iOS 4 racks up data usage while I sleep

cory bauercory bauer
Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
With AT&T's new data plan offerings, I decided to ditch the $30/mo unlimited plan for a $15/mo 200MB plan, saving myself $360 over the course of a 2 year contract. At the time my data usage was just over 200MB, so by being a little more careful I was confident I could keep it under 200MB.



Well I got my first detailed bill today, which includes data usage broken down with timestamps and kb from June 20th to July 20th. I went through and highlighted all of the data usage I knew would have happened either before I left for work or the night before while I was asleep; it added up to a whopping 75.35MB that should have been sent/received on my home wi-fi connection, but for some reason was not. Subtracting that, I would have only used 94MB of data for the month. I called Apple and they offered no explanation, and their only suggestion was to manually enable/disable cellular data when I enter and exit locations with wi-fi



I was running an iPhone 3G with iOS 4 until July 1st, when I was fortunate enough to pick up an iPhone 4, so it's not specific to iPhone 4. I have push email enabled for both MobileMe and a work Exchange account, so I assume that's the data being sent while I sleep. Why isn't my iPhone staying on my wi-fi network through the night, why isn't it connecting immediately in the morning, and what can I do about it? I have an Apple Time capsule, if that matters. Thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Okay what is happening is, when your phone is asleep it actually still receives push emails, etc through the cell network. AFAIK it will not automatically connect to wifi, wifi is on when phone is on, wifi off when phone is asleep. Because it looks like the persistent connection is the cell data pathway. The only thing I can think of is to turn off Push for all your services.



    I got fed up with one of my carriers and switched to another here in my country, because I don't want any additional charges once you go over the limit. My new carrier will just throttle the speed once you go past your bandwidth limit.



    At least in iOS4 you can manually specifically turn off cellular data. That and/or turn off Push and set it to Fetch manually...
  • Reply 2 of 6
    cory bauercory bauer Posts: 1,286member
    Thanks for the reply nvidia2008, but as I discovered yesterday it's not that simple. There's a 25-page ongoing thread about this over at the Apple Support Forums, which I wasn't aware of when I started this thread yesterday. There should not be multiple megabytes of data sent and received during the night unless one is receiving multiple megabytes of emails. Even 1MB is a lot of emails, when they average 25kb a piece. 10MB of attachment-free emails in the middle of the night would be unheard of, and some people are seeing over 100MB of unexplainable data usage on their bills! People who were averaging 30MB/mo are suddenly getting overage warnings with a 200MB/mo plan; and this started occurring before iOS4 was available so multitasking 3rd party apps running in the background can't really be blamed.



    Neither AT&T or Apple are taking responsibility for the unclaimed data usage, with both pointing fingers at the other.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    rokcet scientistrokcet scientist Posts: 962member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cory Bauer View Post


    There should not be multiple megabytes of data sent and received during the night unless one is receiving multiple megabytes of emails. Even 1MB is a lot of emails, when they average 25kb a piece. 10MB of attachment-free emails in the middle of the night would be unheard of, and some people are seeing over 100MB of unexplainable data usage on their bills! People who were averaging 30MB/mo are suddenly getting overage warnings with a 200MB/mo plan; and this started occurring before iOS4 was available so multitasking 3rd party apps running in the background can't really be blamed.



    Neither AT&T or Apple are taking responsibility for the unclaimed data usage, with both pointing fingers at the other.



    That 'behavior' points to either corporate fraud or your iPhone is a zombie in a botnet. And I'm not inclined to exclude either one...
  • Reply 4 of 6
    tontontonton Posts: 14,067
    Rocket Scientist is right. Are you running a jailbroken device? Do you use unauthorized software?
  • Reply 5 of 6
    9secondko9secondko Posts: 929member
    Hmmm... the silence is deafening.



    Apple seems like a party pooper soemtimes, but one thing is clear. they make stuff that works great and continue to make sure it works great with policies such as app store, phone locking, etc.



    I appreciate that. sure, you can do whatever you want outside of that structure, but then you are in the land where miscrosoft dwells - the land of viruses, malware, spyware, fraud, robbery, etc.



    not fun.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    cory bauercory bauer Posts: 1,286member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tonton View Post


    Rocket Scientist is right. Are you running a jailbroken device? Do you use unauthorized software?



    No and no. And to my knowledge none of the other people involved in the 27-page discussion on Apple's forums are, either. Its the doing of either Apple, AT&T, or both. And both are still pointing their finger at the other. The best non-conspiracy theory so far points to Apple collecting diagnostic data (something you agree to in itunes the first time connect your iPhone), or Apple collecting user data for iAd demographics. Users can opt out of both (the latter is much more obscure) and some have seen their latenight data charges diminish after doing so.



    If thats what it is, Apple needs to fess up and warn people on limited data plans or start making iphones not drop their wifi connections in sleep mode. In my case, 44% of my last bills data usage was related to this issue. The last poster on the Apple discussion said it accounted for 90% of their data usage.
Sign In or Register to comment.