Data usage...why doesn't carrier match phone?

[bunniebabe]

I'm completely irritated with tMobile... I have a jailbroken iphone 3gs. I had previously had a blackberry curve on verizon, and now that the contract with the devil is over, I am seriously committment-phobic so I went with the To Go plan at tMobile for my iphone.
The jailbreak software works great and the phone is super...
My problem is that I keep running out of data! I activated the iphone with the 1500 talk/text and 30mb data card. I had email push on and facebook updates, etc...and I was out of data in 2 days according to the lovely sms message from tMo. Being new to the iphone, I figured it used data differently than my blackberry did, so in order to avoid using up my data so fast, I turned off cellular data and used wifi 99 percent of the time. Maybe once a day, I'd check my email using the cellular data stream.
Anyways, after I ran out of data that first time, I got another card with another 1500 minutes talk/text and another 30mb of data...and I shut my cellular data right down...*and* I reset my usage meter to zero... I thought i could track my data usage and keep control of how much I used.

So, after having used this new alotment of minutes/talk/data for 5 days (still using wifi 99 percent of the time, no email push, just occasionally checking my mail using cell data), my phone said that I had sent like 250kb of data and received 2.5mb.... sounds great right? So the same day, I get an sms from tMo saying I'm out of data. WTF?!!

I called tMo and they said according to their records I used up 2.5 mb data in 5 days, and on the 6th(when they sent the sms) I used up 28mb (all in one day no less!!) I tried to tell them that I was at work and couldn't possibly use up that much data while working, and they said their software says that's what happened...according to them I spent 28mb of data while at work with my cellular data turned off ... Not happy

Anyway, I was on the phone with tMo for 20 minutes to get that far, and they tried transferring me to technical support to see why the huge discrepancy... But after holding for another 15 minutes and no one picking up, I said enough and hung up.

Does anyone have any advice for me here? Why is my phone saying I only used 2.5mb but tMo is saying I used 30mb?? I think I'm intelligent enough to see that something is quite wrong here, but tMo is making me feel crazy and stupid.

 

[bunniebabe]

tMobile response...

They are still claiming that there was in fact 30mb of data used.
So I spent a good hour on the phone with them while they ran through things.
It seems like the only possible explaination is that there are apps running in the background that are using data w/o my knowledge.
I've installed a firewall and have set it to be really strict on what gets in and out.
I'm wondering though if Cydia is sending communications that aren't being blocked or registered with the iphone data counter....
I'm seriously considering uninstalling Cydia and just leaving my phone unlocked not jailbroken... I'm happy with Apple stuff and don't need these data overages

 

[JohnBossu]

30 mb per month is really, really small amount of data considering a phone as smart as the iphone. people are wondering if they are able to live with 200 mb data caps and you are whining about 30 mb?? cmon..

 

[bunniebabe]

actually it's not whining, its asking a valid question...
but thanks very much for your intelligent response

 

[JamesMB]

actually it's not whining, its asking a valid question...
but thanks very much for your intelligent response

I agree with your assessment! Just trying to get the post count up I suppose.

BTW, I agree with you, if you have cellular data turned off, and are just using WiFi, for your data needs, then you shouldn't be using much of the allotted data. There are a few things that can use 30mb of data pretty quick though.

That said, I wouldn't think that you would be able to use 30mb very fast on TM because, i believe that the iPhone is limited to EDGE on TM's network. The transfer speeds on EDGE range from about 50 to 150 kbs, so it would definately take awhile to download 30 mb of data at that speed.

 

[bunniebabe]

You're right

it doesn't download very fast on 2G, but tMo thinks I'm just going through data like nobody's business lol
I talked to tech support again and they have *no answers*... The guy went through everything he could possibly think of but nothing made sense to him. He couldn't understand either why it's using so much data when I'm not actually using cellular data.
One of the other reps thought it might be because iPhone isn't a tMo supported phone, that the calibration in their equipment might be off (ya think?haha)
So I'm out of data still and have been on wifi since my last post.
I think I might try out at&t and see how their network is...

 

[JamesMB]

it doesn't download very fast on 2G, but tMo thinks I'm just going through data like nobody's business lol
I talked to tech support again and they have *no answers*... The guy went through everything he could possibly think of but nothing made sense to him. He couldn't understand either why it's using so much data when I'm not actually using cellular data.
One of the other reps thought it might be because iPhone isn't a tMo supported phone, that the calibration in their equipment might be off (ya think?haha)
So I'm out of data still and have been on wifi since my last post.
I think I might try out at&t and see how their network is...

You can get a Go Phone plan on AT&T, that is probably similar to tmo. There was a thread on here a few days ago about how to do it. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/865931/