If this session isn't an aggregate logging, then I'm getting a whole lot of free data access from ATT. Most days this ~2AM report is my only recorded data when I was certainly using 3G.
It's not at all surprising CSRs have no idea how the billing system actually works.
No conspiracy here.
The billing system dates back to when data offerings were brand new, and reflects how data at the time worked (some of it is still relevant, some of it not). But yeah, you are on the right track here.
A couple things to note...
- Look at your data reported on the bill... the total matches what they say you used, and yet it's all reported as outbound. Why is this?
- Take note of when you use a sizable chunk of data during the day (while using the phone
normally), why is it never seemingly reported when you used it, if you have push or a short fetch setting?
The quick answer here is that data on mobile phones before 3G had to make a call to a special phone number, just like a modem to setup the data connection. This was billed as a call just like anything else, just based on the data sent/received during the call, rather than the minutes used. This call was also always outbound.
So, the aggregation for the data now could still very well be similar to then. It aggregates when the data link is shut down by the phone, or when some point in time passes by that forces an entry into the database. Those who have push notifications and/or push e-mail will keep the data connection open, forcing the aggregation to happen at points in time, rather than when the data connection closes.
