The iPhone 5 uses Cellular Data over WiFi?

No, you could still have some billing that takes place at 3am for data that was used 12 hours earlier, it is somewhat of a chaotic billing system due to all of the systems that AT&T has absorbed over the years. You can reset the usage states on your iPhone, say at 6:00am when you get up (don't call me if you do get up that early) and go through a 24 hour seeing which apps used data and how much to get a better estimate on how much data you are using and by which app. The MiFi that I use with AT&T seems to be a much better gauge of how much data I am using.

Keep in mind too that AT&T sometimes polls the phone and uses data which will be listed on your bill but you actually won't be charged for it as it will eventually be adjusted. This among other things is why comparing data usage on the iPhone to your bill is just an exercise in getting a migraine headache.

Migraine or not, people pay their bills based on ATT meters, not the phone's.

The heart of this thread is that people are going from 0.2GB/month to 15GB/month. No change in lifestyle involved.

Again, if you don't experience this issue (and there are plenty of people who don't; I myself have 2 other identical iPhones that don't) you won't know what we're complaining about. Exactly because some people do experience and others don't is what makes this issue difficult to diagnose.

But be very sure that the issue exists. Do a google search on "iPhone using too much data". It's way too many people "doing it wrong". People who did it right for years, all of a sudden doing it wrong... not plausible explanation.

I never said you were doing it "wrong". I said the billing lists from AT&T are just that, billing items and not tied to when it was used.

You can Google just about anything and get thousands of responses.

If your iPhone has gone from 0.2GB to 15GB there is an issue with that particular phone. If you reset your usage like I suggested you can see which app is using all the data.

deggie,

I performed another test on my daughter's iPhone 4s and replicated the results I received on my iPhone 5.

Wifi does not go to sleep when an iPhone is not being used. As I've pointed out before, that is easily disproved by sending an iMessage via wifi to a sleeping iPhone and causing the receiving sleeping iPhone to wake up.

Here is the DataWiz report from my test:

The iPhone 4s was not plugged into a charger, it was sleeping untouched for 8 hours.

I was reading an article by Kim Komando regarding the problems of controlling cell-data usage and she recommended an app called My Data Manager. I was reading the version history for the app and saw this:

Version 4.3.0 updated Jul 8, 2014

Regrettably we have had to remove the recently added "Apps" view to be in accordance with App Store Guidelines.

Obviously My Data Manager users were upset about this.

This explains why none of the iPhone data managers provide detail at the application level.

I can understand why Apple would place this restriction on application developers. But it further illustrates that Apple and cell-network companies need to get their act together and provide appropriate tools to allow individuals to control cell-data usage on their cell phones.

In my opinion this illustrates unacceptable incompetence on their part.

truerock wrote:

deggie,

I performed another test on my daughter's iPhone 4s and replicated the results I received on my iPhone 5.

Wifi does not go to sleep when an iPhone is not being used. As I've pointed out before, that is easily disproved by sending an iMessage via wifi to a sleeping iPhone and causing the receiving sleeping iPhone to wake up.

Here is the DataWiz report from my test:

DataWiz kindly wakes your iPhone every 10 minutes so the iPhone never goes to sleep long enough for wifi to shut off.

See this -> http://lifehacker.com/as-one-of-the-team-princeton-university-who-is-workin-4655 10321

Chris CA,

Good point... I assume you are suggesting there may be multiple sleep states like s3, s2, s1 and s0. Such that perhaps DataWiz allows the iPhone to be in sleep state s3 but never s1?

But, then I'm not sure what type of test we are looking at to see if wifi can go off line on an iPhone if the iPhone is sleeping.

In one of my tests, I shut-down all apps, turn off cell-data, remove the iPhone from a charger, and let it sleep for 8 hours. Then I send an iMessage to the sleeping iPhone via wifi and it receives the iMessage and the iPhone wakes up.

Does that disprove the sleeping modem theory?

I'll try pinging over my wifi network a sleeping iPhone tomorrow morning. Would that prove the iPhone wifi is not sleeping?

truerock wrote:

deggie,

I performed another test on my daughter's iPhone 4s and replicated the results I received on my iPhone 5.

Wifi does not go to sleep when an iPhone is not being used. As I've pointed out before, that is easily disproved by sending an iMessage via wifi to a sleeping iPhone and causing the receiving sleeping iPhone to wake up.

WiFi DOES go to sleep when the phone is not being used. This is easily proved:

Go to Settings/WiFi, tap on the arrow to the right and write down the IP address.

Now go to your computer on the same WiFi network, open a Terminal (Mac) or MSDOS (Windows) window on your computer and type:

ping <the phone's IP address>

Or, for Windows,

ping /t <the phone's IP address>

Your computer will send a packet to the phone every second and report the result. Now put the phone to sleep. Approximately 30 seconds after putting it to sleep the phone will stop responding.

What you are seeing with iMessage is the phone receives a Notification via cellular, then turns WiFi on to receive the notification, then turns it off again. It only works this way for notifications. For data sent from the phone WiFi is not turned on, and for data received by a background app in the absence of a notification the data are received over cellular and WiFi is not turned on.

Lawrence Finch,

Good idea. I closed all apps on the iPhone. I turned cell-data off. The iPhone is sleeping. The iPhone has 21% battery. I pinged the phone and it responded.

I'll wait 20 minutes and test again.

Well... I didn't need to wait 20 minutes. The iPhone stopped responding to a wifi ping after just a couple of minutes. But, when I sent an iMessage to the sleeping iPhone it woke up. Note: cell-data was turned off.

I'll do additional tests...

It should be sufficient to wait one minute if the phone is not connected to power. I just tried the same test and it stopped responding after 20 seconds.

Lawrence Finch,

I let the phone sleep for 6 minutes.

Battery = 19%, cell-data off, all apps closed, no charging cable

As you pointed out, the iPhone stopped responding to pings almost immediately... but, after sleeping for 6 minutes, a wifi iMessage was received by the sleeping iPhone and the sleeping iPhone woke up.

This is confusing... I'm going to need to think about this.

Thanks for the great idea.

I just ran a test with Find My iPhone

I let the phone sleep for 30 minutes.

Battery < 19%, cell-data off, all apps closed, no charging cable

When the sleeping iPhone is in range of my wifi router, Find My iPhone detects the sleeping iPhone

When the sleeping iPhone is not in range of my wifi router, Find My iPhone does not detect the sleeping iPhone

See my earlier post about Notifications. When the phone receives one it turns on WiFi. That's why an incoming iMessage turns it on, and why Find my iPhone does also. Other apps could do this, but it would require setting up a server to send notifications. Responsible developers do this. Less responsible developers just let the app run in background to get updates, which does not turn on WiFi.

Lawrence Finch,

So... the modem is not completely turned off... it's in some type of low-power state that responds to... what? Not pings, but other things?

I just logged onto iCloud from a Windows 7 PC. I placed an iCalendar event with a notification on it and it woke the sleeping iPhone up.

I let the phone sleep for 90 minutes.

Battery < 11%, cell-data off, all apps closed, no charging cable.

So, what are we saying here? That there are apps that will somehow use cell-data instead of wifi data when the phone is sleeping? Is there someway to demonstrate that?

I'm not sure here, but I think notifications go over the cellular side channel (the same channel used for SMS). A notification contains no data, just a signal to wake a specific app. And apparently turn on WiFi.