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TOADVINE

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 22, 2012
9
0
So I wake up this morning to find out that my iPad has used roughly seven gigs of data while I was sleep. Now I know that I should have turned off the cellular data, but I thought that when wifi is enabled it uses wifi first? Called Verizon nothing they can do about overages, and their response was that I left an app open that pulled data while the device was off. I questioned this and was told "its just like your phone it can still receive voicemails while off, your iPad can still pull data while turned off." Is this right? Seven gigs in two hours seems like a lot.
 
Considering that a two-hour movie is about 2GB, 7GB of data while the iPad was sleeping overnight is way beyond excessive, it's insane. Are you sure all of that data usage happened in one night?
 
Well if you're connected to wifi, the only reason (as far as I know) it would switch from wifi to cellular is if your wifi router turns off. But even if the router does turn off and then turn back on, it should go right back to wifi. I've had this happen to me a lot, people mistakenly take off my wifi router, it switches to cellular, I go in and plug it back up, it goes back to wifi.

And yea, like the person above me said, 7gigs in 2hr on an iPad sounds really excessive. Even a movies in iTunes are like..4gigs..and if your iPad was in sleep/standby, then the apps running in the background shouldn't even pull as much as 1gig (in a month/or week if you have a ton of things running in the back that are continuously using data), let alone 7.

Any one else in the house who might have used the iPad? :/

And do you remember which apps were running in the background?
 
only thing i can think of is if you have it set to download purchase automatically over cellular. in itunes
 
Wow, I wouldn't have even thought it was physically possible to use 7GB's of data in a 24 hour period, nobody I know can even come close to that in a month!
 
Our normal mode for our ipad is with cellular data turned off.

Everytime we get in the car, we have to turn it back on. but well worth the hassle to insure no problems.
 
I always had 3G (now 4g with new iPad) since first iPad came out I never once turned off cellure in settings. Then about a month ago I had to call Verizion with I question about my plan the lady told me that to save data always turn off cellure when not using it I don't personally see and difference in using more data when I leave it on when wifi available it automatic switches. But the lady for Verizion was pretty stern about turning off when not using it
 
Go to settings -> iCloud -> Documents & Data, and make sure Use Cellular is Off.

I had this turned on and it used up 60MB of my 250MB when I first got the device. Turning this off solved the problem.
 
Wow, I wouldn't have even thought it was physically possible to use 7GB's of data in a 24 hour period, nobody I know can even come close to that in a month!

Download 2-3 HD movies overnight (over the cellular network) - and there you have it - 7 GB.

EDIT - I don't believe it's necessary - but like others have stated - I always shut off my cellular data when I don't need it. A) It saves on battery life - B) It can prevent data usage mishaps when something goes haywire with your WiFi network...
 
Well three reps on the phone and one supervisor later and I didn't get anything. Just a well the data was used. Tried an EECB but didn't get any response from that either.

Apps that we're open we're settings, Facebook, and instagram.
 
Can Verizon at least tell you what site/ip address that consumed the 7gig of data? Also is this a jailbroken iPad?
 
Update:
Received a response from my EECB. I got a call Early today from the executive complaint department. They took care of the charges and everything is good now. But didn't tell me what used the data and agreed that the rep I talked with was wrong in saying that an app was still pulling data after it was turned off.
 
Update:
Received a response from my EECB. I got a call Early today from the executive complaint department. They took care of the charges and everything is good now. But didn't tell me what used the data and agreed that the rep I talked with was wrong in saying that an app was still pulling data after it was turned off.

Glad everything worked out for you! :)
Still wish we knew what the problem was..xD
 
Good advice, but iCloud isn't going to use 7 gigs of data in two hours. Without a paid plan that's more than you can even store in iCloud.

It's not iCloud documents and data that can download massive amounts of data, it's automatic download of iTunes purchases. I'd go check Settings > Store > Automatic Downloads and make sure "Use Cellular Data" is turned off.
 
I'm still curious what app was running in the background that used 7GB to download. LTE is fast, say you were average 10Megabit connection and remain constant at that speed, it's possible you could do 7GB in two hours.

Did you make a note of what apps were running (double click home button) at the time it happened? Wondering if an app was stuck in a loop pinging a server to do something but never stopped.
 
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