The iPhone 5 uses Cellular Data over WiFi?

You no doubt have noticed that this thread is 71 pages long. Unfortunately venting here is not going to make any difference to Apple or the cell phone carriers (it would have made a difference by page 10 or so if they really watched / cared). The most you can reasonably get here are suggestions on how to work within the system to maybe get things fixed. Your best bet for getting to Apple/Verizon/AT&T/Sprint etc. is to get a national news organization to get interested and embarrass them publicly or get lucky that a large national company with many iPhones sees their bill shoot through the roof and demands action from Apple.

Your phone has Apple code, Apple firmware, carrier code, and code from many apps. Problems can be introduced simply based on the order you install Apps. I had a six month battle with my iPhone 5. There was a corrupt Microsoft Exchange email config that caused it to burn through cellular data as random times. I never could get it cleaned up correctly. An IOS update around January finally did something to at least detect the problem and I don't have the issue anymore.

Latest IOS allows you to track cellular usage by app. Monitor the usage over a day or two by app to find the app and the time of day that eats up your cellular (unfortunately you can only see totals so you have to check regularly if you are trying to pin down a time). This will at least give you a better jumping in point for figuring out how to make it stop eating data.

One of the solutions (as suggested very early in this thread) to fix it is to:

* Backup your iPhone to your computer using iTunes

* Restore your backup back to your iPhone

It may seem a trivial step, but it is not. It is not a useless exercise. That is how you fix a corruption in the file system in the iPhone by doing a clean restore process, so all the files were put back in the right places, instead of continue on with the corrupted files.

When you do a clean restore, it will fix the corrupted files that may have cause the wifi problem.

Try it.

nicoladie,

I agree with your recommendation. I have fixed balky apps using your suggestion.

Usually the first thing I try is to:

1. Close all Safari windows

2. Close all apps

3. Power off the phone (hold the sleep button down for 5 seconds then "slide to power off")

If that doesn't work, then:

1. Backup my iPhone with iTunes

2. go to Settings, General, Reset, Erase all Content and Settings

3. Re-setup the phone from scratch

tardog13,

I'm not sure I agree that Apple is ignoring the situation of helping their users avoid cell-data charges.

As you point out they have made improvements. And those improvements are huge improvements in my opinion.

I agree, as you point out, that they have not provided all the tools we need. DataWiz (or one of the other 123 cell-data monitoring apps) probably should be on everyone's smart phone. I feel Apple is in a better position to provide cell-data usage alerts than an app like DataWiz.

Of course... I certainly wish AT&T provided better cell-data usage alerts. But, I guess I can see how it would be difficult for AT&T to be constantly monitoring the level of all their customers cell-data usage... it more logically belongs on the smart phone - not AT&T's mainframes.

On the phone with Verizon now. He just confirmed with Apple Rep that the Iphone may choose cellular even if you are on Wifi. I have 3 Iphone 5s and an IPAD AIR. 14 GB of data gone prior to my month's cycle. IPAD sits at the house almost 95% to 99% of the time using Wifi yet averages 3.5 to 4.x GB of data monthly of my plan. My son's phone is averaging almost 8 GB of data. The time between the data reporting times for billing many times are hundreds of MBs when we are definitely at home (for ex. 5/5/14 12:30 A.M. 45 MB and then 5/5/14 6:30 A.M. 400 GB. Heck no one is even utilizing the IPAD and it is definitely here at the house on Wifi. The same happens for other devices. My solution was to add additional data every 3-4 months, thus increasing my bill.

I am now considering (and has a reason to now that Apple is admitting to the carrier tech support that it will use cellular over wifi) going to another non-Apple phone. I have wasted a ton of money on all of these phones and IPAD that only costs me more money in the end with high data plans.

LHUBB,

I had numerous people get defiantly upset with me when I described this issue. They would swear up and down that they didn't have this issue and that they used their devices A LOT. They would tell me that my son was just abusing his phone usage when he wasn't home. Well, in the past couple of months, I have at least 3 of these people come back to me and say "You were right. My child is now watching more and more videos at home and the device is using cellular over WiFi". As, this was my first experience with Apple products, I have a bad taste in my mouth immediately for the product line. I did buy my son an iPad mini, but it does not have cellular service. So, this won't be an issue.

We have found 2 work arounds for this. They are not pleasing as a device owner. But, they will help:

1) Turn off cellular data when you are at home. This will force it to connect to the Wi-Fi signal. Then, you just have to turn Cellular data back on when you leave the house. My 13 year old son is very diligent about this, because otherwise, he knows that he will lose his iphone.

2) If you have a strong Internet connection/Wi-Fi signal at home, then you can turn off 4G. This will bring it back down to 3G and then your Wi-Fi has a better chance of having a stronger signal. My son did not like this option because it was a noticeable difference in speed. So, he just uses Option 1.

My son has only had 1 day that he forgot to turn it off (I we noticed the spike in our data usage). With Verizon's usage details on MyVerizon.com, I could pinpoint which device used the most data and I could even tell my son what day he forgot to turn it off.

I turn off cell-data several times per day. Iuse airplane mode 7 or 8 times per year. Apple should replace the airplane-mode button on the Control Center Screen with a cell-data-off button.

I use iOS Settings, Cell Data to keep track of which apps are using cell-data. Unfortunately, it does not provide detail about when and where the apps used the data.

I use DataWiz to tell me when and where cell-data and wifi-data were used. Unfortunately DataWiz does not provide detail regarding apps.

I also use DataWiz to warn me if I am using an unusually high rate of cell-data - so I can stop the run-away app.

I use the AT&T *3282# phone number (I have it on speed dial) to track our month-to-date group-plan data usage. I check it about once per day to see if someone in my family has a run-away app. Also, I have my AT&T web page set to send me a warning if our group has used 90% of our monthly data. Unlucky for me I usually get a 90% warning in the first few days of a monthly cycle.

If Apple would combine all of this functionality into the iOS Settings, Cell Data page, our data-usage problems would be solved. Gosh, I wish Steve Jobs was still alive to make Apple fix this situation.

truerock wrote:

I turn off cell-data several times per day. Iuse airplane mode 7 or 8 times per year. Apple should replace the airplane-mode button on the Control Center Screen with a cell-data-off button.

When you want to turnoff Cellular data, what about turning Airplane Mode On and then turning wifi back on?

paulcb wrote:

truerock wrote:

I turn off cell-data several times per day. Iuse airplane mode 7 or 8 times per year. Apple should replace the airplane-mode button on the Control Center Screen with a cell-data-off button.

When you want to turnoff Cellular data, what about turning Airplane Mode On and then turning wifi back on?

Well... then I wouldn't be able to recieve voice calls and text messages (which I get unlimited amounts of for $15 per phone per month).

truerock wrote:

paulcb wrote:

truerock wrote:

I turn off cell-data several times per day. Iuse airplane mode 7 or 8 times per year. Apple should replace the airplane-mode button on the Control Center Screen with a cell-data-off button.

When you want to turnoff Cellular data, what about turning Airplane Mode On and then turning wifi back on?

Well... then I wouldn't be able to recieve voice calls and text messages (which I get unlimited amounts of for $15 per phone per month).

Cell calls and SMS do not use cell data.

But turning on Airplane Mode disables voice as well as cell data.

This needs some public awareness. Prior to leaving AT & T, (thank GOD~!) our son, who works with his father and hasn't time to be on the internet, logged in 8 gigs of "extra" data over two months. Each month he'd "use up" his 4 gig plan halfway through the month. Interestingly, this was NOT a problem three months ago and nothing changed in his work schedule which would allow for such an increas of data usage. Crazy thing...! inside of two days he apparantly used 2 1/2 gigs of data. At & t, when asked pointed the figer at our son.

We thought he was lying. NOW>>.

our friend just bought her son a new Iphone and is with At & T. Just two to three months ago, HIS data usage increased by doubling. And he doesn't use his phone except to make calls, etc. text...So there is something going on with At & T. Another item of interest. They USED to charge only $10 for an extra gig. BEWARE...it has increased to $15 per Gig. So our son's extra so called usage costed: $120 on top of a an already $140 before taxes bill per month.

I've had AT&T for years, with a family plan now, and never had this issue. Know many other people who have AT&T and they also don't have it.

I read all and feel lost... I have Orange and no problem with cellular data. Maybe it's coming with future 😟

Where in the heck is apple on this....5s is set to wifi and cell data is still being used. RIDICULOUS.