Stop excessive data usage

smithbcans · Jul 30, 2015

I am trying to setup my sons 3g/3gs phone. He has a prepaid plan which suits perfectly as he only uses the phone for texting and the odd call. The data keeps using up the money. I thought I had turned everythng off but it still keeps sending and receiving data. The only way I can seem to stop it all together is turn off the cellular data. But then he does not get the texts. Can anyone give me a heads up on what I need to please

Rgds Rod

J. A. · Jul 31, 2015

Welcome to iPhoneForums, Rod!

Which software is installed on his iPhone?
Usually, you should be able to see his data usage in Settings - Cellular. Maybe it's possible to disable apps that he doesn't need.
System services need cellular data as well. Here's a (not complete) list from my iPhone:

Push Notifications need to use cellular data. That's how they work. There are apps like Weather, Game Center, ... that get pushed updates periodically, e.g.

Also, Wi-Fi is turned off when the iPhone is locked (exactly 30 seconds afterwards), which means from then on your device uses cellular data only, for everything it does.

smithbcans · Aug 2, 2015

Hi J.A Sorry for slow reply was out of internet range. Modem Firmware is 05.16.08 Version 6.1.6(10B500)
As far as I can see the are no apps on this phone aside from from the default ones and they are turned off I wonder if i did a reset to defaults if that would fix it. There is nothing on there we need to keep

J. A. · Aug 3, 2015

No idea, sorry, but you can try it.

britpoper · Aug 14, 2015

I forgot how the cellular menu looked like in earlier iOS, but for recent iOS 8.XX we can individually select which app can used cellular data. If we disabled app from using cellular data it will need wifi to be connected to the internet (for the sake of convenience if you decided to open the app when not connected to wifi it will ask you to switch on the option on cellular data).

That way you can still turn the cellular data on but can limit number of app that can use cellular data connection.

Here's what it looked like on iOS 8.xx