Contributor
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2 Messages
iPhone 5 data usage
After being with the same carrier (via several evolutions finally ending up as AT&T) over 15 years, I am going to change. The issue is the iPhone 5 data usage. Our family has two accounts and four phone lines. We have adjusted settings, reset phones, worked with the Apple Store, spoken with AT&T and tried all other suggestions - but continue to get dinged for huge amounts of data. The last straw was still getting overage notices when phones were physically turned off. It only takes about a minute to find problems on the Internet with the iPhone 5 and AT&T - but neither want to resolve it. It's a sad day for a loyal customer. After tomorrow, we will be Sprinting.
GeekBoy
Master
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4.1K Messages
10 years ago
It also only takes a few minutes of searching the internet to find that the government has crashed UFO's hidden in the Nevada desert, and that Big Foot roams th hills of the Pacific west coast. Does this mean that those findings are also ir-refutable fact?
I've had an iPhone 5 on AT&T for 23 months (I got mine on teh launch day), and my wife has had one since November of that same year. The two of us combined use about 6-7GB a month on average, and I generally use less than 2GB myself. Since both of our devices are iPhone 5 models, one might assume that there is something wrong with her phone that it uses so much more data than mine. The fact is, her usage pattern is just that much different than mine. I knwo that an iPhone (by design) tends to turn off the wifi radio when the device is on battery and goes into "sleep mode." If the device is streaming music when this happens, it suddenly starts using cellular data for that music streaming instead of the wifi you think it should be using. Is this AT&T's fault? No. Is it a bug in the Apple sotware or hardware? No. It is the way Apple designed it so that they could squeeze a few more minutes of battery time out of the device. Apple support reps tend to ignore this and tell users that "if your phone is using cellular data when you're connected to wifi, then it's AT&T's fault". They don't bother to tell you that by design, your phone won't always be using wifi when you think it should be.
As for the device "using cellular data while turned off" I would like to know more details there. You do know that AT&T's billing is not "up to the minute in real time", right? If you are using cellular data on some AT&T towers (even some AT&T ones) that it may take several days for all the data to be reported back to the central billing system. Whenever you use your device on a "partner network" they will share that usage information back to AT&T on a set schedule which may be multiple times a day, or it may only be once or twice a week. For this reason, you can have your device turned off and the billing system may still report data usage based on when the partner network sends the usage data back to AT&T. Even worse, when AT&T merged with Cingular (or some of the other regional callular providers) they kept the networks as they were, and they still interface the usage data between the systems as if they were separate cellular companies. This means that you could be using data on an AT&T tower, and it might take several days for that usage to appear on your bill. To the user who doesn't know all fo this, it makes it very easy to assume that it is a "phantom billing error", and they find many cases on the internet which supports that theory, so it must be true. Just like our theories about UFO's and Big Foot, right?
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NJJK70
Contributor
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1 Message
10 years ago
I have been with AT&T for over 10 years and never had an issue with their service. About 6-7 months ago I started a new contract and got an Iphone 5s. After looking at my acct the salesman said he could save me money by going from unlimited data to 1gb since I didn't use really use it. Against my better judgement I said yes. 2 months later I went over the 1gb and was charged $15. Then it happened again the next month. I called cutomer service and they said my plan was outdated and could give me a plan with 2gb cheaper and after looking at my usage I wouldn't exceed that. Cool. Now every month since I have gone over my 2gb by more and more. I have not been using my phone anymore than I did before. I am constantly closing my apps. I am also onconnected to wifi more because we have it at work as well as home. After two calls to CS and an online chat I was told to switch cellular data off when I was on wifi and that is why I'm using so much data. What I don't understand is that I never exceeded the data plan before and never switched the data off. Why all of a sudden should I have to do this?
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