Q: IOS 8 High Cellular Data Usage

First, my phone was connected to my wifi, and neither A T & T nor Apple could explain why it was being charged against my data plan.  One of the charges in question, in fact, I actually showed them on my phone as a FaceTime call (this was before it was wiped, and I had the printout from A T & T showing the charges), and I told them that the phone was propped next to my MBP, which was also connected to wifi and I was on the internet editing a website.  So, if my MBP had connectivity, how was the phone not having a connection, especially when I could clearly see the wifi connection symbol on the phone screen?  Both Apple and A T & T were stumped on that one.

To answer your questions:

1.  Yes, my phone was wiped clean at the Apple Store.  I was specifically told I could NOT restore it from the back up I had created in iTunes on my MacBook Pro.  When I plugged it in, iTunes gives you the option to either set it up as a new phone or restore from backup; I chose to set it up as a new phone.  You'll have a series of tabs on the top of your iTunes screen (at least my version does):  Summary, Info, Apps, Ringtones, Music, etc.  Each will allow you to transfer information.  By making previous backups, I had transferred my apps (an important note to do in iTunes on your phone before it's wiped:  in iTunes, go to File --> Devices --> Transfer Purchases.  That will move all of your apps over to your computer and not just sync them).  I chose which apps I wanted to transfer to my phone (because I also have an iPad and didn't want them transferred); chose to sync my mail accounts; chose to move my custom-made ringtones and so on.  The contacts in my Address Book was the glitch.  That's where I had to actually CALL Apple Care.  I didn't have the option to move my Address Book (contacts) over, because the phone defaults to pull your contacts from iCloud.  That's why I stated in my previous post that you need to turn that setting off.  Once done, you can transfer all of your contacts, too.

My photos are backed up through Google Photos, since I have Google Drive, so that wasn't a problem -- I just downloaded back onto my phone from there whichever photos I wanted back to set for my wallpaper/background.  I don't store any music on my phone, but I could have transferred playlists if I so desired at this point.

FYI -- all of your messages are lost when your phone is wiped clean . . . but if you have an iPad, your messages will still be on that device.

2.  Documentation:  Log into your A T & T account online.  You can print any and all of your past monthly billing cycle(s) worth of data usage.  I have a 200 MB plan on my phone because I traditionally don't use a lot of data.  This was clear -- in the months of March, April and May of this year, I had used 48, 52 and 51 MB respectively.  Then, when I got this iPhone 6, within 3 weeks I had used 257 MB of data; in fact, when I called, I had logged 48 MB in one day!  The rep I spoke with (and this was after I'd gone to Apple and was told it was a "software problem" on my phone) at A T & T agreed that something was definitely wrong and removed the overage charge. 

Seriously, I spent my entire day yesterday goofing around with this phone.  What a frustrating experience!

LONG time Apple user and fan. I am sad to say that this feeling is diminishing.

In my opinion, these continual bugs – which is, without ambiguity, what they are – caused by updating and requiring end users to research, investigate, reset, restore, etc. simply to get the phones to operate and perform as promised and expected – and the associated user costs because of them – should fall entirely under the responsibility of Apple.

How a user is to be subject to data overages and additional costs because Apple has yet again failed to engineer an update properly is beyond me.

"Mysterious" midnight data usage aside, the ongoing trouble our family has been having with messaging issues and calls going to the wrong phone is a strong and clear message that Apple needs to focus on making things work before adding complications.

They are fixing things until they break, and it needs to stop.

Those "mysterious" midnight data usages were one of the red flags that convinced A T & T and Apple that something was wrong with my phone, in fact.  Beginning on the very day that I got this iPhone 6, every evening between 11:20 PM and 11:51 PM (when Lord knows I'm snoozing away), usage is being logged:  anywhere from 1570 KB to 22905 KB.  For weeks!  And all the time my phone is sitting on my kitchen counter, in sleep mode, set to connect to my wifi when it's in my home (and we have a strong router -- we even receive the signal outside).

The truly ironic thing in all of this is that A T & T gave me a really hard time when my husband and I upgraded:  hard sell to change my plan because one of my lines has the old "grandfathered" unlimited data plan on it.  They were continually pitching that no one needs unlimited data now, because phones are set up to automatically detect and connect to wifi -- and that's what the cell phone companies want you to do:  use wifi rather than cell data.

In good faith I did that!  And I got overage charges for it!

It was the mysterious midnight charges that convinced the guy at the Apple genius bar to replace my phone. (That and he wanted to go on his lunch break!) But I haven't had a problem at all with the new phone, so clearly it's some defect in the actual phones or in the way they're set up that nobody knows how to fix.

Yes - print out those usage reports and bring them. It's hard to argue with those middle of the night data dumps.

But they really, really need to fix this! And the fact that it crosses all carriers, to me, signifies that it's Apple's problem.

Joanne

Hi all-

My understanding is that overnight is when AT&T has chosen to update the day's activity; this makes little sense to me, but that's what they said. This, after having sudden overages occur at night; when we asked about this, we were told that the phone, once asleep, CANNOT RECONNECT TO WiFi and therefore uses up the data plan to run updates.

They have removed our overages every time this has happened (3 or 4 times).

I don't know if it's still the case about re-awaking and disconnecting from WiFi.

We use an app called DataMan that does seem to track real-time pretty well, though.

Thanks for the tip on the sleep mode-reconnection to wifi glitch.  I'm thinking maybe I need to turn my phone off at night.

I thought technology was supposed to get better -- not worse!  My old iPhone 3 was much more reliable than this!

Prior to the introduction of  LTE, Wi-Fi would obviously be the fastest connection available and the iPhone would, by default, connect to Wi-Fi. However, I'm starting  think that the LTE connection could now be overriding the Wi-Fi connection, because it could theoretically be providing a higher speed connection for some customers.

If so, Apple should make sure that their devices default to Wi-Fi no matter what, even if LTE is faster.  Not sure if this is the case, but if you're having this problem and are in communication with Apple, you may want to ask them if this is a possibility and ASK THEM TO FIX IT.  

Still having a HUGE issue with this and no one seems to have any answers.

An update, since this has been eating at me and my wallet:

Since both my husband and I got virtually identical iPhone 6 models on the same day, I'm able to do a comparison as to my usage vs. his usage on data.  He's on a higher data plan than me, BUT --

I had my phone wiped clean and reset; he did not.  Mine was eating up data; his was not.  I pulled up my data records and printed them out and did the same for him.  I had turned everything off on my phone -- push notifications, background updates -- you name it, it was turned off for cellular usage.  But the charges still were accruing.  His phone, however, showed activity:  he has enabled all of these notification and is always on his phone when connected to our home network -- but no data was logged as being used.

What was really suspect:  As I was on the phone with Apple Care on my landline setting up my phone after the reset, I received a 48 second voice call on my cell phone.  It showed up as a data charge on my account.  A voice call?  And this is after the phone had been reset!

I went to the A T & T store this morning with my husband and his phone and all my records and his records in tow.  Oh, yeah, they were skeptical at first and tried to fancy footwork their way out of it.  First it was an iMessages thing -- until they saw my husband also had iMessages enabled and wasn't being charged for them.  Then they saw all of his notifications enabled (and mine were not).  And they could not dispute the odd fact that I was charged data for a voice call.

With three (yes, 3) of their employees hovering over me (for nearly an hour), it was finally determined that I probably need to have my SIM card replaced, since that is what connects the phone to the network. 

I left there this morning with 402 KB as a reset on the SIM card and we turned my cellular data back on for voice and data.  In 8 (eight) hours, it's logged 392 KB of data (which we all know is minuscule) -- a fraction of what it had logged in the last several days (in fact, in one day I racked up nearly 92 MB when I had not left my home network previously).  And I've been out and about all day today, too!

Get your SIM card replaced!

Hopefully this has fixed my issue.  I relay all of this information in the hopes that I'll help someone fix their issue, too.  My frustration level these last few days has reached the breaking point, and no one -- absolutely no one -- should have to go through this.

I will obviously update if the SIM card replacement has not, indeed, resolved the problem.  I intend to get to the root of this, one way or another.

I'm now prety much convinced that this si not ans Apple or an iPhone problem, but a sophisticated scheme by carriers to expolit low data users and get them to pay for more data.

I believe this because I am a low data user myself. When I was on 3G with Orange (in the UK), even with tethering, my monthly usage was less than 1GB .

On 4G with EE (who own Orange) I'm on a 4GB cap. For several months this year I've experience sudden and unexplained data leakage. I had looked at all possible causes; the phone dropping WiFi while I was listening to internet radio overnight; Facebook video streaming, background app refreshing. I responded by turning off mobile data for all apps which stream AV services. There was no change. The only common thread seemed to be that the data loss typically occurred close to the end of my monthly billing period, but only if my data use for the month had been low. As long as I kept my data consumption to a daily average that cumulatively led to around 4GB + or - 10% there would be no data loss. If my data was very low, around the third week I would find around 2GB had vanished literally within the space of an hour or two. On one occasion, as I was heading home from one of the shops where I have a workshop, I checked my data meter to find that only had around 350MB left for the remaining 10 days whereas when I had checked it that morning I'd had around 2.5GB spare. EE's response was always the same: "we can sell you an extra data package to get you through the rest of the month, then maybe we can talk about upgrading you to a package that better suits your needs".

It came to a head one Saturday when there was an anomalous loss of my entire data allowance the day after it had refreshed. When I spoke to customers service I got the usual mantra of "I'll top up your account this time to get you through the month and then we need to talk about upgrading you..." until; I poiunted out something that the guy in customer services had missed; this data loss had occurred over a period of hours and that "the end of the month" which he was assuming was only a few days away, was actually 30 days away...

I was met with an embarrassed silence and when I pointed out that, as fast as 4g is, any phone that handled data traffic at that rate would probably have gone into meltdown.

In fairness to him, he admitted that there must be something wrong, gave me 12 GB of data; they stopped metering my account while they investigated the problem and, in due course, when they started voiding my account details and treating me like a new subscriber every time I moved from one cell to another, they gace me a new SIM card and the problem has not recurred since.

Now, it may be that it's not a conspiracy to defraud at all,  but it seems that as long as the comms provider's first approach is to exploit it to sell you more data, there is little incentive to fix the problem...

I can presume, hopefully, that my personal issue has been resolved.

When my phone was reset at the Apple store on 7/22, the data charge issues seemed to continue.  However, when I had my SIM card replaced at the A T & T store on 7/24, I have accrued virtually no data charges on my line.

Prior to having the SIM card replaced, I was logged as using 92 MB in about 8 hours (after the phone was reset).  Since the SIM card has been replaced (approximately 57 hours according to my calculations as I type this), I have logged a total of 948 KB.  That's a monumental difference and more in line to my normal usage (I normally use a max of 50 or so MB per month), since I always connect to our home wifi for heavy data usage.

I have made it a point since this SIM card was replaced to (while connected to my home network) surf on the web, upload photos, text, make and receive phone calls, send texts with photos attached and update apps.  My only conclusion is that either I had no SIM card whatsoever or a completely malfunctioning SIM card which prevented me from ever connecting to anything other than the cellular network for data usage.

While I'm pleased that I apparently got my issues resolved, I urge everyone else who is still tackling this to not only visit Apple but also to pursue this extensively with their carrier.  It took 3 employees (and ultimately the A T & T store manager) to authorize that I get a new SIM card - and that was only after my husband (who was with me) balked about the bunk I had endured already.

And, @Eltham, as a personal reply to you:  I see your point.  For quite an extended period of time prior to my SIM card being replaced, the 3 (yes, three) employees at the A T & T store were trying to figure out how to bump my data plan up from 200 MB to 3 GB.  But, alas, I'm on one of those older contract plans that I just renewed (I've been a customer for too many years to count and these plans won't be available for renewal after September 1); so my data plan simply could not be bumped up -- of course, at an additional cost to me -- but I was under contract, so no changes could be made to my plan at all.  This was quite vexing to them, for what were they to do if they couldn't charge me more money?  That is, finally, when one of them deduced that perhaps my SIM card (and the connectivity) was the issue.

BINGO.

I have the same problems with unbelievably high data usage with my 5c and iOS 8.4 and changing the SIM card did definitely not work for me! It all started two months ago, when I unexpectedly reached my 500mb after 3 weeks. I never reached the 500 mb before! Also, the battery gets really hot while using safari. That's when I started looking into this and read of all the problems. For me, it's Safari and Documents & sync, which use the most cellular data. I look at mobile websites for about 5 minutes and 50 mb are gone! EVERYTHING in my iPhone settings is turned off (iCloud, Updates, Itunes and App Store etc.). I even changed my provider, so it's definitely not the SIM card. I reset my iphone via itunes and set it up as a new one. Still the same problem!

When will apple finally address the problem and find a solution?

Thank you for this info.  Hope it helps other people.

AppleSucks99 Ok so I am going to tell everyone what has started working for me. Long story short I have the 2gb plan with the Iphone 6 on verizon (had the 5 with the same issue) and go through it within 5 days of the new cycle. So hopefully this next piece helps everyone like it did me. First I am on wifi about 90% of the time either at work or at home. So i tried doing everything Apple said to do and turn off cellular data and the back ground app refresh (which is bull crap because some apps in their own setting still have this on and cannot be turned off) which did me no good. So what I have found that works for me is to actually turn off the LTE radio and only be on 3g when connected to wifi (like at home and work). This has dropped my cellular usage back to a normal rate and for the past 2 weeks have seen a drastic improvement in my overall data consumption. I have even gone a couple of days with no data usage what so ever. So my conclusion is this...the LTE radio is always on using data even when connected to wifi. Apple needs to fix this asap. Whenever wifi is connect IOS should shut down the LTE radio until wifi connectivity is lost. Hopefully others can try this out and report back if their data usage looks to correct itself. Oh btw Apple is a bunch of phags!

Hi. What did you mean by you had the iCloud Drive switched off?  Did you delete or remove your iCloud account or did you just disable the 'automatic backup'?

webdevandy

Feb 4, 2015 6:48 PM 

Re: IOS 8 High Cellular Data Usage

in response to webdevandy

Since my last post Ive ran my iPhone 6+ with no iCloud enabled across 2 days. Minimal increments in cell data usage. All good.   This evening I finally switched on iCloud before heading out (but not iCloud Drive). Within an hour I had used 16MB of data!   The culprit (for me anyway) is DEFINETLY iCloud. I should also point out that there was no interaction on my part. I did nothing to engage iCloud. No checking email. No taking photos. Nothing. iPhone was simply in my pocket doing what it had done the previous 2 days when iCloud was not switched on.   So the next question is which part of iCloud is at fault? Along with iCloud Drive switched off I have now disabled Photos. Everything else is switched on. I will now monitor tomorrow and see if this resolves the data issue.   AndyG.

Yes, I do remember someone telling me you have to have an LTE-capable sim as well for it to work well with an LTE-capable device. I'm not so sure if this has anything to do with it hogging so much data usage (but for you it did).  Thanks for reminding me about this.

So if you are upgrading to an LTE device still using your old number or old sim -- you have to have it REPLACED with an LTE-capable/compatible SIM.  Funny how a lot of telcos seem to leave or forget to give this information out.