What is DNS Services and why does it use so much data?

I have 300MB to use a month on my iPhone 4S (most recent iOS) and I'm normally pretty good with it because I'm connected to WiFi a lot. All of a sudden, my data usage spikes and my DNS services usage has gone up to 40MB. What is this and how do I keep it from spiking like this? It's incredibly annoying.


Also, any other tips on saving data while connected with the 3G? As mentioned before, I only have 300MB so I like to stretch it for the month.

iPhone 4S, iOS 7.1.1

Posted on Jun 6, 2014 4:23 PM

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Posted on Jun 6, 2014 4:31 PM

DNS (Domain Name Service) is the Internet "address book" of web sites. Whenever you go to a site such as http://apple.com your browser must make calls to the DNS server specified in your Network Settings to translate "apple.com" into Apple's IP (Internet Protocol) address of 17.178.96.59. Any time you access any Internet resource (such as sending or receiving email, playing multi-player games, using a browser, Using any app that accesses data on the Internet such as news, weather, stocks, etc) one or more DNS lookups must be made. Many web sites have content from several different sites. Each site referenced on the page must also be looked up. Each query is small (~100 bytes), but they can add up.

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Jun 6, 2014 4:31 PM in response to TiffaniMichele

DNS (Domain Name Service) is the Internet "address book" of web sites. Whenever you go to a site such as http://apple.com your browser must make calls to the DNS server specified in your Network Settings to translate "apple.com" into Apple's IP (Internet Protocol) address of 17.178.96.59. Any time you access any Internet resource (such as sending or receiving email, playing multi-player games, using a browser, Using any app that accesses data on the Internet such as news, weather, stocks, etc) one or more DNS lookups must be made. Many web sites have content from several different sites. Each site referenced on the page must also be looked up. Each query is small (~100 bytes), but they can add up.

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Jun 6, 2014 4:32 PM in response to TiffaniMichele

Separate topic. When the phone is asleep you are not connected to WiFi, so if you have any apps that run in background and use data they will use cellular data rather than WiFi. Unless the phone is connected to power or you turn off cellular data.

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What is DNS Services and why does it use so much data?

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