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Carrier Cellular Data in use even though I'm in WiFi?

M

melman101

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 3, 2009
2,751
295
I set up my iPad Air 2 with the T-Mobile service in my house today, and I have had the cellular data on, and 1meg of data has been transferred on the cellular network but I have not left my WiFi zone. Does anyone know why this is happening? I've turned off the cellular data for now, but that's kind of a pain to be managing it myself.

Thanks
 
Is it possible that you lost WiFi even for a second and it used cellular data during that time. Cause 1mb of use kind of implies that.
 
Yeah I guess maybe that's what's happening. Just kind of annoying that the iPad hasn't left wifi zone, and it's still charging me for data. So I had to turn off cellular data, as suggested above as well.

Although I have a free 200mb before I even get to my 5gb for 5 month plan.
 
I turn cellular on and off when I leave the house. Bit of a pain but I've read quite a few horror stories about people being charged huge amounts for data when their wifi goes down for a while and they fail to notice.
 
iOS doesn't have an always on WIFI option for cellular capable devices. When your iPad goes into deep sleep it will turn off wifi and revert to cellular. So you have to turn off cellular to force it to wifi only.

Windows Phone and Android both have always on wifi settings.
 
Isn't the cellular data used for the assisted GPS, even when on wifi?
 
Jeff Flowerday said:
iOS doesn't have an always on WIFI option for cellular capable devices. When your iPad goes into deep sleep it will turn off wifi and revert to cellular. So you have to turn off cellular to force it to wifi only.

Windows Phone and Android both have always on wifi settings.
Click to expand...

Is this still an issue if no apps are allowed to run in the background? Is there anything for it to use data for in that case?

FWIW, I found that the amount of data that t-mobile was showing I used on my ipad when left on overnight (with apps allowed to run in the background) was substantially higher than what Verizon shows my iphone uses overnight, which is set up for all apps to run in the background and for push email on three accounts. But I only tested it for one night - after that I turned cellular off on the ipad.
 
Yeah I think the solution is to leave cellular off unless I know I'm going to use it :)
 
From looking at inactive lines at AT&T and Verizon, I noticed that small amounts of data get used daily and add up to a couple of MB per month. Not sure what the data is for (probably sending all your personal info to the carrier, right? :p) but it's possible that's happening with T-Mobile too.
 
flur said:
Is this still an issue if no apps are allowed to run in the background? Is there anything for it to use data for in that case?
Click to expand...

Core apps like Mail, iMessage and anything that has notifications will still happen over whatever data connection iOS wants them to use.
 
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