The iPhone 5 uses Cellular Data over WiFi?

I have Verizon and I am currently dealing with this NIGHTMARE!!!

Here's the latest 'advice' from AT&T (note that at least 2 of them suggest turning off celular data... a process that is remarkably annoying and frankly makes the phone useless)

Dear XXXX User (name redacted)

If this is an OS issue- we would recommend that you go back to Apple directly to address those concerns as we have not had any communication from Apple that there is an issue with it.

Unfortunately, without seeing your phone and being with you when you use it we cannot duplicate the problem.

Here are some additional troubleshooting tips that I recommend you try this weekend:

iOS 6: Setup to Optimize Cellular Data Usage…

Many of the iPhone 5 iOS default network Settings are intended to create best user experience and performance, by utilizing available WiFi and high speed LTE and/or 4G Cellular Data networks.

If your cellular data plan is limited, less than a One GB per month, it would be wise to work through the defaults, and turn off those services that are not important to you.

Network Reset: reset the network connection…

Make sure you know [or have saved] your various wifi passwords so you can quickly set them up again.

Settings, General, Reset, Reset Network Settings.

Cellular Data: turn it Off when you don't need it…

This may sound messy, but it is really no more so than turning off WiFi, or Bluetooth, when you know you will not be using it. Maybe Apple will move this setting to the front page of Settings, as they have done with Bluetooth in iOS 6

Settings, General, Cellular, Cellular Data, Off.

iCloud Backup: Turn it Off except when you need to do a Backup to iCloud…

Otherwise iPhone will automatically do a Backup over WiFi and/or Cellular Network, while it is on Power, and sleeping.

Settings, iCloud, Storage and Backup, iCloud Backup, Off.

iCloud Documents & Data: turn off the use of the Cellular Data connection, until you need it…

Settings, iCloud, Documents & Data, Use Cellular Data, Off.

Location Services: make sure only the apps you consider critical are switched on…

These are new Settings in iOS 6.

Settings, Privacy, Location Services, and turn Off each Application that is not important to you.

Obviously you would tend to leave On Maps, Photo, Find Friends, Find My iPhone, Weather and Siri.

System Services: apparently, some of these can be demanding on Cellular Network usage...

Settings, Privacy, Location Services, and scroll down past the notes at the bottom of the list of Applications, and select System Services, and turn them all Off except Cell Network Search.

If the Maps Traffic service is important to you, turn it On, but be warned it may be a bit of a hog.

Notification Centre: work through each Application carefully, to determine what you really do need real time?

Settings, Notifications, select each Application, and turn Notification Centre, Off, if you do not need Notification in real time…

Siri: every iPhone User now understand how to use Siri…

However you should be aware that Siri support has been expanded significantly in iOS 6, to include operation of your iPhone, to send text, make appointments, find restaurants, make bookings, and handle your dictation. The catch is that Siri services contacts the Apple Server via the network to translate your voice, do the searches, and return your results. You can leave Siri On but be aware of using Siri, when you are only connected via Cellular Data, and low on Data Usage remaining…

Settings, General, Siri, Siri, On. by default,...

There is also a new setting included in several Applications which allow you to turn off the Cellular Data Connection while they are active...

Music: Settings, Music, Use Cellular Data, Off.

iTunes and App Store: Settings, iTunes and App Store, Use Cellular Data, Off.

Podcasts: Settings, Podcasts, Auto-Downloads, Use Cellular Data, Off.

Mail: you can set up mail to better manage Cellular Data Usage, if it suits your operation…

Settings, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Fetch New Data, Push, Off, and set Fetch to Manually.

And select, Advanced, and for each Mail Account, Select Schedule, Manually.

And finally, here are a few more services you can probably do without, to further reduce Cellular Data usage…

Advertising: Settings, General, About, scroll down to Advertising, Limit Ad Tracking, On.

Diagnostics and Usage: Settings, General, About, scroll down to Diagnostics & Usage, Don't Send, On.

Some more tips…

For heavy data transmissions sessions on WiFi, switch to Airplane Mode, then switch WiFi back on again while your session is in progress. This mode will prevent iOS 6 from switching the Cellular Data midway through the session, should WiFi stumble….

Please let me know when you have had time to review by early next week so that we can proceed as I will have to put you back on the family talk plan and regular data plan next week and adjust the billing appropriately.

Thanks,

AT&T Rep

That is an extraordinarily sensible and well-written list!

StevenRnyc

Thanks for posting. This is a thorough summary of the tips from this forum. Clearly AT&T is following us and concludes it is helpful.

It would be nice if Apple would just post this synopsis somewhere so we could put an end to this thread.

Well, sort of - presuming you want to 'manage' data like a hawk, and get hit by overages.

I remember unlimited data - not that long ago - and frankly, i'm going to find a way to not have to deal with the conflicts between Apple and AT&T - because that isn't my job.

This isn't iPhone 5 specific. My wife's iPhone 4 data usage has gone through the roof this month. She hasn't updated apps or changed her habits. She is almost always on wifi (home business) and uses her phone for email and reading FB. Cellular data is disabled for almost everything. She averages ~39MB/mo but has racked up 141MB this month, the bulk of which in two days!

05/02 06:16 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 67 KB

05/02 05:32 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 31678 KB

05/02 04:27 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 45193 KB

05/01 11:16 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 56943 KB

05/01 04:16 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 4023 KB

04/30 10:57 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 284 KB

04/30 07:56 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 64 KB

04/30 07:25 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 9 KB

04/29 11:47 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 411 KB

04/28 11:47 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 3173 KB

04/27 11:47 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2882 KB

04/27 03:47 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 77 KB

04/26 08:20 PM phone Internet/MEdia Net Sent 2 KB

If this isn't AT&T's fault, then Apple has bleeped up something with iCloud contacts and calendar syncing this month although she was sitting on the couch on 5/2 when 31M racked up in 1 hour. My iPhone 4S and daughter's iPhone 4 aren't having this problem though.

I have already employed all those techniques and my data usage still exceeds 20 MB/day. Here is an interesting bit of information: I purchased DataMan Pro to track my usage, and I set the Data Plan to "Daily." That way, it's easier to see which apps are consuming data on a daily basis. The apps running native to iOS 6 are listed, but the data usage is not. Here is what I've learned: there are two native apps "Push Service" and "Sync Service" that consume EXACTLY DOUBLE the data used by the 3rd party apps. If I use 1.1 MB for Mail and 2.2 MB for Safari, my total usage is 6.6 MB, and the only other apps listed are Push Service and Sync Service. I don't know the split between the two because Apple doesn't allow it to be displayed in DataMan. But on a daily basis it is always DOUBLE the combined data usage of all the other apps. Curiously, there is an app called iPhone Free that shows data usage on a par with Mail, but I don't recall installing it and I don't know what it does. There is no icon for it.

As far as I can tell, I only push my mail. I have disabled iCloud synching, etc. so I am baffled as to what is going on. If anybody can tell me anything about these three apps, I would greatly appreciate it.

What type of push mail are you using?

Exchange

That may explain the extra usage, there may be an issue with extra polling going on with your account which can happen due to a multitude of reasons. Get with your Exchange administrator and see what he can spot on his end.

I had this overage problem with my Iphone 5 when I got it last year, jumped through all the hopes turning things off and the problem went away. Now, suddenly, it is back, using lots of data, going over my limit. I had not disabled Cellular Data because I had not needed to, the system was able to switch back and forth on its own.

Now that the problem is back I just now disabled cellular data to see if that will resolve the overages as everything else is shut off that can be. Sure don't understand why this came back to haunt me.

Try backup your entire iPhone to iTunes in your computer, and restore it back. Sometimes, that's the trick to resolve the problem, probably due to some unknown conflicts in the system.

I posted this elsewhere but I thought it might be useful for this discussion...

There have been an enormous number of posts about data leakage in regard to the iPhone and iOS 6. There have been an equally enormous amount of suggestions on how to remedy the problem. Although I'm not certain that I have a "fix" for this vexing problem, I wanted to provide my recent observations to shed some more light on the problem...

Like many of you, my wife and I each purchased iPhone 5's when Apple first released them last year. With this came the continuation of our contract with AT&T. Our plan is basic since (at the time) we didn't use much data (ie On our iPhone 4's with iOS 5 we used between 35 - 85 MB per month). Also like many of you, we were shocked when our data use almost quadrupled with the initial use of the iPhone 5-iOS 6 on AT&T. We spent the next six months attempting many solutions (as provided here and elsewhere) to remedy a problem that we thought was based on some "renegade" app or process that was eating through our 200 MB data alotment. Ultimately, we were forced to closely monitor our data usage and turn off the "use cell data" option on the iPhone (NOTE: We had no desire to give AT&T any more money than we had to, so we did not upgrade our data plan). Not convenient but we eked by...

This spring T-mobile announced an LTE network in our area that was compatible with our iPhone 5. Since they also offered plans that were less expensive and gave us slightly more data (AT&T=200 MB/iPhone, 2 iPhones, $101 (+2x $15 for our overage fees); T-mobile=500 MB/iPhone, 2 iPhones, ~$90). I decided to break my contract with AT&T, transfer my number, and test T-mobile. Here are my observations:

1. The T-mobile coverage for the locations I frequent in my area (Houston) seems every bit as good as AT&T. Not all markets can make this claim (yet) since T-mobile just began this process...

2. I use the GSM iPhone 5 (with iOS 6.1.4) originally released by Apple for AT&T so it's not the "optimized" iPhone currently being sold for both AT&T and T-mobile. With that being said, the speed on T-mobile is every bit as zippy as AT&T (Caveat: for the locations that I frequent in Houston...).

3. When I first monitored my data usage, I noticed a few differences with T-mobile compared to AT&T. T-mobile shows a small amount of data being used (ie 5-10 kilobytes) every two hours no matter if my phone is connected to my home Wifi network or connected to T-mobile's network. This amounts to 100-150 KB per day. I assume this small usage is a baseline and reflects the phone "polling" the cell network.

4. When I use some internet service (My usage on a cell network mostly comprises email, web browsing, and occasional gps), T-mobile has consistently logged the usage. For example, when I use email on the road at 1:30 PM, T-mobile logs 0.5 KB used at 1:30 PM. When I browsed the web on the road at 4:30 PM, T-mobile logs 1 MB used at 4:30 PM. T-mobile's system logs the data just like one would expect for a telephone call. This was one big frustration for my wife and I because AT&T's data logs were registering usage at any and all times. We never knew if usage was individual or accumulated. And, we had a hard time believing that our phone would be actively using AT&T's network when we were on Wifi at home or not even using the phone at all!

5. The amount of data being used is disproportionate between the carriers. Considering that my internet activity is the same between AT&T and T-mobile, I would use anywhere from 25 - 100 MB PER DAY on AT&T if I had the "use cell data" option turned on (Keep in mind, this is just for checking email and lite web browsing). On T-mobile (10 days), I have been average 2-3 MB per day with the same usage and "use cell data" option turned on.

The lingering questions that I have is...

Why are AT&T's data transfers so much bigger?

Why can't AT&T log data transfers that accurately reflect time of use?

Will my T-mobile data usage increase over time? (I have only been on the service for a week. I was on AT&T's service for 8 months; though, the data leaking on AT&T was obvious even in the first month of service for the iPhone 5)

I sincerely hope these observations help some of the readers in this forum. This data leak issue has been frustrating me for a long time and it's a relief to have some resolution to the problem.

Cheers,

S.

Thanks for the post scottmd43. While I know it's an apple issue and people are having trouble across carriers it does seem heavily skewed towards AT&T. Breaking our contract with AT&T and switching to Verizon was the best decision we've made. We can finally turn cellular data back on and use our phones as intended without fear of ridiculous data overages. I've also really enjoyed not having to constantly fight for credits with customer service.

Ok. I have commentd on this topic for many weeks. When I say excessive data usage, I'm not talking about 30MB here and 10MB there. As I have mentioned, I have used between 2-4GB of data/month since the iPhone 2G. In March of 2013 I (suppoosedly) used 26GB! That's 2-6 Gigabytes. In one month. With no change in usage behavior.

So I bought a Samsung Galaxy S3, put my SIM in, had it provisioned and used it for a month. Guess what? I used 1.8GB in May. To be fair, AT&T and the Data counter that the Samsung has built in said I used about 856MB, but since Android is a much less friendly OS, I probably didn't use it as much, so I doubled the Data amount, just to be safe. Oh, by the way, I turned off WiFi and only used LTE for three days straight.

Tuesday (the 28th) I went on a bike ride and lost the Samsung. I grabbed my iPhone 5, went to ATT and had them activate it. The darndest thing happened...in one day I used 160MB. That would come out to be around 5GB in a month.

Keep in mind that with the Samsung I used 856MB/month. That comes to 28MB/day.

Samsung Galaxy S3 - 30MB/day

Apple iPhone 5 - 160MB/day

As an aside, I have been in near constant contact with an Apple engineer that is supposed to be helping me with this. We have tried so many different combinations of solutions over the past 2 months, it borders on insanity.

Apple...there is an issue here. Period.