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Freddylun's profile

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Friday, April 8th, 2011 12:02 PM

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Mysterious early morning data charges

Has anyone had large (4-35MB at a time) or very regular data transfers (over 50 1KB connections, 3 a minute for half an hour) happening in the middle of the night?  Our iPhone4s are at home and connected to our wireless router.  The screens were also locked. Unfortunately, since they are going out over the phone, I cannot use my Wireshark to do packet capture to see what is happening.  ATT is looking into it, but I remember the issues that other smartphones have had with driving up data charges due to problems with the phone, it's OS or some app. 

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Professor

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3.1K Messages

13 years ago

Yes, it is posted here at least once every month.

 

It isn't actual use, its just the way the billing system reports usage - it says right on the usage page that usage reporting may be delayed up to 72 hours, so you're never guarenteed to be seeing "real time" usage.

 

Standard replies: turn off error reporting if you enabled it, be sure to plug your iPhones into AC power if you want them to remain connected to wifi overnight (while sleeping, wifi turns off after about 15 minutes on battery.)

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

 

Professor

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2.4K Messages

13 years ago

 


@Freddylun wrote:

Our iPhone4s are at home and connected to our wireless router.  The screens were also locked.


 

With the screen locked, unless the device is plugged into external power, the Wi-Fi radio shuts down after between 5 and 15 minutes.

 

Are you actually seeing multiple individual data connections during the early morning hours?  Typically there is only one or two data connections listed for the entire day which encompass all the data sent/received by the device during the previous 24hr period.

 

Small amounts of data could potentially be push updates from various apps.  Do you have push notifications enabled for any app?

Guru

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785 Messages

13 years ago

There are already several looong threads on this subject. Try doing a search to find them.

Guru

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647 Messages

13 years ago

 


@johninsj wrote:

 

Standard replies: turn off error reporting if you enabled it...

 

 


Now here's the part I've always been uncertain about--has it been proven that the error reporting data is sent to Apple (only) over 3G/EDGE?  I mean, what's to say that it's not being delivered to them when you sync your iPhone via iTunes?  I'm not saying that you're wrong...just that it would seem to make more sense that the data should be sent when you're syncing via iTunes.  The other thing to consider about how/why it would seem to make more sense to send the error data via iTunes is that the only way you can enable/disable error reporting is through iTunes--it's not as if you can enable/disable it via a setting on your iPhone.

 

Professor

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3.1K Messages

13 years ago

 


@tonester wrote:

 


@johninsj wrote:

 

Standard replies: turn off error reporting if you enabled it...

 

 


Now here's the part I've always been uncertain about--has it been proven that the error reporting data is sent to Apple (only) over 3G/EDGE?  I mean, what's to say that it's not being delivered to them when you sync your iPhone via iTunes?  I'm not saying that you're wrong...just that it would seem to make more sense that the data should be sent when you're syncing via iTunes.  The other thing to consider about how/why it would seem to make more sense to send the error data via iTunes is that the only way you can enable/disable error reporting is through iTunes--it's not as if you can enable/disable it via a setting on your iPhone.

 


Rumor has it that it's only reported over cellular data, although I have no idea why.

 

Teacher

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11 Messages

12 years ago

Massive 600Mb Data Overage Charge - with AT&T

 

We discovered the same problem on our son's iPhone 4s after he returned from the hospital.  We subscribed to AT&T's "Parental Controls", and I received an alert about 'data overage'.  When I checked activity on the AT&T website, I was very surprised to see 600Mb of data transfers in the month of February.

 

Very surprised, because our son was in the hospital for weeks.  His iPhone 4s was sitting on the counter, unused.

 

I called AT&T and they offered to remove the charges.  This was obviously not sufficient, however.  I asked to speak to a supervisor -- to explain why these charges were being billed.  Why wouldn't it happen again, next month?  The supervisor was supposed to call us an hour ago - but you guessed it, no call.

 

This follows on the heels of the infamous "international roaming" charges.  Our son was hit by that too, during a school trip to Peru last summer.  He did not use his iPhone -- but we received a $900 bill from AT&T.

 

Twice burned, twice shy.  Apple needs to take quick and effective action on behalf of their customers.  These signficant service / billing problems are damaging the reputation of the iPhone.

Moderator

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2.8K Messages

12 years ago

I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to post your comments and opinions related to this topic. This topic has been thoroughly discussed and will now be closed. If you still have questions please start a new topic or post in a more recent topic. 

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