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Level 1

10 points

Why do I have mysterious cellular data usage (Verizon) every 6 hours on all 3 of my iphone 5's?

I have recently uncovered mysterious cellular usage on three different iPhones. I am a Verizon customer and discovered this by examining the cellular data use logs. What I found are a long series of mysterious data usage logs. I have visited the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store 3 times now to log notes and discuss the issue. It is being escalated.

The characterstics are as follows:

All my family phones have the appropriate IOS and hardware updates (verified by the GeniusBar at my local Apple Store).
This is occuring across three phones, which happen to all be iphone 5. Two are 5 and the other a new 5s. We do have one iphone 4 in the family but the issue (so far as I can tell), is not happening on it.
One iphone 5 has IOS 7, the other IOS 6. The new 5s has of course IOS 7.
Mysterious data use happens even while connected to wifi.
Each mysterious data use log entry is exactly 6 hours apart. For example: 2:18 AM, 8:18 AM, 2:18 PM, 8:18 PM, 2:18 AM ... etc. It cycles AM and PM, same times, for a day to many days until some condition causes it to change (evolve).
The times evolve. One day it could be cycling through at one time series, then it changes to another time sequence and continues until the next condition.
The data usage is anywhere from a few K to many MB. The largest I've seen is over 100 MB.
The logs clearly show these usages are not due to human interaction. It is a program.
If cellular connection is used frequently (by the owner), the pattern is hard to pick out. Luckily, my family member is very good about only using wifi whenever possible, so these mysterious use patterns are easy to pick out.
Verizon allows access to 90 days worth of data logs, so I downloaded and analyzed them. This has been happening for at least 90 days. I have found 298 instances of mysterious use out of 500 total connections to cellular. A total of 3.5 GB of mysterious cellular data has been recorded as used in that 90 days by this phone alone. Only .6 GB of the total cellular data use is legitimate, meaning by the person.
This issue is occuring across three different phones. Two are iPhone 5, and the third is a recently purchased iPhone 5s. The 5s I have not touched beyone the basic startup. I have left it alone on a desk for 3 days, and looking at the logs, the mysterious data use in the same pattern is occuring.

So ... I am speaking to both sides, Verizon and Apple to get answers. Verizon puts their wall up at data usage. It doesn't matter how it is being used, you simply need to pay for it. Yes, the evidence I have gathered is getting closer to someting on Verizon's end.

Before pressing in that direction, I am hoping someone reading this may recognize this issue as a possible iPhone 5 issue ... OR ... you, right now, go look at your data usage logs available through your carrier's web account, and see if you can pick out a pattern of mysterious use. Look especially at the early morning instances when you are most likely sleeping.

I am hoping this is a simple issue that has a quick resolution. I'm looking for the "ooohhh, I see that now ..." But I am starting to think this might be much bigger, but the fact is, most customers rarely or never look at their data usage details, much less discover mysterious use patterns.

The final interesting (maybe frightening part) thing about all this is that I discovered while talking to Verizon ... they do not divulge which direction the data is going. This goes for any use, mysterious or legitimate. Is cellular data coming to your phone, or leaving it? Is something pulling data from your phone? We know that it is possible to build malware apps, but the catch with my issue is that it is also happening on a brand new iphone 5s with nothing downloaded to it.

Thanks for your time

iPhone 5, iphone 5 and 5c, both ios 6 and 7

Posted on Oct 28, 2013 10:20 AM

Best reply

Lawrence Finch

Level 10

204,152 points

Posted on Jan 23, 2014 10:59 AM

mtamaki wrote:

Other questions from a while back in the disucssion -

Which way is the data going, push or pull?

Why does it use cellular data only and not wifi when it is within a strong wifi network? The 6 hour increment of data use does stop when you turn off cellular data.

What on the iPhone, even it were service oriented, requires that much data? Ideas may include documents, email, pictures, video, application data, facetime video and sound ... etc

1. No way to know which way it is going, unless you have an app such as Onavo. However, Settings/Cellular shows cumulatively how much data was sent and how much was received.

2. Being within a WiFi field is not sufficient. WiFi goes off 30 seconds after the screen goes off to save battery, so any data transfer when the screen is off will go over cellular. WiFi, unlike cellular, uses power continuously, whether transferring data or not. This is not an iPhone characteristic; it is the nature of the WiFi standard. But it means that if WiFi stayed on all the time the battery would run down very fast. The exception is when the phone is connected to power. Then WiFi stays on.

3. Settings/Cellular will show you how much data each app uses, but not what the app is using it for. You can turn off individual apps to prevent them from using cellular data. If you take frequent screen shots of that page you can sort of graph your data usage for each app over time.

Regarding the 6 hours, it's more complicated than I implied. (I've worked on telecom billing systems). Whenever you leave one area covered by a Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO) that switch sends a single record to the billing system showing all of the data you used while connected to the switch. These occur at random times. (An MTSO can support many towers, so it is a larger scale than simply a tower). The systems I worked on also had a "close" function at the end of the day that sent a single billing record from the MTSO you are connected to at the close time, which is roughly midnight PST for AT&T. This is so if you stay home for several days you get a summary record each day rather that one after multiple days. Many other carriers around the world use the same billing system.

Verizon uses a different billing system. I'm guessing here, because I never worked on Verizon's system, but since the 6 hour interval is so consistent I suspect that Verizon's MTSOs send the summary record from the MTSO you have been connected to every 6 hours rather than every 24 hours. The reason you see other usage in between is due to the fact that as you travel when you leave the coverage area of an MTSO a summary is generated also. And sometimes you can even switch MTSOs without moving; for example, if your local switch is overloaded you might be transferred to another nearby switch. This is especially common in large cities, where a switch may cover only a few blocks, as opposed to a rural network when the switches can be 15 miles apart.

On a historical note, when AT&T and Apple released the first iPhone a billing record was generated for every data transfer. This resulted in users getting bills of 300 or more pages, listing every transfer. Also, since the record only reported in kilobyte chunks, a 100 byte transfer would be reported as 1 KB. As data was unlimited for the first iPhone this usage inflation on the bill was not a problem for the customer, but it did make people wonder where all that information was going.

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97 replies

JohnStG7

Level 1

4 points

Jan 24, 2014 8:49 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks for the info Lawrence. Regarding #2 - about WiFi switching to cellular once power is off. What about ipods/ipads? They still receive push notifications even when screen is off. I assumened the phone worked the same way on wifi.

I too have this same 6 hr issue. I had 3 iPhone 4's and one iphone 5 on my account. My 5 never hit this data flood. However, last fall we upgraded 2 of the 4's to the 5S and (looking back) the very next bill I saw the data go from less than half a gig to over the 2Gb limit... and the $10 surcharge on top for each. Now, it's two 5's and two 5S's on the account. Only the 5S's show this usage.

I only discovered this recentlty when looking at the bills more closely, but same as the others... 3:48 am, 9:48 am, 3:48 pm.... roughly 30mb each time. I predict a class action suit once the culprit is revealed. I'll check the apps more closely and report back.

Jan 25, 2014 6:07 AM in response to JohnStG7

Go to Settings/Cellular and turn off cellular data for all apps. Check for cellular data usage. If it has gone down try turning on the apps one at a time until you find which one is doing it. Or just look at the data usage for each app on that screen.

mtamaki Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 25, 2014 8:35 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Already done long ago. The issue also happens with a brand new activated phone still sealed in a box. No iCloud activated, no email, no nothing. So whatever is doing it is a default install.

Jan 25, 2014 8:50 AM in response to mtamaki

And that new phone still uses 30 MB every 6 hours? 120 MB a day? 3.6 GB a month?

In 6 1/2 years the most data that my phone has ever used in a month is about 500 MB. Most months its around 200 MB.

mtamaki Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 25, 2014 5:42 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

No. It just uses data every 6 hours. The amount of data varies. A dormant new phone still on the box uses maybe just a few K to several hundred K at each of those increments of 6 hours.

The 6 hour occurance of data also changes. One day it could be 5:25PM, 11:25PM, 5:25AM ... etc . The next day it changes to 9:15AM, 3:15PM, 9:15PM ... etc. Sometimes this pattern goes on for 2-3 days before changing.

Jan 25, 2014 6:42 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

One can not turn off cell usage (ios7) for system services and that is where we found our greatest usage. We also see significant cell data usage even when the phone is externally powered and connected to wifi. Need to look deeper. Would be nice if there is an app that can log the name of the calling app, the time and usage of the various system services (such as push notifications and messaging). To find the function causing the cell data activity on an ios7 device, after resetting the cell data usage, one should recheck the usage counters at 6 hour increments and compare against the data log on the cell web site.

Feb 13, 2014 9:51 AM in response to stevelevy

my son's 4s does not show this data usage; but this began after Christmas Day; when i gave my daugher her new 5C (and activated it on christmas morning) we have these data usage fees now.

it is significant; the data totals neary 1GB from Dec25-Jan7

Apple and Verizon MUST know what this is; and how users can prevent it, but the silence is obvious that they do not WANT us to know what services are jacking up these charges.

all these charges occur when my daugters phone is at home connected to WIFI

does ANYONE know what specific app or services are generating these regular interval charges so they can be SHUT DOWN?????

12/21/2013	9:55 PM	2.21
12/25/2013	9:55 AM	0.3
12/25/2013	3:55 PM	0.08
12/25/2013	9:55 PM	0.04
12/26/2013	3:55 AM	0.58
12/26/2013	9:55 AM	9.09
12/26/2013	3:55 PM	94.68
12/26/2013	9:55 PM	0.35
12/27/2013	3:55 AM	0.02
12/27/2013	9:55 AM	2.32
12/27/2013	3:55 PM	0.04
12/27/2013	9:55 PM	0.02
12/28/2013	3:55 AM	0.02
12/28/2013	9:55 AM	0.43
12/28/2013	3:55 PM	3.57
12/28/2013	9:55 PM	0.03
12/29/2013	3:55 AM	0.02
12/29/2013	9:55 AM	1.73
12/29/2013	3:55 PM	0.06
12/29/2013	9:55 PM	1.59
12/30/2013	3:55 AM	3.36
12/30/2013	9:55 AM	6.46
12/30/2013	3:55 PM	2.53
12/30/2013	9:55 PM	5.2
12/31/2013	3:55 AM	1.59
12/31/2013	9:55 AM	2.15
12/31/2013	3:55 PM	0.02
12/31/2013	9:55 PM	2.8
1/1/2014	3:55 AM	0
1/1/2014	9:55 AM	47.43
1/1/2014	3:55 PM	1.55
1/1/2014	9:55 PM	1.76
1/2/2014	3:55 AM	1.92
1/2/2014	9:55 AM	43.13
1/2/2014	3:55 PM	0.1
1/2/2014	9:55 PM	0.19
1/3/2014	3:55 AM	6.47
1/3/2014	9:55 AM	12.13
1/3/2014	3:55 PM	170.41
1/3/2014	9:55 PM	203.26
1/4/2014	3:55 AM	1.47
1/4/2014	9:55 AM	119.34
1/4/2014	3:55 PM	90.89
1/4/2014	9:55 PM	1.71
1/5/2014	3:55 AM	1.72
1/5/2014	9:55 AM	61.63
1/5/2014	3:55 PM	15.62
1/5/2014	9:55 PM	0.02
1/6/2014	3:55 AM	0
1/6/2014	9:55 AM	0.07
1/6/2014	3:55 PM	0.44
1/6/2014	9:55 PM	6.48
1/7/2014	3:55 AM	0.02
1/7/2014	9:55 AM	8.24

Feb 13, 2014 10:09 AM in response to brentvideo

ANY app that uses data when the phone is asleep and not connected to power will use cellular data, because WiFi is turned off to preserve the battery when the phone is asleep. If you go to Settings/Cellular you can see how much data each app uses. Reset Statistics at the beginning of each bill cycle and you will know exactly what is using data and how much. My bet is Facebook.

The 6 hour interval is the frequency the billing system is updated by the network. It is not the time the data usage happened; it is a summary of the previous 6 hours. If every data transfer was listed your bill would be hundreds of pages (as it was for the first iPhone users in 2007).

Cabell62

Level 1

0 points

Mar 4, 2014 10:17 AM in response to mtamaki

I just got a 5c, about a week ago. I have gone through nearly 6 gigs of data. Thought it was because I was transferring data between computers but see on Verizon that there are regular peaks of data usage. The only time I exceeded my 2G data allocation in the last few years was taking classes through Coursera. I quit the wireless data transferring 3 or 4 days ago but the consistent data usage, same times, unknown place, continues.

Contrary to Finch's statements, that this is a Verizon problem, not an Apple problem, I did not experience this usage up until changing to the iPhone. At that point, I used a BB and have been a Verizon user for many years. Am seriously considering sending this phone back and getting another BB.

By the way, no podcasts on my phone. Also, have turned off all automatic updates and the iCloud. Have just done this so will have to see if the data usage is affected.

Mar 4, 2014 11:26 AM in response to Cabell62

Have you compared your usage as reported on your phone (Settings/Cellular) to your usage as reported by Verizon? If they agree your phone is using the data. if they do not agree then it is a Verizon problem.

If they agree that same location in Settings will tell you specifically which apps used the data.

Cabell62

Level 1

0 points

Mar 4, 2014 11:37 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Very good! Thank you.

Mar 18, 2014 4:18 AM in response to mtamaki

I have seen similar usage on my account. I live in a rural area and my only internet accessis via mobile broadband 4G. Mysterious usage shows up and each time, it has been huge. I have a 16GB plan and occassionally see between 2.5 and 6 GB being consumed while all of my devices and computere are not in use. Verizon has no reason to investigate because it's profitable. I have checked my phones and can't correllate the useage with the dates of teh heavy activity. I don't like paying for something I have no control over. One day in January, I had nearly 10GB of my plan used in one day. Based on the interval between samples and the data consumed, the download rate was substantially higher than anything I've experienced before. I'm almost certain that there is a problem on the Verizon side where useage is attributed to the wrong account. I just can't explain it. I need a tool to monitor this activity independently so I'll have something to confront Verizon with.

reet

Level 1

9 points

May 15, 2014 6:55 AM in response to mtamaki

I've noticed this on my Verizon iPhone 5s, I upgraded from a Sprint Samsung Galaxy S2. The 5s is having the 6 hour increments. Verizon suggested that keeping the screen from going to sleep, or turning off the cellular data until needed. Both of which are NOT viable solutions to the problem. I stopped by our IT department and talked with a few of the Apple passionate individuals, they said they've heard about this problem and to try turning off background app refresh. I did this, and although the mysterious 1:38am cellular data use is still present, in one night it dropped from 20-30MB to 1.75MB.

Not really the best fix since with the GS2 I'm used to using about 1.79GB/month with periodic music streaming, video streaming, etc. Now with the 5s I'm really skitish to use data for anything and I'm still going over my 2GB/month. It's a feeling that I'm truly not paying for data I'm in control of.

http://www.besttechie.com/2013/10/06/new-ios-7-feature-cause-data-usage-to-spike -heres-how-to-fix-it/

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5364520?tstart=0

mtamaki Author

Level 1

10 points

May 15, 2014 2:51 PM in response to reet

This is the first mention of "turning off background app refresh". If that is the problem, then it makes sense because that is why the issue still exists even with a brand new iPhone 5 fresh out of the box. I will try that. Thanks.

An update to this issue ... it seems to be consistent across the board for iPhone 5 users. Since no official Apple folks are chiming in and the Apple Store Genius folks don't have anything to contribute and are equally mystified, this simply means that this is a built in feature of the IOS and that Apple product owners just need to deal with it. The feature Background app refresh being activated in the latest IOS then makes sense as the cause of this problem.

Since getting this latest post, I decided to glance at my Verizon usage report and sure enough, the 6 hour increment of massive data use is still alive and well. In fact, just yesterday, I notice a 170 MB burst. Who and what needs that much data from users? What is that data from our iPhones being used for? Are they pictures, video, message conversations, documents, email, app data?

My 4 GB plan ran out of data on Monday, and no, it is not from our data use. So I am now paying for more until the end of the cycle. It's only $10-15, but multiply that by millions of unsuspecting customers.

May 15, 2014 3:54 PM in response to mtamaki

mtamaki wrote:

An update to this issue ... it seems to be consistent across the board for iPhone 5 users. Since no official Apple folks are chiming in and the Apple Store Genius folks don't have anything to contribute and are equally mystified, this simply means that this is a built in feature of the IOS and that Apple product owners just need to deal with it. The feature Background app refresh being activated in the latest IOS then makes sense as the cause of this problem.

Background App Refresh has always been a feature of iOS since version 2.0. What is new in iOS 7 is the ablilty to selectively turn it off.

And no, the problem is NOT "consistent across the board for iPhone 5 users". It certainly isn't a problem for me, and I have 210 3rd party apps installed on my phone AND have Background App Refresh on for all of the apps that can use it. My monthly data usage is between 400 MB and 800 MB. It may be "consistent across the board" for the dozen or so participants in this thread, but it is certainly not for the 500 million other iPhone users. If you turn off all of the apps in Background App Refresh, then turn then on singly, you will be able to identify the one or two apps that are responsible. My bet is on Facebook.

Don't discount the possibility that it is a Verizon reporting error. Have you tried tracking your phone's data usage in Settings/Cellular? Not only will it tell you the total data usage, but also the data usage by app. If the total usage is not close to what Verizon reports it is a Verizon problem. If it is close then you have apps on your phone that are really using that much data.

Regarding the 6 hour interval, that has already been discussed, but to repeat, 6 hours is the reporting cycle for data billing, it is not the time the data use actually occurred. I have AT&T, and instead of 6 hour bursts, there is one burst of delayed data reporting every 24 hours around midnight PST. And the data use is two way; the number includes data sent TO the phone as well as data sent FROM the phone.

Why do I have mysterious cellular data usage (Verizon) every 6 hours on all 3 of my iphone 5's?