data usage

carpetsteve · Jul 26, 2011

Hi Guys, New member with a problem, any help would be appreciated. just been informed by the 'wonderful' people at vodafone that i've used 1.3 gigs of data this month, most of which seems to be at midnight every night! i presume its an app doing this and doesn't even have the decency to use my wifi. does anyone know how i can, stop it or find out which app it is and delete it?? i have the iphone4
Many Thanks

iCrank · Jul 26, 2011

carpetsteve said:
Hi Guys, New member with a problem, any help would be appreciated. just been informed by the 'wonderful' people at vodafone that i've used 1.3 gigs of data this month, most of which seems to be at midnight every night! i presume its an app doing this and doesn't even have the decency to use my wifi. does anyone know how i can, stop it or find out which app it is and delete it?? i have the iphone4
Many Thanks

make sure you're closing all the apps. you can also turn off the 3g service while the wifi is on. matter of fact if you're wifi was on it would override the 3g service.

carpetsteve · Jul 27, 2011

Thanks for reply, My wifi is on constantantly and i thought the app, if it is an app , would use that? will turn off mobil data network before midnight and see if that helps. Any further advise would always be welcome. Thanks again

iCrank · Jul 27, 2011

carpetsteve said:
Thanks for reply, My wifi is on constantantly and i thought the app, if it is an app , would use that? will turn off mobil data network before midnight and see if that helps. Any further advise would always be welcome. Thanks again

Your welcome. Im in your boat I don't use 3G as much as I always keep it off. Its ok to turn 3G data off while your on wifi. You will not be able to send mms with it off though

EWyatt · Jul 27, 2011

iCrank..... an "academic" question: do YOU believe that wi-fi is disabled when the iPhone goes into Standby/Sleep mode? And if that happens, and if 3G/cellular is enabled, it will use those for online access, right? Comment?

iCrank · Jul 27, 2011

EWyatt said:
iCrank..... an "academic" question: do YOU believe that wi-fi is disabled when the iPhone goes into Standby/Sleep mode? And if that happens, and if 3G/cellular is enabled, it will use those for online access, right? Comment?

I misunderstood googled it and it does disable. In my case I literally never turn 3G on, so my wifi is my primary connection

bab2010 · Jul 27, 2011

EWyatt said:
iCrank..... an "academic" question: do YOU believe that wi-fi is disabled when the iPhone goes into Standby/Sleep mode? And if that happens, and if 3G/cellular is enabled, it will use those for online access, right? Comment?

Correct. Wifi is disable when the phone goes to sleep mode and then 3G takes over, whatever apps are running in the background will switch to 3G automatically once the phone goes to sleep mode.

iCrank · Jul 28, 2011

bab2010 said:
EWyatt said:

iCrank..... an "academic" question: do YOU believe that wi-fi is disabled when the iPhone goes into Standby/Sleep mode? And if that happens, and if 3G/cellular is enabled, it will use those for online access, right? Comment?

Click to expand...

Correct. Wifi is disable when the phone goes to sleep mode and then 3G takes over, whatever apps are running in the background will switch to 3G automatically once the phone goes to sleep mode.

Hmm. .?

bab2010 · Jul 28, 2011

iCrank said:
Hmm. .?

You don't believe? Well but it's true. Any app running wifi either on the screen or in the background will stop running over wifi as soon as the screen goes black. Then those of the apps in the background and are allowed to run over 3G/EDGE will then be switch to run over 3G/EDGE and those which are no allowed to run over 3G/EDGE will then be freeze until the device screen comes back on.

iGaz · Jul 28, 2011

I've had discussions with users before about this and I believe this isn't true. Your phone will not switch to 3G when the screen is turned off. If it does then something isn't right. I did tests with this by resetting my data usage etc. I'll try find the link...

*edit* Found the link. Unfortunately the screenshots I posted are no longer available. I must of deleted them form my photo bucket. You can tell from the discussions that they did prove my phone does not use 3G while in sleep mode...

http://www.iphoneforums.net/forum/iphone-help-15/phone-uses-3g-standby-5807/

chunky · Jul 28, 2011

Turning on wifi will allow your phone to utilise using your home broadband and free wifi in retail outlets.

However this does not 'disable' your 3g connection.
The phone will latch onto either for connection.

Some apps such as news and weather for example are designed to update in the background.

Download the datacounter in the apps store.
Its the green one with an up and down arrow displayed in the app.

This watches both 3g and wifi data use.

iGaz · Jul 28, 2011

Of course of you have wifi and 3G on, if there is no wifi then it will use 3G.

The OP was suggesting that his phone uses 3G when his screen is off even though wifi is available. Unless for some reason the wifi signal becomes unavailable or to weak during the night there is no reason why the phone would switch to 3G automatically...

crowd pleaser · Jul 28, 2011

chunky said:
Turning on wifi will allow your phone to utilise using your home broadband and free wifi in retail outlets.

However this does not 'disable' your 3g connection.
The phone will latch onto either for connection.

Some apps such as news and weather for example are designed to update in the background.

Download the datacounter in the apps store.
Its the green one with an up and down arrow displayed in the app.

This watches both 3g and wifi data use.

I checked it out iPhone 4 is not supported

.

I'm going to Mexico for 2 weeks, i run a smakl service business. not sure if to get a PAYG chip out their and use a spare open phone, or stick with UK contract chip as Data roaming cost while their worries me.

As ab aside, I'm with t-mobile UK, who claim 'truly unlimited data download' but then have small print saying 'subject to a fair usage policy' - so does that not imply limits then?

CP

bab2010 · Jul 28, 2011

gaz6076 said:
Of course of you have wifi and 3G on, if there is no wifi then it will use 3G.

The OP was suggesting that his phone uses 3G when his screen is off even though wifi is available. Unless for some reason the wifi signal becomes unavailable or to weak during the night there is no reason why the phone would switch to 3G automatically...

Do you have any messenger app in your iPhone? Like Nimbuzz, or Skype, or Yahoo, or Msn messengers? If you happen to have anyone of those then try this and let us know the results. Note that I'm talking about iOS < to 5.
Disable "My 3G" or "3G unrestrictor"
Turn off "data network"
Make sure that you are on wifi and lunch anyone of those messenger, after a successful login, turn off the display and leave it sit there for about 15mn or so. After that, press the home button, tap on the messenger app icon you are testing and you will notice that it will now try to reconnect again to Internet.
If your results are like I said, then here comes a question. Why will the messenger get disconnected while the phone was sleeping even though the device was connected to wifi. Only one answer to that question is because you've turned off the data network.