Using cellular data when in Wifi coverage and alseep

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darelldd Author

Level 1

4 points

Using cellular data when in Wifi coverage and alseep

Newbie alert: Frist iPhone ever.

The phone: New 4s immediately updated to ios6.

300mb data plan, since very little data use is planned...

The problem: After four days into the billing period, the phone had used 200+ mb of the 300 mb of cellular data.

The phone is rarely used for anything but calling outside of our Wifi coverage. Not Siri. Not Facetime. Not streaming movies or music. Cellular is left on for locator services. We'll be turning it off until this is resolved though! Facetime is off. Use of cellular for the App store is off. Basically cellular is off for anything I can find to turn off... except that cellular data in general is left on.

When I look at my detailed billing online, it shows (for example) that yesterday morning at 6:53, 1.5 mb of cellular data was used. The phone was home on the charger. Nobody (including the phone) was awake. The wifi is working just fine. Why is it using cellular data?? The billing also shows that all data is in the "sent" direction. And it is all of type "Internet MEdia Net."

We're ten days into the billing now, and just about every day has ONE event of cellular data. It is either early morning (6-7am) or in the evening (7-9pm). So the kicker for me is - even if we ARE using data, the phone is ALWAYS in our WiFi range during those hours. The little indicator shows full signal every time we look. It works just fine when we turn cellular off.

Any clue why we're being dinged for data?

Thanks!

- Darell

iPhone 4S, iOS 6

Posted on Oct 6, 2012 9:24 PM

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Answer 1

darelldd Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 9, 2012 6:21 PM in response to darelldd

Not surprisingly, I've gotten the same answer from the local ATT store as well as from the Premier ATT customer service line. Crickets. Everybody agrees that it is odd, but nobody even has a suggestion (beyond turning "multitasking" items off). One helpful service rep went so far as to tell me that there are many data items that only use cellular even if I'm on Wifi - like email and sending pictures.

yeah well... except that all that works on Wifi with cellular OFF! Ug.

We've had cellular off now for three days, and everything we use on the phone still works perfectly when in wifi range. And there are no more cellular charges. We just can't use the locator services... or actually use the cellular data when we *want* to use it. I'm afraid to turn it back on!

Ah, one thing I found that doesn't seem to work any other way but cellular data is retrieving voicemail... or at least being alerted to same. I turned on cellular data just now for ten seconds. Long enough for the voice mail alert to blip in. Unless that was a big coincidence, I guess there is yet another compelling reason to leave cellular data on.

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