Mobile data being used despite mobile data being disabled & phone off (iPhone5)

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Mobile data being used despite mobile data being disabled & phone off (iPhone5)

Shock

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#111918 19-Nov-2012 17:42

Houston I think we have a problem !

Open Term Plan, 1gig data. Average 800 meg, odd overrun of cap. Today, somehow, I have managed to blow through 600meg & counting which is completely out of the norm.

Data usage alert wise today I received:

70% (778.6 MB) usage text at 8:55am
100% (1085.7 MB) usage text at 11:26am
120% (1274.8 MB) usage text at 1:12 pm

I was obviously suspicious of this at the 3rd text so disabled mobile data (Settings -> General -> Mobile Data -> switch it to off). 3G icon disappears from the screen etc. Went through and checked location services were off for everything at this stage (I do use 4sq, find friends but going back to average use it is not cap blowing material).

Keep checking the Your Telecom usage page and it still increases. So at 4pm on the train home i check data is disabled again, turn off my phone. Get home, roughly an hour later and data has continued to be used!

Data usage during this time:

4:04pm - 1367.9 MB
5:17pm - 1466.1 MB

Obviously get home, ring the help desk. Explain the situation, get put through to the iPhone helpdesk. They 'reset my data' and i need to monitor it to see if it continues. I did raise the idea that maybe my data is being used up by some form of upstream fault / denial of service attack but this is beyond them and they want to only consider the handset.

Solution from iPhone help desk, should data continue to be used? Is to have my handset checked out.

Help! Can one of the technical people from Telecom take a look and see if anything is amiss as I find it very hard to believe that the usage is so far behind or that my handset is at fault when it is off / has data disabled.

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#719642 19-Nov-2012 17:44

Can't see it been a DOS attack as the mobile network will be behind a firewall from the internet and should not allow inbound connections

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ajobbins

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#719653 19-Nov-2012 18:26

johnr: Can't see it been a DOS attack as the mobile network will be behind a firewall from the internet and should not allow inbound connections

Unless he is using a direct APN that gives a public IP address?

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ajobbins

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#719654 19-Nov-2012 18:27

Is it possible the data usage is going up as it's not recorded in real time? I'm not sure what Telecom's view is on how up to date their usage meter is, but in the past I'm sure they always said it can be a few hours behind.

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freitasm

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Geekzone

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#719655 19-Nov-2012 18:33

Correct, data is not recorded in real-time. When yu get home (if not already), tried connecting the phone to your network or PC and checked for any updates etc that might be downloading, failing, downloading again?

Also, apparently there's a bug in iOS 6 that makes 30 MB of stream being used, reused, used again chewing through 100MB at the end (links to a couple of sources from that post). Some say this is fixed on 6.01, some say it isn't.

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Ventura

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#719685 19-Nov-2012 19:12

There is an explanation for some excessive data uses in ios 6.0 here- http://labs.prx.org/2012/11/14/ios-6-0-devours-data-plans-causes-cdn-overages/
Have a listen to this podcast- http://tii.libsyn.com/ as it contains an explanation in the middle.
Upgrade to 6.0.1 if you haven't already.

freitasm

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#719686 19-Nov-2012 19:13

Yep, that's linked from my post just above yours.

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Shock

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#719700 19-Nov-2012 19:54

ajobbins: Unless he is using a direct APN that gives a public IP address?

Yeah checked APN's with inhome mobile engineer and we are all good on that front. Aware that usage is not real time but time given i turned the mobile data off it should have stopped by now as the 'as at' time was only an hour or so behind.

freitasm: Also, apparently there's a bug in iOS 6 that makes 30 MB of stream being used, reused, used again chewing through 100MB at the end (links to a couple of sources from that post). Some say this is fixed on 6.01, some say it isn't.

Definitely up to date and running 6.01. Did so when it first came out, but interestingly enough this really only started today, unless it has been plugging away in the background and there was a delay in update of usage in the Telecom backhaul somewhere so this issue has only presented today ? I don't typically check usage that regular as i am usually within limits.

Of note have just left the phone off for another 2ish hours (mowed the lawns, cooked dinner in case you were interested :D) and it has still used more data showing 1510 MB so it is still ticking over.

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johnr

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#719704 19-Nov-2012 19:59

Email stuck in outbox?

freitasm

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#719718 19-Nov-2012 20:25

It can't be email stuck, the phone was off for two hours.

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johnr

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#719719 19-Nov-2012 20:29

freitasm: It can't be email stuck, the phone was off for two hours.

Was it data usage before phone was powered off?

Shock

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#719737 19-Nov-2012 20:55

johnr:
freitasm: It can't be email stuck, the phone was off for two hours.

Was it data usage before phone was powered off?

Really really want to know this but the stats via telecom.co.nz are not in sync with the 'Your Telecom' mobile page. So when 'Your Telecom' was showing data in the 1400 range, Telecom.co.nz was showing in the 1300 range. Until both match it is a guessing game to match time vs stats until they come through.

Thinking if I leave it off over night everything should be caught up and have an extended period of time with 0 chance of usage from my phone.

I did check for a stuck email but could not see anything. Checked what it was syncing, how often etc and nothing changed from the normal (headers, no attachments, 50 emails only etc).

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Shock

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#719896 20-Nov-2012 08:05

So leaving it off over night, usage on telecom.co.nz shows 1322.0 MB & on Your Telecom (3G page) 1513.3 as of 6:18am.

So usage still way out of sync between systems but at least is now stable in Your Telecom which i believe is the more accurate of the two.

So that means we are looking at usage of 734.4 mb for yesterday (O_<). Nothing I can see has updated recently, checked setting for cloud backup, facetime over 3g etc etc and nothing weird there.

By what & of what is a mystery.

Any of the techs able to see what type of traffic or maybe even where this traffic is going ? Also an actual idea of when the data was used as opposed to when it was reported would be good also.

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plambrechtsen

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#720030 20-Nov-2012 12:12

I would hope your better half could investigate this further.

There are essentially two places where usage is returned.

Via the Mobile Portal either on the Desktop or Mobile versions which don't require login via 3G. That should have the most accurate usage as that is pulled out semi-real time.

Or via Your Telecom which is the full customer portal. This is a lot more delayed and can be up to 24/48 hours behind.

So which one are you talking about.. and have you spoken with SWMBO to see what she thinks of it?

Shock

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#720033 20-Nov-2012 12:27

I am talking about both places. Have checked but as you know they are both not in real time and both completely out of sync with each other. We are now tracking usage via the usages stats on the handset as that is the only accurate place I can access.

At the moment I have had to have data barred from my account as it used another 400 megs this morning when it was turned on. Nothing is stopping this usage.

I actually came into Willis St and had a conversation with your guys and were tracing it back to something with Gmail syncing down to the handset.

However having deleted the mail account, had data barred, phone off etc data is still being recorded against my account.

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NZtechfreak

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#720034 20-Nov-2012 12:27

Have you disabled the personal data tracking that Apple added back into iOS6 without informing users of it's presence?

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