Steve Jobs would dispatch a squad of Midget "Attitude Adjustment" Specialists to your home to deal with your misdeed!
Posted on 06/18/2010 8:47:45 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
AT&T recently did away with their unlimited data plans. Forcing folks into plans for either 200 MB a month or 2GB a month, with fees if you exceed these caps.
Now Apple, AT&T and IPhone forums are a buzz with many people complaining about unexplained transfers of data occurring between 1AM and 3AM via AT&T's 3G network.
All this data is being billed against your data cap. many people are seeing up to 10MB per night being used and AT&T nor Apple can explain where its going, or why.
iPhone 3GS is sending lots of data on its own!
Unknown data usage early morning
“charge of the light wallet brigade.”
You are fortunate.
Here in the Sheeples Republic of FloriDUH, we have Governor “Light In His Loafers”, who is busy aiding and abetting Obamas kleptocracy.
Iphones send data back to Apple folks, that’s just a fact. 10 MB a night seems excessive, but it definitely sends data back and forth, because you as a developer can see the crash logs if your app crashes on someones iPhone... if you choose to look at em.
I’m here to! Under the governance of Governor Suntan.
There was some radio station bit somewhere (up north I think) that plays a game called “Germany or Florida” where they read a news bit about idiotic behavior and the caller has to guess if the story is from Germany, or Florida.
We seem to attract all the second chance at life boobs down here.
Well, it seems that this is just an ATT data report left over from their legacy methodology from the old dial up reporting code. While the jury is still out, it is the best theory so far for a couple of very good reasons.
First: ATT continues to play dumb. And while they ARE dumb for trying to restrict data usage and a whole host of other piss poor management decisions, they DO know what is going on here. And number 2 will explain WHY they don’t wanna admit it.
Second: If this is just an aggregate reporting of usage, it means that ATT doesn’t truly KNOW how much data you are using at the time you are using it, and has to ASK your phone for a report. Now, if true, imagine what some jailbreaking coder could do with an app that would change the logs and essentially LIE to ATT when they ask the phone for the report??
If I was ATT using 1990’s tech for accounting, because I didn’t want to write some very new code to make reporting live for millions of data users, I sure as HELL wouldn’t admit it and let the jailbreaking coders get a heads up on finding a way around my anticquaited data reporting model.
This is the only theory that makes sense. Apps don’t phone home, Apple would ban them so fast. There isn’t any secret reporting being done, except by ATT for ATT. They are the only party interested at ALL in your data use. Cause they gotta CHARGE for it.
I’d also be VERY willing to bet that, knowing what I know about old school data dial up reporting, that it GUESSES about usage too. And this would also explain why some users are seeing their midnight reports as close to usage and others are way over.
We saw lots of this way way back on AOL when you had to pay by the minute for dial up. It was a dirty little secret that got known, just about the time that AOL got enough of a customer base to announce their unlimited dial up plans and sweep it under the rug. Old timers will remember or know of what I speak.
So, IMHO, mystery solved. ATT doesn’t have live tracking, is using an old legacy script to run in the middle of the night and just asks your phone “Say, iPhone, just checkin’ but how much data do you think you used today”?
And ATT does NOT want the whole world to know that they DON’T know and are guessing half the time. LOL
But now you do know...
And like someone else said... here come the class action lawsuits... especially once you get billed for the data of incoming iAds.
ATT & Apple is a marriage doomed to divorce and I for one can hardly wait!!
so, as an ignorant question - what happens if you pop your battery out every night before bed and back in the morning - would it phone home immediately in the morning as a queued action, or since it wasn’t online when it was pinged, would it just not report?
It would report as either in the am when you put the battery back in, or at some random time following. Maybe the next 2am, even. And if you took the battery out for days in a row, it would eventually still ASK and TELL sometime. Try it. It’s old school data reporting, but it will ask and keep asking until the phone talks and tells.
But this is WHY ATT isn’t admitting to it. Because they do NOT have any other way to go about it. And if here is the worst part....
The techies at ATT knew ALL about this for years. I am sure they know it’s a guess and a aggregate report. It is how ALL the old dial up ISP’s used to do it, it’s the only way they COULD do it.
But the sales and accounting dept idiots are NOT 1990’s dial up ISP techies... they just saw a way to cut costs and went ahead with this insane 200MB data cap and THIS is when millions of users started to LOOK at their bills.
Stupid ATT cost savings are going to end up costing them MILLIONS more to not only FIX this old code, but deal with the legal costs when millions of users understand that MUCH of their data usage has been guesses all along!
OUCH!
Steve Jobs would dispatch a squad of Midget "Attitude Adjustment" Specialists to your home to deal with your misdeed!
My favorite little bit of cell phone trivia is the fact that the Fed’s can get a warrant to bug your phone - basically, it silently actives to transmit like your talking on it - but you’re completely unaware. I’ve actually read the entire case reports of some instances.
Of course it’s the old, if you’re not doing anything wrong just shut up and mind your own business thing. That’s just why I think if the battery is in it, I’m not in charge of it.
Remove the sim card before you go to bed?
I’ve checked my data usage and this is NOT happening. I logged onto my AT+T account online and my 3G data usage is lower than I thought it wasl
...and I have a jailbroken phone using illegitimate tethering software.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
That radio station’s game, “Germany of Florida” could be a real puzzle. The spirit of the late and unlamented Third reich is alive and well in a gooberment agency near any of us.
Oh, let’s not forget nearly all schools, where the spirit of “Agenda Uber Alles” rules.
Good Lord Swordmaker!
We NEED you! Hang in there...please.
Amadeo
Still have the old “unlimited” data plan. I suppose that will stick until I upgrade phones. Yet another reason to not get in a hurry to jump to the iPhone 4 just yet (though I am eligible).
Not sure what would be causing this - though there are many apps that, if you don’t specify otherwise - pull data regularly without you calling on it. First thing I would do is double check my Settings to see what, if anything, is set to receive “push” notifications and data. IN fact, if I were seeing this unexplained data use, I would probably turn off ALL data-using settings for a day or so to see if that cleared it up.
Without more info, I don’t know who I would first point a finger at. A good starting point, though, would be to see who has a financial interest in data being used (motive). That would start my look at AT&T. But until the specific source of the data usage is found - it is hard to say.
Should be interesting to see if this is being caused by user-installed apps, or if something in the subsystem is “calling home” with data...
Digging into some of the posted message boards - it appears that the data usage is actually AT&T’s old legacy means of calculating data usage.
IT appears that AT&T gather’s data usage info whenever the phone is rebooted, or reconnects to the AT&T network. If none of those things happen during the day, then it automatically re-establishes a connection between 1 and 2 AM to transmit data.
Some users actually experimented by booting phone, downloading an app (noting the size), then rebooting their phone - that showed nearly immediately in their AT&T Data usage report online. The experiment then went on to NOT reboot the phone, keeping it on and then noticed that no further “data usage” showed on AT&T’s page until the 1-2AM time frame came around again.
So this appears to be aggregate data-use calculations happening. For those who go in and out of service areas and/or turn their phone all the way off/or use “airplane mode” form time to time will see the data use reporting more frequently.
My current usage according to AT&T’s “live” reporting for the last several days shows the same 1-2AM chunks of data reported, but there are two usage chunks reflected at more “normal” times - and I actually can put my finger on them - one was a reboot of my phone, the other was when I switched on Airplane Mode...
So this isn’t the nefarious “evil AT&T/Apple” debacle that some would like to make it out to be. It is just aggregate data use reporting (as best as can be determined - the numbers add up for me).
That being said - AT&T’s new data limits (new contracts) is insane. My most recent monthly data usage was well over the 200MB lower plan now offered...
So, upon reading this, I checked my Verizon phone. I don’t have texting or browsing, no data plan, just old school cell usage. I found a file for “data calls” and clicked on it. It seems that Verizon is calling my phone every day between 7 & 8 for 15 seconds.
Verizon knows nothing or so they say about this. I think it’s the ATT thing.
Only until you upgrade your phone then blamo.
You would have another phone, not an iPhone.
WRONG!
No Blammo.
If you have the unlimited you can keep it, especially when getting a new phone.
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