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

stlusch wrote:

I also have this same thing happening on both my iPhone and iPad, what confuses me is that even when on wireless (which is 90% of the time)

Do you mean wifi?

Wireless usually means having a cellular data connection., not wifi.

Here's the problem: Data Plan w/ AT&T and Verizon. I am just fed up with having to watch how much data i (and the rest of my family) am using and what is available before billing cycle ends. Once my contract ends with Verizon, I will be looking for Unlimited Data (Sprint). Trust me guys, its not your phones. My son has an iPhone 4 and I have an HTC Android (everything above applies).

I am convinced that the main culprit is the Background App Refresh. With a little experimenting I went from a mysterious 300+mb usage a day (broken up into the previously stated 6 hour download increments) to approximately 30mb a day, the reduction was linked to turning off the Background App Refresh. Try it, so far it has helped by diminishing my mysterious data usage.

I believe I have the same issue with AT&T. 2 of the users on my plan just upgraded to iPhone 5 S and the data usage on these phones increased dramatically. Both had the Background App Refresh on for Face Book, Snap Chat, and Instagram activated and both show the huge data uses at regular intervals even when the phones were connected to wifi. The users turned this Background App Refresh off today so I'll look at the usage tomorrow to verify the reduction of the data usage.

I have been using a mobile broadband modem since 2010 and I have never figured out what's using my data plan. Apparently Apple Mail and iCloud are big contributors. I have Mail, Calendar, and Notes using iCloud so my iPhone 4 will sync. I've noticed that a lot of the excessive usage is uplink, not downlink as I had expected. Facebook is a data hog as well. I'm struggling to stay within a 16GB data plan and I don't stream movies or music, I don't play games, and I haven't updated anything in months. I do keep the firewall enabled on my computer, phone, and mobile broadband modem. I would love to hear something from Apple about this.

I believe I'll be following suit with respect to turning off LTE - it does decrease battery use, but it's not worth it if it's the reason I allegedly chew through ridiculous amounts of data with minimal use. (Not to mention that sometimes turning off LTE is the only way I can get reception.)

This may be completely unrelated, but I've noticed that when I create a hotspot and work on my laptop over USB, I'm dinged for much less data even when going to the same sites I normally visit. I can understand that some of this would be due to AdBlock on my laptop, but we're talking an order of magnitude here.

The 6 hour intervals are the data session the network allows you to carry on - your phone connects to cell tower and attaches to an available data port (not proper term, but I think you can understand that) that session will hold for six hours before timing out and starting another data session. You may not be using data nonstop for that six hours, but the ability is there if you need it. Push notifications kinda keep the session from going idle. Hope that helps

I noticed mysterious data usage (approx. 1.2 GB) in last 4 days, when most part of this duration our iPhones had Wi-Fi connections. I contacted Verizon Wireless and inquired about this mysterious usage. Immediately the agent recognized the issue and told me that Wi-Fi Assist feature on the iPhone is the culprit, hence she recommended me to turn off Wi-Fi Assist feature, Settings>Cellular>Wi-Fi Assist (Scroll to the bottom on the Cellular window to reach Wi-Fi Assist switch).

In addition to her suggestion, I've turned off Background App Refresh switch on those apps which were consuming large amount of data. Hope these 2 changes will fix high data usage issue. I’ll post an update later for results.

meyoda wrote:

I noticed mysterious data usage (approx. 1.2 GB) in last 4 days, when most part of this duration our iPhones had Wi-Fi connections. I contacted Verizon Wireless and inquired about this mysterious usage. Immediately the agent recognized the issue and told me that Wi-Fi Assist feature on the iPhone is the culprit, hence she recommended me to turn off Wi-Fi Assist feature, Settings>Cellular>Wi-Fi Assist (Scroll to the bottom on the Cellular window to reach Wi-Fi Assist switch).

In addition to her suggestion, I've turned off Background App Refresh switch on those apps which were consuming large amount of data. Hope these 2 changes will fix high data usage issue. I’ll post an update later for results.

The other thing to be aware of is WiFi is turned off when the phone goes to sleep, unless it is connected to power. So background processing when the phone is asleep will always use cellular data (unless plugged in).

It's happening on my iPhone 6, a 6S and a 7 in my family. I'm concerned thats it's verizon "polling" the phones and increasing data usage. Every time I talk to them they suggest the unlimited plan- - which leads me to believe it's a marketing ploy.

The last technical support person I talked to seemed to think it's something on their end and has promised to get back to me about the issue, although my past experience with Verizon is that it isn't going to help....

Actually, that IS it. When you travel from tower to tower each time you change the tower that you have just used sends data to billing. That's the data you see between the 6 hour intervals. The 6 hour report is for the site you are connected to currently. I've designed phone billing systems, and they are all similar. AT&T users a once-a-day update at 12 AM PST for the current switch reporting, Verizon uses 6 hour intervals for the current switch reporting.

beancter wrote:

then why did verizon tell me that's not what it is? they said its malware -- which I don't believe. and why doesn't it occur on every line in our plan?

Probably because you spoke to level 1 customer support, or, possibly even an outsourced, contract employee.

beancter wrote:

then why did verizon tell me that's not what it is? they said its malware -- which I don't believe. and why doesn't it occur on every line in our plan?

Verizon didn't tell you anything. A Verizon tier 1 CSR, probably in India, and paid $1 an hour, told you that. The don't know much other than what is in their script. And they are rated on how many calls they can complete in an hour, so they will say anything that will get you to hang up. The average tier 1 CSR is in the job for 3 to 6 months before they move on. There is no malware on an unjailbroken iPhone, so you are right not to believe it.

You said it DID occur on every line in your plan:

Nope, that's not it -- there are numerous incidents of data usage between these 6 hour time periods on several of the phones. It's only the phones with low data usage that it's so easy to see between the six hour intervals. But on the line with a lot of data usage, those every six hour postings are still there, you just have to look for them.

It won't appear on any phone that has had no data usage.

I'll be turning off cellular tomorrow as well and see what happens. But I hope that isn't the only solution!

So if the usage isn't the same on the app and on my VZ account, then does that mean it isn't VZ's billing servers?