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Middle of the night data usage spikes... 200MB per spike

I

invisible777

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 3, 2008
62
0
On the phone with ATT right now...

My wife has the 200 meg plan and we're one week into our billing cycle. She uses about 150 meg in a normal month. Not a big data user. Right now, we just got all the alerts telling us we're at 450 meg on that account. So an extra $30 worth of data usage so far.

Here's the interesting thing.

200mb spike around midnight last night "Internet/Media Net" Sent
125mb spike around midnight the night before "Internet/Media Net" Sent

She was sleeping when these spikes went out.

I also have these spikes in the middle of the night on my unlimited plan, but for like 4MB-7MB.

ATT rep thinks we left a streaming video open in Safari overnight (HAH, no), or sent a large email while we were sleeping. Total joke. Now I'm getting connected to Apple to see if it's a hardware problem, which I doubt it is.

Anyone else have this issue?
 
I dont have any insight, on why it may be happening. but, dont you have wifi in your home. me and my fiance, are getting iPhones currently, and i plan to turn the 3G off when im in my home, and just turn on the wifi. just a thought, switch to wifi when at home.
 
Got to be something software related. If it cannot be something narrowed down easily (a newly installed app the day the spike started or something like that), then a restore is probably in order. Make sure to set it up as a new device when you do.
 
If you use WiFi, data will automatically transfer over it. No need to turn off 3G.

To the OP - I'd go to an AT&T store and see if they can remove the overcharge for you, AT&T's phone customer service is terrible in my experience.
 
Something is pushing a lot of data to that phone, and push is not properly using wifi when available. Then, when the push connection is reset in the middle of the night, AT&T is adding that whole days worth of push data into one lump.

I would make sure that the wifi connection really works (test push in Airplane mode + wifi), and turn off push on every app (including email) until I found the culprit.
 
it's AT&T, they are putting you over your data plan so you will get the next higher bracket, it's all a scam!!!!!!
 
Plug your phone into the charger and turn it off while it's plugged in.

It will still charge the phone, I do this all the time.

No data can be sent when your phone is off, so I guess try that until At&t finally gets slapped with lawsuits for this BS.
 
Isn't night when AT&T tallies up all your data usage for the day? Are you sure it's a spike and not all your data usage of the day hitting your account?
 
200MB is a high number. I know there are 3-4MB spikes during the night. But thats normal of any networked device. Leave your PC turned on all night connected via LAN or Wi-Fi and open up the packet amount after waking up, huge boost in packets sent.

That also happens on the iPhone, albeit not at the 200MB range.
 
I am not sure why you are asking what to do.

I can do 150MB watching a couple of youtube videos and browsing a little bit. That means you basically don't use the DATA connection on your phone for anything.

So, TURN OFF CELLULAR DATA!

:confused:

iphonegprsdisable.jpg


Also, your battery will last forever if you just keep the Cellular Data off and turn it on when you need the internet.
 
jpetticrew said:
Isn't night when AT&T tallies up all your data usage for the day? Are you sure it's a spike and not all your data usage of the day hitting your account?
Click to expand...

This was what the supervisor explained -- and that's fine. But the phone in question wasn't used to the tune of 200MB per day.

ajarnfalang said:
I am not sure why you are asking what to do.

I can do 150MB watching a couple of youtube videos and browsing a little bit. That means you basically don't use the DATA connection on your phone for anything.

So, TURN OFF CELLULAR DATA!

:confused:

iphonegprsdisable.jpg


Also, your battery will last forever if you just keep the Cellular Data off and turn it on when you need the internet.
Click to expand...

I shouldn't have to disable a major component of the device because AT&T has billing issues.

coneman5259 said:
it's AT&T, they are putting you over your data plan so you will get the next higher bracket, it's all a scam!!!!!!
Click to expand...

It's odd, because my unlimited data iPhone4 has 3-4mb spikes in the middle of the night, and I am using data alllllll day long. But my wife's 200mb data iphone, which sits in her pocket all day gets 25mb, 45mb, 125mb and 200mb spikes thereby accruing multiple $15 charges.

Interesting, right?
 
invisible777 said:
It's odd, because my unlimited data iPhone4 has 3-4mb spikes in the middle of the night, and I am using data alllllll day long. But my wife's 200mb data iphone, which sits in her pocket all day gets 25mb, 45mb, 125mb and 200mb spikes thereby accruing multiple $15 charges.

Interesting, right?
Click to expand...

If I were you, I'd start by checking just what's going on with her phone during the day. Usage can add up faster than you'd expect. For example, if my math is correct, just a single hour of streaming 128 kbs music uses 56 MB. Also, Using Google maps in sat view seems to utilize a surprising amount of data.

I've done experiments - for me personally, both with a first-gen iPhone and iPhone 4, data usage reported by AT&T in the middle of the night has ALWAYS been an aggregate of usage since the last time the connection to the cell network was reset. You can try it yourself - reboot her phone every night at, say, 10 pm and don't use it until the next day. Then after a few days, check her usage reports and note what AT&T reports for the timestamps.
 
Purchase this application.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/data-usage/id386950560?mt=8

Works perfectly. Notifies you when you are at 75% remaining, 50, 25 and so on. Unlike AT&T's server this updates as soon as you use the Internet so you can see exactly what you are using.

I have the unlimited plan but I still like to keep an eye on what exactly I use. I'm weird like that... :rolleyes:
 
invisible777 said:
I shouldn't have to disable a major component of the device because AT&T has billing issues.
Click to expand...

I mean, you can't change AT&T, right?

Your wife doesn't use the internet really. 200MB is nothing. I can use that up in 1 or 2 days.

So, to safe battery life, just turn off data when you're not using it, which is most of the time. That's why the setting is there. :confused:
 
ajarnfalang said:
I mean, you can't change AT&T, right?

Your wife doesn't use the internet really. 200MB is nothing. I can use that up in 1 or 2 days.

So, to safe battery life, just turn off data when you're not using it, which is most of the time. That's why the setting is there. :confused:
Click to expand...

I can use 200 MB is a matter of a couple hours, and I'm not a very big data user. I use 2.5-3GB at most and 90% of that is Netflix.
 
Solved

I solved this problem for my wife.

I noticed a 200 MB data spike listed on a tuesday morning at 7:30 AM and of course thought it was strange.

After interrogating my wife, it turns out on a monday evening at home, she updated 39 apps over 3G. A router reset had made her iphone forget our home wifi and stay on 3G.

Yes, my wife procrastinated so long on her application updates that she needed 39 of them at once. 39 updates at an average of 5 MB per update (under the 10 MB cap which permits them to be done over 3G). Of the 39 updates, only 1 was over the 10 MB cap.

THIS IS WHY YOU UPDATE YOUR APPS REGULARLY!
 
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