iPad Being Charged Data Usage While On Wi-Fi

[iMas70]

I restored my iPad from a previous backup this afternoon then let my kids watch Netflix on it for about an hour while we were at home. Just checked the AT&T site, looks good so far. I'll check again tomorrow to see if any other data posts.

 

[grumpynfun]

Data being used not turned on

I noticed this last month, called AT&T about it but nothing was really figured out. When I looked at the data usage for my iPad, it seemed a lot higher than what is used. I take it with me when I got out sometimes, surf the web, e-mail and Facebook sometimes and once in a while use a navigation program but it's not like I sit and watch movies or programs. My kids will watch shows once in awhile but that's usually only about 30 minutes at a time, maybe 2-3 times while we are out some weeks (if that).

This month I was also thinking that usage was high. Especially for the amount that it was used outside the house. I watch my iPhone usage monthly. That gets a lot of use and I've only broken 3GB once and that was really trying.

I checked my iPad usage yesterday a couple of days ago and saw that it was around 21xx. Ok, plenty of data left. I checked it yesterday morning and saw that it was around 2500. Statement closes on the 27th so I'm good. Today I get a message that said I was at 27xx. Then a few hours later I received one that say it went over my 3GB allowance for the month. How did that happen?

So I checked my account to looked at data use for the last few days. Today, my kids used it from about 3:20 to about 4:00 at the latest while we were out (watching a show). We were home the rest of the time and they were using it in the house. Between 4:00 and 5:15, I'm showing 481MB of use. It was on WiFi! Also, at 1:37 today it showed 97 MB of use. I was in the shower and the iPad didn't leave the house until about 2:05.

Looking at yesterday, there was 112KB of use while I was home and the day before that there was a ton of data transfers while I was home and on WiFi. Like at 12:43am, while I was sleeping, while I was out and the iPad was home, ect, ect.

Has anyone experienced this or have any ideas? I called AT&T but they were closed so I'm going to call tomorrow. My phone gets a lot more use both at home and outside of the home and it doesn't come close to using the data that the iPad is showing.

fixed Turn data off in settings. Open settings. Under settings go to cellular data, click. Turn this off when not needed. Will kill all data being used. Have to turn back on when not on WIFI system. Info from Apple.

 

[iMas70]

fixed Turn data off in settings. Open settings. Under settings go to cellular data, click. Turn this off when not needed. Will kill all data being used. Have to turn back on when not on WIFI system. Info from Apple.

I shouldn't have to do that though. It should automatically only use WiFi when i'm home. I've actually been doing this once in awhile for the last few weeks (just in case).

I think the problem has gone away though. I watched a few Netflix movies with cellular turned on and WiFi was used. I'm going to leave cellular on all the time and watch my usage to see.

 

[thefredelement]

I've always turned cell data off when at home. It's off far more than it's ever on. I usually just turn it on when I'm taking a trip or need it for a meeting where the wifi is bad.

A couple of months ago I forgot to switch it back to off when I got home and what do you know, 2GB of usage for the iPad that month, pushed me over my limit (with Verizon) and I had to pay for extra data and some stupid fee (which they ended up refunding).

My iPad sat in it's bag for like 3 weeks with cell data on, at home, allegedly on my Wifi while racking up that data. It was really kind of annoying, it ended up costing me an extra $10, wasn't the end of the world but at the same time shouldn't be happening at all. It was like a $10 reminder to make sure cell data is off.

I wonder how often this happens and goes unnoticed?

 

[GGJstudios]

I recently encountered this issue with my iPad mini. There are two possibilities that I can think of. One is that from time to time the Wi-Fi connection may be weak, so the iPad may be switching to cellular data when it can't connect securely to the Wi-Fi network.

Another scenario was told to me by an AT&T rep. They claimed that if you're in the process of doing something that requires internet access, and the display auto-locks, the Wi-Fi connection drops immediately, so the iPad may switch to cellular data to complete the operation that was underway. I haven't tested this scenario, but it may be something worth investigating.

As others have suggested, I now leave cellular data switched off until I absolutely need it.