Iphone 5 - huge cellular data usage reported by ATT - any customer having same problems

[FredW]

Maybe the entire rest of the world is wrong and only Apple is right! All the carriers and all the other cell phone manufacturers need to convert to the Apple scheme.

[morrowland]

Add me to the problem group!

LTE should not cause data usage to increase!  In fact, you're getting exactly the same AMOUNT of data as you would on 3G, just FASTER!!

[Trekkles]

This explanation may be valid if it weren't for the fact that I've had an iPhone since 2008, and only now have I ever come even close to approaching the 2gb data limit. 200-400mb of typical monthly data use doesn't turn into 2gb because of background data leakage.

[duratecdave]

I am also experiencing the same problem with iOS 6 on my iPhone 3GS. I went through 1GB in the past 7 days and ran out of data tonight while being on wi-fi at home over 75% of the time. it usually takes me a month to go through that. 

[k1oa]

For those of you who are blowing through your data usage at an abnormal rate, are you experiencing high Sent counts (upstream data), high Receive counts (downstream data), or both?

In my case it's on the Sent side, to the tune of about 100 MB per day. This is way beyond what a normal amount should be assuming there is none of the following going on: no 2-way video chats, no email/texting of video, no iCloud usage. 100 MB a day is at least 10 times what it was prior to the IOS 6 upgrade.

After a frustrating support call with AT&T customer support, who offered no help at all in troubleshooting what's going on, I spent a half hour with Apple customer support. I spoke with a very knowledgeable person who gave me a bunch of things to turn off on the phone, none of which seemed like high upstream bandwidth items. I turned them all off, still have the problem.

My next step is to reset the phone to factory settings to isolate IOS 6, then start slowly adding apps back to the phone.

My sense is that there is a bug in IOS 6, one of the apps being used, or with the network interface.

Hello AT&T and Apple. Please provide your users with tools to track down these kinds of issues. You're both headed for a public relations nightmare when a slew of iPhone users get their monthly bill and see overage charges that they didn't have prior to IOS 6.

How about per app data usage statistics like Android has?

[wingrider01 ACE - Expert]

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morrowland wrote:

Add me to the problem group!

LTE should not cause data usage to increase!  In fact, you're getting exactly the same AMOUNT of data as you would on 3G, just FASTER!!

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faster = more data consumed in the same period of time, what took 1 minute to transfer at 3G speed now takes 30 seconds, so in 1 minute of LTE you are consuming twice the amount of data in the same time it took you at teh lower speed. So if you transfered 10meg in 1 minute on 3G, that now takes 30 seconds on LTE, so in 1 minute you now get 20 meg, twice the amout of data charges

As scottie said "you canna change the laws of physics" 

[sandblaster]

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wingrider01 wrote:

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morrowland wrote:

Add me to the problem group!

LTE should not cause data usage to increase!  In fact, you're getting exactly the same AMOUNT of data as you would on 3G, just FASTER!!

---

faster = more data consumed in the same period of time, what took 1 minute to transfer at 3G speed now takes 30 seconds, so in 1 minute of LTE you are consuming twice the amount of data in the same time it took you at teh lower speed. So if you transfered 10meg in 1 minute on 3G, that now takes 30 seconds on LTE, so in 1 minute you now get 20 meg, twice the amout of data charges

As scottie said "you canna change the laws of physics" 

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Well, yes and no. It really depends on what you are are downloading and how you are using it. Watch a 5 minute video on YouTube and you will stream the same amount of data over that 5 minutes whether it is 3G, 4G or LTE. However, if you are downloading movies then faster probably will mean more data because the typical user will download more because of the higher speed. 

[Planet-Ed ACE - Expert]

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sandblaster wrote:

Well, yes and no. It really depends on what you are are downloading and how you are using it. Watch a 5 minute video on YouTube and you will stream the same amount of data over that 5 minutes whether it is 3G, 4G or LTE. 

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Thats not entirely correct either.  If you have a faster/better internet conenction and you stream certain videos you can/will use more data.  With adaptive bit streaming, it will stream video at a higher bitrate for better quality.

[sandblaster]

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Planet-Ed wrote:

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sandblaster wrote:

Well, yes and no. It really depends on what you are are downloading and how you are using it. Watch a 5 minute video on YouTube and you will stream the same amount of data over that 5 minutes whether it is 3G, 4G or LTE. 

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Thats not entirely correct either.  If you have a faster/better internet conenction and you stream certain videos you can/will use more data.  With adaptive bit streaming, it will stream video at a higher bitrate for better quality.

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I knew someone would point out that higher speed may mean higher quality video, hence more data but I suspect you pretty much max out available bitrate once you hit hspa or hspa+ speeds, hence the increase to LTE speeds won't increase the overall data, but point taken. 

[walking]

I'm adding my vote to this issue. 

Having same problem; typical behavior = 3 times amount of data usage compared to iPhone 4 and iOS5.

AT&T

200MB/month plan

iPhone 5

The proposed solution at the begninning of the thread suggesting to turn on/off itunes match; not a solution. 

[jane697]

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Planet-Ed wrote:

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sandblaster wrote:

Well, yes and no. It really depends on what you are are downloading and how you are using it. Watch a 5 minute video on YouTube and you will stream the same amount of data over that 5 minutes whether it is 3G, 4G or LTE. 

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Thats not entirely correct either.  If you have a faster/better internet conenction and you stream certain videos you can/will use more data.  With adaptive bit streaming, it will stream video at a higher bitrate for better quality.

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Not all data consists of video...plus you are assuming that adaptive bit streaming is highly prevalent on the majority of sites that offer up video.

However, one should take into the account the possibility of users uploading photos and/or videos from with apps--e.g., when attempting to email a photo attachment via the Mail app, you are given the option of sending it as originally taken (if taken with the Camera app), or as a lower-resolution photo--many of the photos taken with the Camera app can easily exceed 1 MB in size each.  Then there is the video upload feature available in apps such as Facebook--I can only imagine how large a 1 minute video taken with the iPhone 5 camera can be...

[jane697]

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wingrider01 wrote:

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morrowland wrote:

Add me to the problem group!

LTE should not cause data usage to increase!  In fact, you're getting exactly the same AMOUNT of data as you would on 3G, just FASTER!!

---

faster = more data consumed in the same period of time, what took 1 minute to transfer at 3G speed now takes 30 seconds, so in 1 minute of LTE you are consuming twice the amount of data in the same time it took you at teh lower speed. So if you transfered 10meg in 1 minute on 3G, that now takes 30 seconds on LTE, so in 1 minute you now get 20 meg, twice the amout of data charges

As scottie said "you canna change the laws of physics" 

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Generally speaking, being able to pull down data say, twice as fast as before doesn't absolutely equate to having used twice as much data.  If I ran a one-mile course in 4 minutes instead of 8, then yes I ran it twice as fast as before...but I still ran just one mile; based on your logic, by running twice as fast I would/should have ran two miles in the same period of time...except I didn't, because I did not need to run two miles.  Just because I can run twice as fast doesn't absolutely mean that I would or should be expected to wind up running twice as far.

[wingrider01 ACE - Expert]

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jane697 wrote:

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wingrider01 wrote:

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morrowland wrote:

Add me to the problem group!

LTE should not cause data usage to increase!  In fact, you're getting exactly the same AMOUNT of data as you would on 3G, just FASTER!!

---

faster = more data consumed in the same period of time, what took 1 minute to transfer at 3G speed now takes 30 seconds, so in 1 minute of LTE you are consuming twice the amount of data in the same time it took you at teh lower speed. So if you transfered 10meg in 1 minute on 3G, that now takes 30 seconds on LTE, so in 1 minute you now get 20 meg, twice the amout of data charges

As scottie said "you canna change the laws of physics" 

---

Generally speaking, being able to pull down data say, twice as fast as before doesn't absolutely equate to having used twice as much data.  If I ran a one-mile course in 4 minutes instead of 8, then yes I ran it twice as fast as before...but I still ran just one mile; based on your logic, by running twice as fast I would/should have ran two miles in the same period of time...except I didn't, because I did not need to run two miles.  Just because I can run twice as fast doesn't absolutely mean that I would or should be expected to wind up running twice as far.

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jane697 wrote:

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wingrider01 wrote:

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morrowland wrote:

Add me to the problem group!

LTE should not cause data usage to increase!  In fact, you're getting exactly the same AMOUNT of data as you would on 3G, just FASTER!!

---

faster = more data consumed in the same period of time, what took 1 minute to transfer at 3G speed now takes 30 seconds, so in 1 minute of LTE you are consuming twice the amount of data in the same time it took you at teh lower speed. So if you transfered 10meg in 1 minute on 3G, that now takes 30 seconds on LTE, so in 1 minute you now get 20 meg, twice the amout of data charges

As scottie said "you canna change the laws of physics" 

---

Generally speaking, being able to pull down data say, twice as fast as before doesn't absolutely equate to having used twice as much data.  If I ran a one-mile course in 4 minutes instead of 8, then yes I ran it twice as fast as before...but I still ran just one mile; based on your logic, by running twice as fast I would/should have ran two miles in the same period of time...except I didn't, because I did not need to run two miles.  Just because I can run twice as fast doesn't absolutely mean that I would or should be expected to wind up running twice as far.

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if you pull down on 30 MB file in 1.30 minutes on a 3G, then turn around and pull the same 30 MB file on lte in 30 seconds, you can pull 90 MB of data down in the same 1.30 minutes on LTE as compared to 30 MB for 3G, in addition with the higher bandwidth availalbe some video streaming wil dectect the higher ability and switch to a higher resolutuion - video @ 480I is a smaller data usage then video at 720P

[halobender]

I recently updated my iPhone 4 to iOS 6 and I'm seeing an absurdly high amount of data usage from Saturday alone (165+ MB). This put me over my 200 MB limit with no warning, save for the text I got from AT&T this morning stating that I'll be billed for the extra data usage. Needless to say, I'm not impressed. I was connected to my home wi-fi network and wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary, so I don't see how this is even possible.

I never stream video, large amounts of browsing, or send large files over cellular, so I've never, ever needed more than 200 MB a month. Now it's barely two weeks into my billing cycle and I'm already over the limit...? So I kindly ask: what the heck going on?

[halobender]

Possibly having the same issue here with iOS 6 on iPhone 4. Was on wi-fi all day but for some reason it still sent 165+ MB over cellular.

[GeekBoy]

Did you restore your iPhone from a backup after upgrading to iOS 6?  Have you checked all the data settings for the new features to make sure that they are tunred off?  Was your iPhone connected to external power during the whole time you thought it should be using WIFI instead of cellular data?

As you can see, there are several possiblilities to cause what you are seeing, and without getting more data from you it is hard for us to tell you why something is happening.

[halobender]

It was not connected to external power, nor did I restore from a backup after the upgrade. The phone was on my person all day and I had used it a couple of times--on wi-fi--to do some light browsing.

And yes, when I checked Settings to disable cellular data, I noticed that "Use Cellular Data" is on by default for iCloud Documents, Passbook Updates, and Reading List. However, again, it was on wi-fi all day; no wi-fi or internet outages.

[wingrider01 ACE - Expert]

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halobender wrote:

Possibly having the same issue here with iOS 6 on iPhone 4. Was on wi-fi all day but for some reason it still sent 165+ MB over cellular.

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the cellular / wifi has only been reports on verizon phones, verizon pushed a firmware upgrade to resolve that issue. Have not seen many reports of being on wifi and being charged for cellular on other carriers, just high cellular usage

[wingrider01 ACE - Expert]

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halobender wrote:

It was not connected to external power, nor did I restore from a backup after the upgrade. The phone was on my person all day and I had used it a couple of times--on wi-fi--to do some light browsing.

And yes, when I checked Settings to disable cellular data, I noticed that "Use Cellular Data" is on by default for iCloud Documents, Passbook Updates, and Reading List. However, again, it was on wi-fi all day; no wi-fi or internet outages.

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the previous iphones would automaticly switch back to cellular data if it iwas in hibernate mode with no charger attached. If the phone was in your pocket in hibernate all data that was pushed by apps went over cellualr.

[halobender]

It's never been an issue before, and I haven't installed any new apps since the OS update.

Guess I'll take it up with AT&T.

[FredW]

Check other posts in this forum. This appears to be a problem with iOS 6. Apple has not acknowledged it on at&t yet, but has issued a fix on Verizon.

[halobender]

Yeah, I've been looking into those threads. Turned data off in the meantime. It's going to be annoying this month because I really needed access to it at work.

Thanks for the help, everyone.

[FredW]

If Apple can be convinced there is a problem, I assume it would be coorected quickly with an update.

[GeekBoy]

Regretfully things aren't always as bad as they seem when they are happening to you.  If one assumes that 300-400 people are having this problem you describe, you compare that to the 3-4 million iPhones sold on launch day and you get 400/4000000 or 1/10000 or 0.01%.  Now, that assumes that this issue you describe is impacting 300-400 people, when I've only seen complaints from less than 20 people in these forums.  I've seen more people not havign the issue than I have who are having the issue, which seems to imply to me that it is not a general problem but something specific to that small percentage of the total user base. (edit: I just realized I over estimated the percentage of people having this problem because the 4,000,000 number I used was just new iPhone 5 sales, and did not include older devices upgraded to iOS 6, so the impacted user base if far less than 0.01% when this new information is taken into account).

I personally have handled iPhone for 7-8 people and none of them are seeing any change in data usage since the iOS 6 release/update.  my iPHone 4 (now used for work) was updated to iOS 6 on 22 Sept and it has a total of about 600 MB data usage this month, and my new iPhone 5 has less than that (and it was purchased on 21 Sept).  I normally use about 800-900 MB/month and I am now 2/3 the way through my billing month, so I am right on par with my normal usage on both iPhones.  It is similar for everyone else I know who uses an iPhone.

I'm not saying that you're not having a problem, but I am saying that it might not be as severely widespread as you would like to believe.  The majority of iPhone users will never come here an post because they aren't having problems.  Most people who come here to post are here because they are having some sort of problem.

[tnakerr]

I ran into the same problem what I found out is if you text pictures or video it takes away from your data plan even when you are connected to wifi. I have reported this to AT&T and was basically told that this is impossible and had to be a problem with my equipment. Yeah right!

[jane697]

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wingrider01 wrote:

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jane697 wrote:

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wingrider01 wrote:

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morrowland wrote:

Add me to the problem group!

LTE should not cause data usage to increase!  In fact, you're getting exactly the same AMOUNT of data as you would on 3G, just FASTER!!

---

faster = more data consumed in the same period of time, what took 1 minute to transfer at 3G speed now takes 30 seconds, so in 1 minute of LTE you are consuming twice the amount of data in the same time it took you at teh lower speed. So if you transfered 10meg in 1 minute on 3G, that now takes 30 seconds on LTE, so in 1 minute you now get 20 meg, twice the amout of data charges

As scottie said "you canna change the laws of physics" 

---

Generally speaking, being able to pull down data say, twice as fast as before doesn't absolutely equate to having used twice as much data.  If I ran a one-mile course in 4 minutes instead of 8, then yes I ran it twice as fast as before...but I still ran just one mile; based on your logic, by running twice as fast I would/should have ran two miles in the same period of time...except I didn't, because I did not need to run two miles.  Just because I can run twice as fast doesn't absolutely mean that I would or should be expected to wind up running twice as far.

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jane697 wrote:

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wingrider01 wrote:

---

morrowland wrote:

Add me to the problem group!

LTE should not cause data usage to increase!  In fact, you're getting exactly the same AMOUNT of data as you would on 3G, just FASTER!!

---

faster = more data consumed in the same period of time, what took 1 minute to transfer at 3G speed now takes 30 seconds, so in 1 minute of LTE you are consuming twice the amount of data in the same time it took you at teh lower speed. So if you transfered 10meg in 1 minute on 3G, that now takes 30 seconds on LTE, so in 1 minute you now get 20 meg, twice the amout of data charges

As scottie said "you canna change the laws of physics" 

---

Generally speaking, being able to pull down data say, twice as fast as before doesn't absolutely equate to having used twice as much data.  If I ran a one-mile course in 4 minutes instead of 8, then yes I ran it twice as fast as before...but I still ran just one mile; based on your logic, by running twice as fast I would/should have ran two miles in the same period of time...except I didn't, because I did not need to run two miles.  Just because I can run twice as fast doesn't absolutely mean that I would or should be expected to wind up running twice as far.

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if you pull down on 30 MB file in 1.30 minutes on a 3G, then turn around and pull the same 30 MB file on lte in 30 seconds, you can pull 90 MB of data down in the same 1.30 minutes on LTE as compared to 30 MB for 3G, in addition with the higher bandwidth availalbe some video streaming wil dectect the higher ability and switch to a higher resolutuion - video @ 480I is a smaller data usage then video at 720P

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If I simply need to pull down a 30 MB file, then why should it matter that I can pull 90 MB in 90 seconds over LTE?  I don't care if I can even pull 900 MB in 90 seconds--that doesn't change the fact that all I'm looking to do is to pull down a 30 MB file...not unless you're suggesting that I pull down that same 30 MB file three times within that 90 second timespan?  Your argument clearly implies that I would be pulling down way more data simply because I am pulling it over LTE.  Think about it--if I average let's say, 2 GB of usage per month over 3G, does that mean that my usage will now increase to say 6 GB per month (using your 3x speed argument) if I'm using LTE?  Your video encoding argument notwithstanding (yes I understand the deal about video streaming switching resolution depending on what type of connection it sees), generally speaking the amount of data consumed per month should not change significantly simply because of the type of connection in use--a 1 MB file attachment download uses 1 MB of data (not including TCP/IP overhead), regardless of whether it's being downloaded over 3G or LTE...no amount of computer "physics" can change that fact.

[AgilePJ]

I have this issue with an IPhone 4s.  I have a 4gb plan and have hit 3gb in the 6 days since I upgraded to IOS6.  I typically only use about 200MB a month and only paid for the 4GB for the option to hot spot in a pinch.

[wingrider01 ACE - Expert]

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AgilePJ wrote:

I have this issue with an IPhone 4s.  I have a 4gb plan and have hit 3gb in the 6 days since I upgraded to IOS6.  I typically only use about 200MB a month and only paid for the 4GB for the option to hot spot in a pinch.

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might want to check you plan again, there is 300MB, 3GB and 5GB, unless you are tlaking about the shared data plans

It must not be universal, I have a 4S, last reset was 10/02/2012 @ 7:48AM

Sent - 3.0MB

Recieved - 10.4MB

This phone is tied to my corporate exchange servers, and other data applications.

[Rodamir2]

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AgilePJ wrote:

I have this issue with an IPhone 4s.  I have a 4gb plan and have hit 3gb in the 6 days since I upgraded to IOS6.  I typically only use about 200MB a month and only paid for the 4GB for the option to hot spot in a pinch.

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Check your wi-fi settings. After upgrading to IOS6 my wi-fi was turned off, and the phine would connect vua 4G even while I was within a known wi-fi network, my home wi-fi network I warned my son who had just upgraded, he checked his system and found out that his w-fi had been tunred off on th phone also. He had not noticed because he has a large data plan to be able use the phone as a hot spot for his laptop. I noticed right away because I have the 200 MB data plan.

[L-D]

The same issue with my wife's 4S after the iOS 6 upgrade (I haven't done it for my iPhone 4 and other iPads). Contacted ATT first and was offerred a credit for the excessive data usage and also was told that ATT will contact Apple for a possible fix (nice job ATT! Even though it hasn't happened yet, ATT will certainly keep me around as a loyal customer with over 15 year with ATT). I also spoke to an Apple TS person but I was not impressed. I was told that the change was by design (What kind of the design was that?! It's apparently a regression since it never happened with previous iOS) and was also told that I have to manually turn off the cellular data when WIFI is available to avoid the cellular data usage (what the heck?!). I told the Apple TS person that Apple needs to fix this regression which apparently has screwed the user experience. I also told Apple that I would use up all my energy/resouces to 'right this wrong' . Or I will no longer buy any Apple products (I have owned a bunch of Apple products but haven't purchased any since Steve Jobs left Apple behind).

I hope Tim Cook and company are not just wasting up Steve Jobs' 'leftovers'.