data charges every 3 hours

To simplify the answer, data is not reported back to ATT or recorded on your account until several hours, or even days (in the case of roaming) after actual data use.

What you are seeing is batched data used by the phone during the previous day.

Can you explain why this just started happening in September, then??  My  mom is having this problem and she has changed nothing on her Mobile Share Plan.

Thanks,

Erinn

Data usage gets reported back into the AT&T billing system as varying speeds depending upon a number of factors.  If the tower is an AT&T Tower, and affiliate tower, or a roaming tower.  Even for AT&T towers, the reporting is generally placed at a lower priority than the customer usage (so you don't have dropped calls or slow data just so that you get billed faster), and on some very heavily utilized towers, some of this aggregation can cuse some usage during the day to not get transmitted back to AT&T until the middle of the night.   Any delays in the data usage getting reported into the billing system can cause it to lok like you're using cellular data even when the phone is powered off.  This also makes it very difficult for us, as customers, to track out data usage to the KB level.  I have dome a couple long term comparisons between what my phone reported I used and what AT&T billed me for usage.  In the first case, over a 1 year period, AT&T only reported my using about 200MB more than my phone for 19GB of data usage.  In the second case, AT&T reported me as using about 7-8GB less than what my phone reported over a 14 month period.  I'm sure part of the variance has to do with when I reset my phone counters vs when AT&T reset my billing counters.   If I reset my phone counters late this month, my phone may show I used more data than AT&T bills me for, but next month, it should offset  when AT&T bills me for the usage I had included before I reset my hone counters, and this is what I saw in my first comparison.

This is also the likely reason why some customers who have switched to the new Mobile Share Advantage plans are seeing that their data is not always being slowed immediately upon them crossing the data plan limit on their account.

This notice has always been on your usage page on your bill.

The notice may have been there, but the every 3 hours at exactly 3, 6, 9, 12 just started this month, with major data overage charges.

We have been turning things off today and now it is not doing it.  Explain that. No offense, but I don't think att representatives even know what is really happening.

@claerin. Agreed.  They don't always know much about data use and reporting.  They provide information based on the most common problems.  You will have to take the information, and be a data detective.

If you're seeing larger batch reporting of data, the answer is on the phone, but may not be easy to see.

Increased use is often the cause, but not the only issue.  Software updates, faulty apps, faulty phones are common causes.  Review the apps on the phone or phones to see which apps are using more data than seems reasonable.  

Ios updates frequently default apps to setting that will use more data.  Social media, streaming services and general setting should be reviewed.

ios 10 on my iPad not only reset my settings, but defaulted my iTunes password to a previous password.  Changed my backup options.  

I have had to factory reset iphones to get them working properly again, then reviewing settings.

---

@claerin wrote:

The notice may have been there, but the every 3 hours at exactly 3, 6, 9, 12 just started this month, with major data overage charges.

 

We have been turning things off today and now it is not doing it.  Explain that. No offense, but I don't think att representatives even know what is really happening.

---

Well,. If you've turned something off and the data usage has stopped, then it sounds like whatever app you turned off was using a lot of data for some reason.  It's possible the app was updated and the update changed the way it uses data (Facebook is notorious for that).  It's possible that the app has gotten corrupted and keeps resending, or re-requesting data from the host server.  There are so many possibilities, it's hard to say without having more details on what you turned off...

So is Spotify.   It defaults to high quality streaming. 

Hello @claerin

I will be happy to help! When on the AT&T network, recent data usage is posted online about every three hours. You can view all of the information about how usage is posted and what causes delays by clicking here! Just select the “Read article” option next to “How to view your usage since last bill”. If you scroll down to “About usage reporting delays”, you will be able to view how usage is displayed for certain plans and the time increments.

Just let us know if you have any other questions! Have a great day!

Kevin, AT&T Community Specialist