iPhone suddenly using £100+ of data

Cuilean

I have an iPhone 5, bought SIM free from Apple, running a T Mobile SIM-only plan of 500Mb data and a small quantity of calls/texts. I'm not a big user by any means, so this has been more than enough for me.

I decided to use the (predominantly useless) MyEE app to check my usage yesterday and nearly fell off my chair. Since October 11th, the phone has been downloading up to 20Mb of 3G data at random times like 0:02, when I would have been asleep. If the data charge hadn't been capped at £1, the charges quoted were around £120 each day :eek:

I'm not doing anything different to last month, when data usage was within limits. No new apps, same iOS, no new hardware. I don't download music or video, I don't stream things like iPlayer, I sync using cable, and iCloud has always been switched off. To add insult to injury, where I live (bottom of a valley) there is very rarely any EE coverage, so the thought of running up £120 is pretty weird.

Having had a Google search, one of many theories seems to be that when you put your phone in standby, it stops using wifi and uses 3G as a battery saver, but I'm not sure how much truth there is in that. Certainly when I wake it up, it takes a couple of seconds for the wifi icon to come up.

I've followed all the advice I've found so far - background refresh is now off, mobile data is now manually deactivated when I get home (Which is a real pain, and not something I've ever had to do before), and I've installed a data manager to check on when I'm using data.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why the phone is suddenly getting through such a stupid amount of data?

Frozen_up_north

I have an iPhone 5, if you go into settings, cellular, scroll down, it will show which Apps have access to cellular data and how much data each one has used. You can reset the statistics and turn on or off access for each App individually from there too.

The above applies to iOS 8.1, not sure which software version your phone is using.

BTW, you don't need a data manager, it's built in (at least it is in iOS 8.1)

StuC75

Have you got Icloud backup switched on? as that could be using data..

How does the iphone data count stack up against what the app is saying?

If your using the current ios then the data settings will show what is using the data over time so can work out what is happening..

Cuilean

StuC75 wrote: »

Have you got Icloud backup switched on? as that could be using data..

No, that's never been on. Nothing stored in iCloud.

StuC75 wrote: »

How does the iphone data count stack up against what the app is saying?

iPhone says "Current period 979 MB", but I'm not sure when that counted from, as I've never reset it.


Individually, I can see the following usage stats. The Mail usage is quite terrifying. I've now changed that to collect mail manually.

Amazon 14.5MB
App Store 31.4MB
BT Wi-Fi 2.0MB
Buzzfeed 26.3MB
Calendar 1.1MB
Facebook Camera 2.3MB
Facebook 115MB
Facetime 0
Find Friends 233kb
FitBit 340kb
Fruit Ninja 4.9kb
Google Maps 14.0MB
Mail 528MB
Music 32.3kb
My Fitness Pal 1.2MB
Passbook 0
Photos 193kb
Pizap 36.3kb
Nike Running 8.8MB
Safari 116MB
Sky Score Centre 10.2kb
Settings 91.6kb
Shazam 1.9MB
Tractive Lite 7.2MB
Twitter 170kb
TomTom 6.3MB
WhatsApp 23.8MB
YouTube 11.5MB


System services
iTunes Accounts 14.7MB
Time & Location 11.1MB
Mapping Services 8.8MB
Push Notifications 8.1MB
Documents & Sync 7.5MB
Networking 6.1MB
Siri 1.9MB



And a few others which are only a few kb so not causing me any concern.

StuC75 wrote: »

If your using the current ios then the data settings will show what is using the data over time so can work out what is happening..

Thanks for that - I have just updated it so I can see

Frozen_up_north

You might have hit the nail on the head with mail use, although since resetting the statistics, it will give you a better idea.

There are occasional problems with mail collection on mobile phones, if the signal is marginal the phone may keep trying to collect mail and use a lot of data in the process. There was a thread on here some months ago where a firms mobile phones were failing to sync with an office based mail server to collect the users work e-mail, I think it turned out to be a software issue but it used a huge amount of data.

StuC75

also check that facebook isn't set to automatically play and videos as that use a bit of data (can set to only autoplay on wifi connection)..

The newer IOS does give better control of data usage and whats draining the battery too in terms of usage..

CKhalvashi

If you still can't work it out (my usage was high last month for some reason, too), then Settings > General > Usage > Battery usage may be able to give a rough guide, and should roughly tie into the data usage.



If not, it could be something rogue somewhere.

The advice above, especially re Facebook videos is good, too