The new iPhone 15
signem's profile

Teacher

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23 Messages

Monday, June 28th, 2010 1:01 PM

iphone 2am unauthorized data usage

Beginning on June 16, my original iphone began transmitting 2+MB of data "internet/MEdia Net" at 2 am every morning. Prior to this, my records show a daily data transmission at that time in the range of 8-50KB.

 

I changed to the 200MB plan when I upgraded to iphone 4 on June 24 and have begun monitoring data - that is how i discovered this escalation in data use. Both existing and new iphones are always on wi-fi at 2am. On 6/25, this 2am data usage jumped to 5MB, so I have switched off cell data altogether.

 

What is going on? At this rate, my iphone will use all 200MB of data in a month with these 2 am data uploads. I saw complaints about this on the Apple forum with no solution provided by ATT.

 

For 2 1/2 years, with my original iphone, I used an average of 30-50MB of data per month, so I was quite comfortable signing up for the 200MB plan. 

 

Is ATT going to fix this problem? 

 

Signe

Expert

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12.2K Messages

14 years ago

do not think so

ACE - Expert

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64.7K Messages

14 years ago

 


@fabriceg wrote:

I currently have an original iPhone which I use on T-Mobile. If I start a plan with AT&T with the original iPhone, will I be able to choose unlimited or only the limited ones?


I believe the $20 unlimited data is the only plan available for the original iphone.

 

New Member

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25.7K Messages

14 years ago

Is there anyone that can confirm AT&T's statement that the nightly data transfer is not being charged? anyone with a 200MB plan that went over the 200MB because of the nightly update transfers but has not seen an increase in the bill?

 

Thanks

ACE - Expert

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64.7K Messages

14 years ago

 


@sinmike wrote:

Is there anyone that can confirm AT&T's statement that the nightly data transfer is not being charged? anyone with a 200MB plan that went over the 200MB because of the nightly update transfers but has not seen an increase in the bill?

 

Thanks


I can not confirm that statement and unless I'm not understanding the statement, I do not think it is accurate. Any data usage that shows up on your bill does count against your total and hence, is being charged.

 

Contributor

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3 Messages

14 years ago

Is there anyone that can confirm AT&T's statement that the nightly data transfer is not being charged? anyone with a 200MB plan that went over the 200MB because of the nightly update transfers but has not seen an increase in the bill?

 

I just noticed my first late-night data usage this morning, the first day of my billing cycle and the first day of my limited data plan. It was 26MB at around 2AM. When I checked my data plan, they marked me as 26MB/200MB when I checked at 7:00AM. So while I haven't gone over my plan, I find it odd that more than 10% of my usage occurred in one day, where I was around wifi all day except for my commute.

 

I've heard so many people say that it's an app in the background, but there are also so many people who have reset their phones and still see the usage. Not to mention the recent statement from AT&T which says this is for billing purposes. But I just don't buy that…

ACE - Expert

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64.7K Messages

14 years ago

 


@conigs wrote:

Is there anyone that can confirm AT&T's statement that the nightly data transfer is not being charged? anyone with a 200MB plan that went over the 200MB because of the nightly update transfers but has not seen an increase in the bill?

 

I just noticed my first late-night data usage this morning, the first day of my billing cycle and the first day of my limited data plan. It was 26MB at around 2AM. When I checked my data plan, they marked me as 26MB/200MB when I checked at 7:00AM. So while I haven't gone over my plan, I find it odd that more than 10% of my usage occurred in one day, where I was around wifi all day except for my commute.

 

I've heard so many people say that it's an app in the background, but there are also so many people who have reset their phones and still see the usage. Not to mention the recent statement from AT&T which says this is for billing purposes. But I just don't buy that…


The time that shows on your bill or on your account is not necessarily when your phone downloaded/uploaded the data. Also, the bill may lump several different downloads/uploads into one entry. Unless the data usage reported on your phone does not match your bill, your problem is not with ATT, it is your phone.

 

Guru

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659 Messages

14 years ago


@sandblaster wrote:

 

The time that shows on your bill or on your account is not necessarily when your phone downloaded/uploaded the data. Also, the bill may lump several different downloads/uploads into one entry. Unless the data usage reported on your phone does not match your bill, your problem is not with ATT, it is your phone.

 


Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.  Is it just me, or are any of the rest of you finding these reasons for why we can't totally rely on our billing/account statements stupid?

 

Reasons why AT&T billing may not be ripping you off:

 

1.  Um, the date time listed for the up/downloaded data isn't necessarily when you actually did the uploading

2.  Um, even though it might be listing data usage for diagnostic information being sent to AT&T/Apple it really isn't charged against you (except maybe when it DOES actually send you over your tier limits).

3.  Um, it's aggregating the send/received per day (even though we've seen plenty of examples here where there are multiple charges per day)

4.  Um, the SENT column is actually representing both SENT and RECEIVED data, so don't get confused.

 

I sure wish AT&T executives monitored this, or received some of this as feedback.  There is a problem being reported by uncounted customers indicating significant inaccuracies of AT&T billing, you'd THINK that if AT&T wasn't previously aware of the problem that AT&T would investigate and correct issues just to be sure they aren't short changing themselves.  Unless of course this is another sneaky way of stealing from its customers that they're aware of and actually purposely implemented, I see no current reason to NOT think this is true at this point.

 

If nothing else it points to a serious issue with how they present their data billing information to the customer and at the very least they need to work on that to help avoid customer confusion.

 

Lastly, it's obvious there needs to be a data preference setting where before sending this information via cellular, it checks for an available Wifi connection to use.  I understand turning off the Wifi "radio" to save power when phones go into a "sleep/stand by" mode, but still, for something that could inadvertantly lead to customer confusion and ill feelings toward your company you'd think it would be a matter of proactive customer service to have Apple update the OS so the user can choose to send this "diagnostic" information ONLY on Wifi, or to wake up the Wifi radio and check to see if a valid connection is available to transmit this data on BEFORE doing something that would make it appear they're burning our paid for minutes.

 

The fact that AT&T and Apple both appear to be doing their best to hide/ignore this issue leads me to believe they're colluding on this scheme that will result in customers being charged more than they really should be charged.

 

If looked at from a certain perspective it certainly seems to be opposite AT&T's stated need to "encourage" less net usage be eliminating the "unlimmited" plan, after all, they should start with the BS "diagnostic" transmissions as a "low hanging fruit" for net usage reduction.  How many terabits of diagnostic data is being transmitted daily from the millions of smart phone customers on AT&T's network now?  How much of that could be reduced by sending it Wifi instead of cellular?

Teacher

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24 Messages

14 years ago

My mother-in-law was dinged for 190MB at 2:48am 4 days after the start of the "new" data plan.  The most data she used over a six month period has been 107MB; she averages 55MB/month.  And now she has one item @ 2:48am (when she is asleep) for 190MB which is almost 4X her normal usage for an entire month!  Agreagation or not; something is rotten in the AT&T data calculations....

 

07/2902:48 AMphoneInternet/MEdia NetSent190942KB

Teacher

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23 Messages

14 years ago

I agree completely with Dimento and nrw.

 

I did not have these charges until the very day that I ordered the iphone4, June 16. That is when they started. A few days after I got the phone, I returned it and went back to my 2g with the unlimited plan. My prior usage was 30MB a month with 50MB when in FL on vacation in December 2009. I just got a bill that showed 90MB. I'm no longer on measured so it should not matter, but I still want to know what is being sent at 2:22 every morning.

 

And, oh by the way, I have other data that is sent and received at other times during the day, so that big chunk is not an aggregate.

 

i think that the wifi may be sleeping when it should not. I noticed this morning that my phone beeped with new mail and when I unlocked it, the wifi was not on but new mail was there. The wifi woke up, but the mail had already come in.

 

I'm not sure whether this is an issue with an update to the operating system combined with some shenanigans from ATT, but since no one at ATT seems to want to figure it out, I guess it is up to us to continue speculating. I don't want to hear anymore silly answers like it is my phone or is an aggregate - just not so.

 

 

 

Teacher

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16 Messages

14 years ago

After reading this thread, I decided to check my usage.  I'm on an unlimited data plan so in one respect, this is a moot point for me.  But on the other hand, I did want to see if stuff was being sent in the middle of the night.  I activated my iPhone 4 on 8/1/10 as an upgrade from an iPhone 3G.  In checking my usage, I do see a nightly send between 2:00 and 3:00 am of 1-5 mb of data is being sent that is labelled "Internet/MEdia Net".   This is consistentboth before and after the activation of my iPhone 4.  So while I would like to know what is being sent, I am not seeing the volume of data being sent that others are.

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