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Extreme Data Usage with iOS 6

Z

zim2411

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 27, 2004
13
0
Has anyone noticed extreme data usage with iOS 6?

Details:
  • My data usage reset on Sunday, 9/16.
  • I installed iOS 6 on Wednesday at about 1 or 2 PM.
  • The install failed. I factory restored from iTunes, then restored from iCloud
  • This caused all my apps to start redownloading of course. At this point, I'm still at work and on wifi.
  • I go somewhere for a few hours without wifi, came home, and continued downloading apps over wifi overnight. Apps finished by the next morning.
  • Thursday I was again at work most of the day, and was away from wifi for maybe an hour total.
  • Friday I get a notification about high data usage and that I'm already over the limit and I will be charged $10.
  • I check data usage at 10:43 am Friday: 2704 MB.
  • I check data usage at 8:24 am today: 2896 MB.

Below is the screenshot from att.com.

wrlf5.png


The three massive chunks are 248 MB on 9/19, 2.4 GB on 9/20, and another 184 MB on 9/21. I've been in wifi coverage for all but a few hours over the past couple days. I was extra careful about not using 4G data on Friday given the high usage alert, but my phone still managed to pull 184 MB. What the hell is going on?

My average usage pre-iOS 6 was between 600 to 900 MB a month.
 
I've noticed in the usage tab on my iPhone that its using data just sitting around. Each time I click it the usage goes up, even if I click once a second. I was wondering if checking the usage tab actually used some data. I seemed to use about 1mb overnight while I slept.
 
black743 said:
Also I was even showing usage while on wifi watching YouTube. Why would that chew up cellular data?
Click to expand...

Check my thread

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1449956/

Maybe this is why video playback quality is not good. Maybe ios 6 isn't using the wifi connection to play the video?
 
I received my iPhone at about 2:45 yesterday. Didn't leave the house - where I have wifi. I did disconnect wifi for a few minutes to run 1 speed test and ensure that my LTE data was working.

In a span of about 8 hours, I used 300 MB. My typical monthly usage is around 750 MB. So that's quite a bit in 8 hours.

Even worse, overnight, connected to wifi and plugged into AC power, I somehow used 175 MB while I was sleeping. WTF?!?!?

Thankfully I have unlimited data still, but I don't want to be blowing through 10-12 GB/month and start raising eyebrows.

Why does this device seem to use cellular data even when connected to wifi?
 
My billing cycle reset last night at midnight, I wasn't even able to get my phone activated until his morning. first thing I did was check the usage *3282# it said I had used about 300 mb so far. I didn't do a damn thing with it.
 
My phone did a lot with re syncing the content from my cloud. I watched the pictures resync. At first I thought I lost them all while it was repopulating the list (about 2.5gb in photos).

What MIGHT have happened was since wifi went down because of an Apple oversight it was using 3G to resync?

Just a theory....
 
Similar Issues

I'm having similar issues. See my post in another thread here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15772132/

I have a feeling that iOS 6 falls back to cell data (3G or LTE) if it has trouble with the WiFi connection. If this is the case, then iCloud backups for one are going to kill data allocation.

I pray they fix this quickly in a point release. I hit 6 GB in 20 days using the last beta and now the GM. My largest 30 day usage before now using my iPhone & iPad on one plan was around 2.7 GB. I have Rogers in Toronto Canada.

For me this is far worse than the maps issue. Far worse.
 
Just got an iPhone 5 yesterday. Under "Cellular Usage", my phone says that I've already used 1.1 GB of received data and 268 MB of sent data. :eek:

Verizon says I've used a whooping 0.028 GB of data for this cycle as of their estimate for 1 minute ago. My cycle started a few days ago. I've been pretty much at home since I got the phone, connected to Wifi, and I have iCloud and iTunes match turned off.

There has got to be something wrong with the usage stats.
 
Good god, my cellular allowance with my carrier reset yesterday... and it already says I've used over 450MB. I'm only allowed 500MB a month before bring charged more. I'm on an iPhone 4S in the UK (so no LTE available) and before upgrading to iOS 6 never even got close to using the 500MB in a month.

Apple, you've got to do something about this ASAP... it'll kill the iPhone stone dead

P.S. To confirm, nothing's changed in how I use the phone or what I do with Apps etc since I downloaded iOS 6 (which was done in my last billing cycle and via a Mac on broadband). The 450MB use has been just a normal Saturday where I barely used the phone... something in the background must be chewing up the usage.
 
Last edited:
I have the same issue - since upgrading to ios6 my data usage is through the roof.

Nothing has changed but iOS 6 and I've used 1.8 gig since the launch day.

I now have to turn off the cell data to to keep from being charged additional fees by AT&T

I now notice that with cell data turned off the phone doesn't get email or I messages
when locked. It seems that WiFi is used only when the phone is awake.

This is really really bad - and a disaster for me and my business.
 
Freak occurrences like these are part of why I'm staying on 5.1.1....

Actually the Maps app is #1 reason I won't go iOS 6 right now, but that's another story.

But, my advice to so many of you is, when you're using WiFi, FFS turn "Cellular Data" switch to OFF.

Even though I'm still on unlimited with AT&T, I'm always on my phone and would consider myself a very heavy user. That said, when I'm home - on WiFi - I turn WiFi ON and turn Cellular Data OFF.

On the flipside, when I leave the house, I turn WiFi OFF and Cellular Data ON.

I used to use between 4GB-5GB data per month but since the lovely throttling policy went live, I've cut myself down to ~ 2GB per month.
 
One thing I notice in iOS 6 is that when unlocking the phone, it is clearly on cellular data for a second before hopping on the WiFi network...

Didn't see much use overnight only about 100Kbytes but this is definitely different behavior than iOS 5.x
 
iOS 6 has an option to use cellular for data for iTunes, Passbook updates and readinglist. You can disable all 3 in Settings > General > Mobile network (or cellular; I'm not using English on my iPhone so I don't have the correct terminology). Try disabling these and see how your cellular data usage is after a few days.

Edit: see this for more info: Watch out! iOS 6 can jack up your phone bill
 
Last edited:
Update on my usage, I got charged another $10 for overages.

saqdj.png


Saturday I was home all day except for 10ish minutes - 1.5 MB. Fine.
Sunday I was out from 2 pm to 8:30 pm - 206 MB.

I drove for about 2 hours and used Apple Maps the whole time for turn by turn directions. I used Spotify and it synced 4 songs (estimated 20-50 MB there, not entirely sure what it synced). The rest should have been playing from the offline cache I synced over wifi.

It sure would be nice to have a break down of data usage by app. :mad:

Edit: I also disabled iTunes, Passbook, and Reading List updates over cell. I never used any of those services before, so I don't expect that will change anything.
 
Zim, I feel for you.

I got my iPhone 5 on Saturday. I checked my usage after I activated, .080 GB according to Verizon, and that was for all of September on my previous Android until that point (9/1 to 9/22). Today I'm up to .090 GB total for the month, with usage resetting on 9/28.

I don't toggle off Cell Data manually. I did turn off usage of cell data for the default background services... like iCloud docs, Facetime, etc., keeping only Passbook updates on cellular data.
 
my wife and i are on iOS 6 and our data is still OK. it resets on the 21st and i'm at 158MB and she's at 73. in my case i left my phone on cellular all night where i usually turn the cellular off at home. normal for us is a few hundred MB a month for her and close to 1GB for

both of us did use maps yesterday so that might be the reason. we did use a lot of maps via Waze last month and i checked the report for that and it was higher than normal

so if you use maps a lot then expect your data usage to go up
 
Zim, just be careful with Spotify. Even with cached tracks, there is some data usage. The only way to stop it is to put Spotify in "Offline Mode". I played music for about 3 hours from cache last night and used a few MB of data anyway. If you are syncing tracks on cellular watch out too, even more so if you are on the high quality setting. That can use the MB in a real hurry!
 
Are these all problems with Verizon or are people with AT&T having the same problem ? I'm on AT&T and I'm doing pretty good. I also downloaded an app called Onavo and its saved me a couple MB's of data.
 
alent1234 said:
so if you use maps a lot then expect your data usage to go up
Click to expand...

Can Maps really account for the 150ish MB yesterday? (Assuming Spotify used no more than 50 MB) I'm using the vector maps only, not the satellite view. If this is really how it's going to be, I want to downgrade back to iOS 5 immediately.

Are these all problems with Verizon or are people with AT&T having the same problem ? I'm on AT&T and I'm doing pretty good. I also downloaded an app called Onavo and its saved me a couple MB's of data.
Click to expand...

I'm on AT&T. No one else I know has seen increased data usage.
 
zim2411 said:
Can Maps really account for the 150ish MB yesterday? (Assuming Spotify used no more than 50 MB) I'm using the vector maps only, not the satellite view. If this is really how it's going to be, I want to downgrade back to iOS 5 immediately.



I'm on AT&T. No one else I know has seen increased data usage.
Click to expand...

i would have to say yes

i'm normally in the 800MB per month range and my account reset date is the 21st. at home i usually turn off cellular data. so unless i stream a video from a corner of the house where there is no wifi i don't use a lot of data.

using 150MB this weekend when i was home most of the day except a drive yesterday would explain it. same with my wife. 75MB in a few days when she is normally in the 300MB per month range. and she left earlier than me in a separate car and i set up navigation for her before she left because her parents didn't know the way.


i checked my august usage when i used navigon and waze a lot more than usuall and that was also an uptick in usage. chances are if you use any maps app you will see more usage. unless you buy navigon or tomtom which has offline maps
 
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