Iphone4s / Ios6 / Vodacom data ghost usage

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cam182

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Hi

I upgraded my girlfriends Iphone 4s to Ios6 when it came out last month and since vodacom is claiming we are churning through data. She's a light user and never has used up her 500mb of data per month, however already this month we have received an SMS saying 200mb of the 500mb this month has been used over 2 days! This is despite the iphone saying she has used a combined 30mb of sent and rec cell data on the usage screen in settings.

She has no applications using data pretty much except for whatsapp and we have wifi at home that looks after any browsing she does at night. I've tried everything from closing all applications, turning off mobile data for everything except imessages, turning off icloud features, manually turning off data and a whole heap of ideas i found online.

Anyone have any ideas? Who do i contact or what do we do if vodacom believe this is real usage when it clearly isn't and a bug with ios 6 and the carriers.

It seems there is a known bug for the iphone 5 for excess cell data usage but this is the 4s. Verizon (a carrier in the states) has even released an update for it already. Vodacom is not providing any help and unless there is a solution i'll have to turn off mobile data completely, leaving my girlfriend a iphone that literally can only call and sms which is not what she bought it for...
 
iOS6.

Your problem. Ours as well. :(

There's numerous issues with iOS6, notably wifi and battery life. And other issues as well.

Hope Apple releases a fix quickly.
 
Call 155 and ask them to send you a detailed breakdown of the usage. I'm not sure if iOS has non-Apple usage trackers (non-JB).
 
Yes i was pretty confident it was ios 6 based on that's when it started happening although as i didn't get the same problem on my ipad i wasn't 100% sure it was ios6 until now.

We've contacted vodacom and they escalated it however came back to say the data usage is correct on their side and we will have to pay the excess charges. I'll try to get a detailed breakdown. What options do we have here apart from turning off data on the phone? Should vodacom ignore the usage or will they just blame apple and we will have to pay?
 
Oh and i think this issue is just going to get bigger and bigger when people start getting their bills. We only know about it as we get SMSs saying how much data she has used. However when you look at the cell data usage screen in settings it says we have used 1/10th of what the carrier is saying (yes 30mb vs 200mb - i know not exactly 1/10th but close enough for my maths). So if people are only monitoring usage on their iphones, then they are in for a big surprise when the carrier charges them for 10x the data they think they used....

I've got screenshots of the above SMS and settings usage screen as proof to show the difference.
 
There are several stories about this, and possible causes, but until Apple speaks up we aren't going to know who, or what, is at fault.

New Apple Wi-Fi problem
What's behind data usage
Follow up on data usage
Solving iOS 6 Battery Drain issues

The last story looks at corrupted Safari bookmarks syncing with iCloud, and I read another story yesterday that also dealt with iCloud syncing issues being behind data usage, but I can't find that link now.

I haven't noticed any excessive data usage myself, but I am having issues with Wi-Fi - I can connect to my Wi-Fi network, signal is strong, but no data transfer happens; every single app that needs a connection does not work when I'm on Wi-Fi.
 
Just spoke to vodacom again and asked for detailed usage reports which i'm waiting for.

Got the impression from the repeated statement of "the data usage figures are correct" that from their point of view it's not their problem and they will be charging for whatever is causing the usage.

Can anyone recommend any data usage management applications? Going to get one in addition to apples usage stats to confirm usage.
 
Not sure it will help you or be applicable ... but you could install a free service called Onavo Extend, basically it will proxy/route all your traffic through their servers, which compresses it. I am not saying install it for that, you can actually tell it to not compress images etc. at all so that may be an option in your case.
What the app can then do is tell you if it is one of your apps that is using the data, it will tell you how much each app has used/is using.
I don't think other apps like Datawiz (a new free app) will show you what app is using the data, more just how much and when it was used.
As far as I am aware all you will get from Vodacom is how much you have used, I don't think you will get any more detail than that, I could be wrong though.
 
not having this issue with other network

MikeCTZA said:
Not sure it will help you or be applicable ... but you could install a free service called Onavo Extend, basically it will proxy/route all your traffic through their servers, which compresses it. I am not saying install it for that, you can actually tell it to not compress images etc. at all so that may be an option in your case.
What the app can then do is tell you if it is one of your apps that is using the data, it will tell you how much each app has used/is using.
I don't think other apps like Datawiz (a new free app) will show you what app is using the data, more just how much and when it was used.
As far as I am aware all you will get from Vodacom is how much you have used, I don't think you will get any more detail than that, I could be wrong though.
Click to expand...

I am using the new iPad iOS6, with a Cell C sim card and it doesn't eat up the data, is it just some models with this problem or is it actually Vodacom
 
Ive switched off 3 settings found in Settings>General>Mobile Data> scroll down, it says Use mobile data for: iTunes, Passbook Updates and Reading list, ive switched those off and my battery life increased, I assume it was using data?
 
You should also check if there are any podcast subscriptions. There have been reports from producers that their servers are beng brought to their knees by ios6 devices.
 
An awesome app for monitoring data usage by app is My Data Manager. Shows you an accurate breakdown for 3G and Wifi. Also suspect it may be related to the podcast app. Uncheck auto downloads!
 
Without checking the details of the specific case, I'd first look at the setting for iCloud. With every version of IOS the features of iCloud becomes more feature rich and with this comes the potential of increased data usage.
 
Ok so a small update... vodacom sent some detailed usage reports but from their side they believe it is authentic mobile data usage. The reports show usage with no real pattern - there's usage at times when the phone is asleep at 3am which would be when its at home on the wifi network. The phone had hardly any apps installed (except for whatsapp) and does not have any icloud features set on or the podcasts app.

After researching online (it seems a few people are affected around the world) i reset the phone and deleted all apps, i also deleted all mail accounts, the icloud account, turned off use mobile data for everything, turned off location settings and changed a few other settings based on tips from different forums. I downloaded my data manager as well as another app called data wiz.

2 nights ago after making these changes i set the phone to airport mode so nothing could be used overnight. The next morning i took screenshots of the usage stats in settings, both data manager apps as well as the data usage screen on vodacom online so i had starting points for usage on all. So far i have turned back on mobile data and left everything off. I reinstalled whatsapp and so far all the data usage looks normal on all monitoring apps and the usage page on vodacom online and the settings screen.

Tonight i plan to add the gmail app so the phone has gmail again, and then monitor whether usage stays normal for a day or 2. After than i plan on turning on location services to test that and then after that i will turn on the icloud for the findmyiphone feature online to test that. Hopefully in a week or so i will know exactly what feature / app was causing the issue since upgrading to ios 6. Maybe i get lucky and it doesn't come back.

A couple of other things i noticed from looking into this so far:

- until now, the usage stats on the settings screen didn't match vodacoms stats so i think a few people are going to get surprised when they get their bills from last month/this month if they use the settings screen to monitor usage.

- from the usage reports the abnormal usage increased massively on the 18th of last month. Nothing changed (i.e no new apps or software updates) on the iphone until the 20th when ios 6 was installed, so i'm not sure if something changed on vodacoms systems on the 18th which would explain this.

- the majority of the usage (i.e. 90%) is from sent data. vodacom believes an email might be stuck in the outbox to cause this but i confirmed there was nothing in the apple mail or gmail app which would agree with them. The phone is mainly used to read emails and not send.

- vodacom has been semi helpful and has even given 250mb free data this month to (although 300mb of the 500mb was used in the first two days before i reset the phone). however they are still charging for the excess usage last month which i'm not happy about.

Hope this helps anyone having similar issues...
 
I'm having a similar issue, and Vodacom is also adamant that the charges are correct.

my iPhone 4 (iOS 6), apparently made an audio streaming connection at 22h40 after I was asleep, and continued throughout the night until 07h30 the next morning. My phone was next to me the whole time, and was even on my way to work at 07h30 when the connection is supposed to have stopped. No Audio was being played!!

The damage apparently was 8.1GB's, for a cost of R8000!!

Advanced Data team guy who I spoke to says it's all legit and i have to pay..

Not sure what to do.
 
This does seem to be a bigger problem. Take a look at https://discussions.apple.com/message/19733817#19733817

So i've narrowed the issue down to a bug in the new iOS 6 podcasts app. Many people are reporting massive data downloads after attempting to download a podcast from iTunes. It appears as though the download fails and restarts, and restarts and restarts.

Looking at the breakdown of charges from Vodacom, I was downloading 5MB's every 15 seconds at a charge of R4.39 (ex VAT).

Thanks a heap Apple - Think that Samsung SIII is looking good about now.
 
Last edited:
hey matt, what audio apps do you have? does your phone usage in settings say 8.1gb and match what vodacom says?

i think everyone should sign up for the free sms alerts when you free data is running out if you havent already
 
My exchange email is downloading over and over today.
Shows yesterday's emails then downloads today's emails intermittently.
 
Hey Stanlives,
I'm almost 100% sure it's the bug in the podcasts app. The cellular data usage on my phone only shows that since January i've only downloaded 7GB, which ties in with my 750MB per month data bundle. When I mentioned this to Vodacom they said they don't go by what the phone says, just what was sent to the SIM!!

I received an SMS alert saying my data was depleted while i was sleeping at 00:10. but when I woke up to see it, it was too late!

Reading on the Apple forums with other iOS 6 users having similar issues, their SP's (AT&T etc) are refunding these excessive charges. All Vodacom could tell me was to send my phone in for repairs!!
 
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