Data overage problem

[Biscuit411]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

My wife has a 3GS running iOS 4.3.5 and has gone over her 200MB data limit twice in the last few months. My problem is that (according to ATT's data usage chart) we get 'random' large data hits being sent from her phone while at home on our wireless network. The latest culprit was a 154MB 'file' sent from her phone by Internet/MEdia Net.

Is there a better way to see who/what is causing this than using ATT's site? Why does it use ATT data if it's on our wireless network? Of course ATT and Apple haven't been much help. At least MR folks know what they are talking about...

Thanks in advance.

 

[dotme]

This will be really difficult to nail down, because it could be an app... and who knows what's installed on the phone.

Sending that much data is really strange. Receiving, maybe not so much. I wonder if "sent" means what you think it does. If AT&T says "sent", does that mean sent from the phone, or sent to the phone? Hmmm.

I think apps like, for example, People Magazine, have tha ability to push new issues overnight to the phone. If the phone is sleeping, and not actually connected to WiFi while it's in sleep mode, I suppose it's possible that data could be pushed over the 3G network instead.

About the only options there are to either disable cellular data when at home, or spend the $10/mo to bump up to the 2GB plan. It's a pain in the butt, but data usage is only going to grow with these devices. AT&T really shouldn't even offer a 200MB plan. It's not enough.

 

[Biscuit411]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I plan on calling ATT this afternoon.

There's not much at all installed on the phone. No People, Facebook, etc. Just a few basic apps.

Thanks for the idea to turn off cellular data. We do typically turn the phones off at night.

I was searching for a 'data manager/tracker' app, but none seem to exist. Oh well...

 

[mdhwoods]

good luck with this. With all the technology at&t only has the ability to charge you for data usage, but not actually tell you whats using it. i had this problem with my daughters phone, and they could not tell me what app was doing it. I eventually narrowed it down to her updating her apps when not on wifi. Once we talked about it no more overages.

It amazes me that we have to take what they said we used as final, but they cant supply us with a detail of what is using it.