This is a very long story. The "Too Long, Didn't Read" version starts well down the page, marked by a "TLDR" header. If you do not want to read this entire scenario, scroll down, read the summation, and decide if the rest is something worth reading. The last thing I'd want to do to you, even though AT&T does it to all of us, is waste your time (and money).
I'm going to put my story in here for others, because in my investigation I discovered a few different things going on. Take the info for what you will.
I'll start of by saying this story doesn't involve a solution, only frustration.
My fiance and I are on a family plan. We each have the 200MB data plan. Beginning late last year, December I believe, we started getting notifications that her phone was reaching it's monthly data limit. Curious as to how this was possible, I looked at my usage. For argument's sake, since I cannot remember the exact number, we'll say she was at 180MB used. When I looked at my usage, I was around a fifth of that, or 30MB.
The huge discrepancy isn't alarming on its own, as people use their phones in different ways. However, based on how the two of use our phones, one would think that I should have the larger usage, she the smaller. I am the nerd, geek, techie, internet guy. She doesn't use the phone a quarter as much as I do for browsing, viewing Youtube, Facebook, playing games, etc.
When I looked on the AT&T site to determine when the individual packets of data were being sent, I was flabbergasted! The majority of the data packets were being sent between 12am and 6am, when the two of us are alseep. Even more astounding, these data packets would ALWAYS be single dumps of ridiculously large files, as other have been saying: anywhere between 30 and 120MB!
People on this site keep saying, "Oh, that's nothing in terms of volume," blah blah blah. Agreed, but the fact that my phone has a ridiculously less amount of usage is 100% counterintuitive based on my usage habits.
On top of that, has anyone here ever tried to update and App from the store that was A) over 10MB and B) while not connected to a wireless network or plugged into a computer with an internet connection? If so, you probably get the same message I get, the jist of being "File download too large, please connect to a computer or network" so the file can download. Why then, would the phone allow a 100MB download of data, especially if the website itself says it's taking place at one specific time, in one large packet?
What turns this issue even further on its head is the fact that my fiance and I are connected to wireless network 95% of the day; the only times we are not is when we are in our vehicles from A to B. She has it at work, I have it at work, and we have it at home. So, it appeared that data was being downloaded over the Edge network in the middle of the night when the phone should have been connected to our wireless network.
Has anyone ever noticed upon "waking up" and idle iPhone, the "E" symbol is there for a fraction of second and is quickly replaced by the "Wifi" symbol? I have.
I'll wait for you to refill your coffee. This is the first 25% of this story.
I called customer service and the woman I spoke to was very pleasant. She looked over our collective data usage for the year prior and she agreed with me when I coined this incident "an anomaly." We'd gotten nowhere close to that, in fact, never broke 100MB of usage. She kindly waived the additional $15 since it was our first time, but encouraged us to be more vigilant. On the other hand, she could not understand or explain why the data dumps were so large and why they were taking place after the device had been idle for hours, in the middle of the night, and when it was supposedly connected to a wireless network.
The customer service rep also encouraged me to make sure there weren't extra apps running. She also suggested making sure that the OS was updated to the most recent version, a no-brainer for me, but apparently not for my fiance. She hadn't updated her phone in a while, and when I explored her iPhone, I found that she wasn't able to stay connected to wireless networks. The setting was on, but it couldn't find anything.
I deleted the apps she had that I didn't have, I updated her phone to the latest version, and it was once again able to find wireless networks.
At this point, I figured the problem was isolated and solved.
I WAS 100% WRONG, SO KEEP READING.
A few days into our next billing cycle, we received the "nearing your data limit" message again. I was confounded, and quite angry. I made sure that she was shutting down programs and that there weren't push notifications for constantly running apps; all looking good.
I called customer service a second time and spoke to a very, very rude and snarky man. He basically told me there was nothing he would do and that it's Apple's problem, so I should call them. Unfortunately, since the user is not afforded the right to know which Apps were doing this, I had no avenue. I knew this wasn't Apple's problem. Apple has the phone and the Apps. AT&T has the data info.
Even angrier after that call, I made sure her phone was still connecting to our wireless networks, which it was. Magically, after that call, her data usage didn't increase at a rate that was faster than my data usage for the rest of the billing cycle. I'd like to reiterate that I've never used even HALF of my allotted data in a given month, even though I use my phone for many, many more hours per month than my fiance uses hers. So, my phone behaves normally; though her setting and apps were pretty much identical to what I have (in fact, I have more Apps), her phone behaves differently.
This brings us to two days ago. Yet another text message from AT&T about my fiance nearing her data limit. When I checked it then, she was around 120MB. This morning, we received what will be the final text message from AT&T during this billing cycle, which stated that she had gone over the 200MB, and consequently we will be charged $15 for an additional 200MB this month. Lovely.
I encouraged her to call Apple and/or AT&T. She did both.
First she called Apple. Remember, the last time I called AT&T, the jerkish rep told me it was an Apple problem. My fiance talked with Apple, and the rep there said it was an AT&T problem. Then the rep offered to connect my fiance with tech support for a fee. My fiance told the rep off and hung up (she's not familiar with Apple's policy of charging extra for tech support).
She then called AT&T and spoke to not one, but two people, both of whom she had an extremely difficult time understanding. The second rep was a genius, because he told her it must be her apps. Gee, thanks.
Then, as a very kind gesture, he tried to get her to update her Data Plan!
TLDR
Obviously, this problem is far from solved, and it is a problem that very, very many people are experiencing. It very well may be "our" fault, i.e. the user's fault that these gigantic amounts of data are being downloaded without their knowledge. However, what's needed then is transparency so the average user can see exactly where things are going wrong if they are experiencing this scenario.
Check it: if you don't put oil in your car, it's going to wreck the engine.
If you take your car to the mechanic each month to fix your wrecked engine, you'd expect him to say: Hey, you wrecked your engine because you didn't put oil in your car, smart guy!
He wouldn't say: Hey, you wrecked your engine because you did something wrong with your car. Sorry, can't elaborate.
AT&T, I am not going to shut up about this until we get exactly that: transparency. I'm going to pepper Facebook, I'm going to complain to everyone I see who owns an iPhone. I'm going to encourage my friends to explore the Verizon option (as I will do myself once my contract expires), and I will give them a very good argument as to why they should.
That is not good news for a company such as yours that prides itself on customer service; heck, I don't even know anything about Verizon. They may even be experience the same issues that we're complaining about. However, the experience I've had with AT&T since getting an iPhone has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm just looking for a way out.
Good day.
