013/04/09/apple-vs-att-turning-the- tables/

Ah,packets.What concerns me is what goes out and to whom? Lets say the device has a bug,lets call it the Apple Beatle,It keeps cell data on at the same time it uses wifi?This is in your home.Think about it.If my cell phone is using my router and cell data it can transfer information from my computer, if it is on.Or leave a key for that to happen.

.People take these devices,put their very lives on them and trust the manufacture to keep it safe.If you open a Iphone and start looking at chips,you see Samsung,Could you preload something in a chip,yep, Could China? Yep. Funny, who we trust.All of us need to find out why this is happening, And hope it is just a mistake.Cyber hacks can be done with these devices.

I suggested the China theory a while back, but tongue-in-cheek. I have since learned that my AT&T web account always states the data as 'SENT,' but my usage statistics on the iPhone show the vast majority of data is 'Received.' I don't know what I'm receiving, I have everything turned off to the point where the device is more like a dumb-phone. And, the usage is occurring while on WiFi.

I wouldn't call a lawyer, but it should be clear from this monster thread that there's an issue that Apple should own and they don't seem to be taking user calls very seriously themselves. My contribution to (and reading of) the thread ends here.

I still follow this discussion, and participated early on. It's fascinating. New people come on, vent their frustrations, advance various theories, conspiracies, etc and most get their situation under control one way or another. There are plenty of great tips buried in here on how to adjust settings to ratchet down the use of cellular data. Before ios6 and iphone5 I had a 200mb plan that I blew thru within hours of walking out of the store with my new iphone. I went thru the pain of getting into the guts of the beast and now my usage is well under 200mb again, and i have cellular on for everything i want and need. I went to a 3gb plan however so I could take full advantage of super fast LTE, including facetime on cellular. When I'm away from wifi, it's a nice to have.

My thinking is this. Apple is aware of this situation. They actually called me unprompted early on. It's complicated, with many facets. You may have noticed a recent update addressed issues with the Exchange mail client, a known sieve of cellular data. I know AT&T mail is brain dead on ios, just forget it. Other apps are also a problem.

Supplementing wifi with cellular appears to be a default of some kind for smooth operation of apps, for better or worse. If you want pure wifi, turn on airplane mode and then turn on your wifi, or fire up your tablet.

Bottom line to me is, if you like the functionality of a smart phone, you have to be a smart user. You wouldn't expect to plug in a bunch of fancy gadgets in your home and not see an increase in your electric bill, right? It's a **** computer and its great and a pain sometimes.

Finally, the Apple I remember, and I ditched Microsoft long long ago, is a company that was focused on making great products the way they wanted to make them, not the way others thought they should be made. And they didn't really care if you bought them or not. Remember "antenna gate" on the iphone4? Jobs initial response was, if you have a problem with it and you don't like the workaround, buy a different phone! Then they gave away bumper cases for awhile.

I have two iphone 5's and an S3 (family account). Ever since experiencing this issue on both phones, and almost maxing out my data allowance, I've updated the software for them. This was supposedly fixed with the software update in October; however, one of the phones still exhibits this issue. The only resolution given to me is to turn off my cellular data. Why should I have to manually do that when Android phones and the other iphone 5 automatically detects Wi-Fi network. I've done factory resets, and updated to version 6.1.3 btw. Very bad experience if you ask me.

Your experience is the same as mine: not all iPhones on the same WiFi network exhibit the cellular data problem. It has been suggested by experts that the problem may be the WiFi router sporadically losing connection with the iPhone, but if this was the cause then we should expect all iPhones on the network to exhibit the problem (at least at some point). This has never been the case for me; one phone has always used less than 200 MB of data per month, the other used to use that much prior to iOS 6 but now uses 1.6 GB per month. The odd part is, even when I turn off my cellular data as instructed, the moment I turn it back on I see a 20MB - 90MB data transfer. Every day. Do the math, that's a lot of data! So turning off cellular data doesn't work for me, either.

davidboughton, I'm encouraged that there may be a mix of settings that reduce data consumption, and I hope someday I figure it out. My whole problem is that, before iOS 6, I hardly used any data. I did nothing to bring this on. I didn't buy the bunch of fancy gadgets for my home, I already had them and all of a sudden they became very expensive to operate. I don't know what brought this on, so I have no idea what to reconfigure. I'm trying everything I'm told, but I feel like a chimpanzee working the control panel at NASA. If Apple or ATT could simply tell me what changed and provide some suggestions on what it would take to get my usage back down to pre-iOS 6 levels, at least then I could decide if the phone is worth the price. But as it is now, I'm locked into a two-year committment with a data-hog, and Apple/ATT are denying there is a problem. Everything they have suggested was a complete waste of time and did absolutely nothing to reduce my data usage. That is what frustrates me.

Please review https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4968726

Please review. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4968725