Wifi Data Usage Question [ Edited ]

[expl0si0n34]

I just purchased an iPhone and am in my 30 day trial period of possibly switching to AT&T from my current provider.  I am curious on the charging of data usage on the phone.  If I am connected to Wifi and am surfing the internet/listening to Sirius from my wireless internet at home or at other places, does this charge against me on my Data usage.  I am mainly concerned about the Offnet Usage Policy (cannot exceed 24mb/month).  Thank you for your help.

Edit - I am posting this because I have only been using these services when I have a Wifi connection and my Online Usage through my profile says 4.2mb as of yesterday and my phone usage says 11mb as of today.

Message Edited by expl0si0n34 on 02-23-2010 02:18:03 PM

[dmapr ACE - Champion]

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expl0si0n34 wrote:

I just purchased an iPhone and am in my 30 day trial period of possibly switching to AT&T from my current provider.  I am curious on the charging of data usage on the phone.  If I am connected to Wifi and am surfing the internet/listening to Sirius from my wireless internet at home or at other places, does this charge against me on my Data usage.  I am mainly concerned about the Offnet Usage Policy (cannot exceed 24mb/month).  Thank you for your help.

Edit - I am posting this because I have only been using these services when I have a Wifi connection and my Online Usage through my profile says 4.2mb as of yesterday and my phone usage says 11mb as of today.

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Don't worry, WiFi data use is not billed at all and doesn't count against your off-net usage allowance. The WiFi data usage will not show online either.

[expl0si0n34]

Thank you for the response, do you know why it would show the MB on my online account data usage if it is to not be billed?  My account just updated to 12 mb, which is how much my phone has as data used.  Would this be something I need to call customer service and ask about?

[Planet-Ed ACE - Geek]

The usage your seeing online is from cellular data. 

Unfortunately there is no way to fully prevent cellular data usage on the iPhone, not even if your utilizing WiFi.  For instance when your phone is sitting there idle its connected to cellular data since the WiFi radio is in a power save mode.  When you click the home or power button you can see the WiFi has to connect again.  Once WiFi connects, then the data switches back over to it.  So any status updates, email, voicemail etc etc happening in the background while idle will be using cellular data in a lot of instances.

Since the device is designed to always be connected is the reason it has always required an unlimited data plan long before the smartphone data plan requirement came out. 

The only time you can truely and fully prevent cellular data is when your roaming internationally as the phone as a setting to prevent data while roaming.