Iphone 5 excessive cellular data usage

I am a new iPhone user and I am a bit concerned for how fast my phone burns through data. I have an iPhone 5, ios 7.0.4, and my cellphone provider is Fido in Canada (May be irrelevant info). I manually turn cellular data off whenever it's not in use. At times where I use wifi (which is about 98% of the time), I never leave cellular data on at the same time. So, I have 2 issues:
1) In system services under Cellular data usage, "iTunes Accounts" seems to be the top user of data. I looked at some previous discussions on this matter and many have said that turning off iCloud would do the trick, as well as turning off 'push'. However, I have never had my iCloud account nor "iTunes and App store," logged on. I have 'updates' and 'use cellular data' turned off as well for this feature. On top of that, under "Mail, Contacts, and Calendars' I have Fetch New Data set as 'hourly' instead of "Push". So why is it that my under system services, 'iTunes Accounts" still jumps up a few hundred kb whenever I DO have cellular data turned on.
2) How much data does the Facebook App use? Lets say I turn cellular data on, then I open up the Facebook App, and I scroll down my news feed. I do not select any pictures, videos, or profiles. I then check my data usage and somehow I burned 4mb on this specific app! I understand images take up more usage but I find that a bit suspicious.
Of course, this isn't the only app that seems to be hogging data. It's just amazing how other phone users (iphones and android users) can just leave their data on without their data randomly draining.

You are welcome
Usually data consumed by system services is on the higher side.
I would suggest reseting the data counter and then checking again after few hours to know the real culprit.
To reset the counter, there's an option "Reset Statistics", just under the list we discussed before.
This way you would get to know which app is using your data righ now.

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My cellular data usage counter just reset itself.
It is not the first time I noticed it, it is 2nd or 3rd time since my upgrade to 4S with iOS 5.x.x.
It never happened to me previously (iPhone 3GS, iOS 4.x.x).
Any idea why?
My 4S is factory unlocked, bought in Europe if it matters.
It is on the latest iOS 5.0.1 but it happened at least once with 5.0, too.
Any help will be appreciated.
Regards,
Gitarzysta

Well I can't really say it is a problem yet, as I have only seen it happen once. There has to be logs somewhere that I can find. Might have to do some web searches. I was just wondering if anyone else has had this or seen it.
I do thank you though.

What causes cellular data usage to decrease if last reset has not changed? I reset every pay period cuz I do not have unlimited and was showing 125 mb sent/1.2g received. Now showing 98mb sent/980mb received. Last reset still shows same

I reset my cellular data usage every month at the beginning of my billing period so that I can keep track of how much data I am using thru out the month. I do not have the unlimited data plan and have gone over a few times. It's usually the last couple days of my billing cycle and I am charged $10 for an extra gig which I barely use 10% of before my usage is restarted for new billing cycle. FYI, they do not carry the remainder of the unused gig that you purchase for $10 which I disagree with. But have accepted. Lol Moving on.
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Is cellular data used at all during any kind of sync /iPhone/iTunes management? Is the cellular data usage reading under iPhone settings a reliable source to keep track of monthly data usage?
1) No.
2) It does provide an estimated usage, but it's not accurate. For accurate determination, you should check the remaining/used MBs from the carrier (most of the carriers provide this service for free).

Iphone 5 - "use cellular data for" option only shows Facetime and Passbook

I have an iphone 5 and I am trying to manage my cellular data usage,
When I go into Settings - Cellular and I look at the "use cellular data for" option, there are only 2 apps on the list Facetime and Passbook.
I have seen other posts online that show a long list of apps that you can toggle Cellular data on and off.
How can I see a longer list of apps.

In Settings/General/Restrictions if you tap on Cellular Data Use there should be 2 options: Allow Changes or Don't Allow Changes. If you don't see these options is that where you see "Cellular data is turned off for 'Setting'?
Do you have a corporate MS Exchange email account on your phone? If so your administrator may have added an override on this setting.

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I just updated my iphone 4 to ios 4.3.2, and I have so many problems now
I have lag problem that it takes forever to access to setting.
Also the network cellular data usage keeps changing..
I got 118TB sent and sometimes I get -162...sent I am outside of country so I didn't wanna get roaming charge so I put on airplane mode
and I turned off cellular data and the first time I checked my usage I was freaked out!
It scares me that 118TB that was sent which is ridiculous and I never ever used actually will be on my bill or something..
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Hard-reset didn't work multiple times.
Restore from backup didn't work either.
I called AT&T from skype on my computer and resolved the issue. Thank you for your help everyone. Here is the solution that worked for me for others to reference:
I swapped my iphone 4 SIM card with my wife's iphone 4 SIM card. Both phones received service immediately and I made successful test calls from both phones. Upon returning the SIM cards to the rightful phones, they both worked right away. I suppose just removing and reinstalling the SIM card could have worked.

Cellular data usage spiking while using WIFI

Over the last couple of months, we have noticed a HUGE spike in our Cellular Data usage. We have had an iPhone 5 for a little over a year and have always been under our 2GB limit. However, during October our "usage" spiked to almost 4GB resulting in additional charges. In November, we saw our "usage" spike to almost 5GB. We do not stream music nor videos and have gone as far as to turn off data for apps and images on emails. Additionally, we use WIFI at home with multiple access points to ensure complete coverage. This is maddening and extremely frustrating knowing we have not drastically changed our usage and have most likely decreased our usage based on our awareness of the issue. Verizon's solutions are to increase our plan, turn off cellular data while on WIFI, and wipe the phone. All of which are not acceptable. The suggestion that 4G results in higher data usage than 3G is just ridiculous. I will be watching our usage this month very closely and refuse to pay any overages. If it continues to climb, I will make my voice heard the only other way I know how by walking to another carrier. I have been a Verizon supporter and customer for almost 10 years however, this is unacceptable.

My findings on the matter are summarized here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47CM06N5gIo

Elimininating cellular data usage

Now that AT&T is obviously trying to get us to adopt low use plans (and then be able to ding us with overage charges) I want to take control of my cellular data usage.
Even if I'm on a wifi network, if I set my "Settings|General|Usage"Cellular Network Data" stats to zero I find that I'm still sending and receiving cellular data.
Any ideas on how to determine what rogue apps are using my now precious data traffic?
What I really want is to be able to tell my iPhone not to use ANY cellular connections unless I specifically ask it to. That way I don't get random chatter sucking up my data when I'm away from wifi.

Thanks for the info! That's what I was hoping to hear.
Personally, its not worth it to give up my unlimited to save 5 bucks a month.
But my wife never goes over 100 Meg a month so we're definitely dropping her to the 200 Meg plan ($15 IS worth it.)
More important though is the fact that I'll be giving my daughter my 3GS when I get my iPhone 4 this month, and I want better control of data usage now that she'll be on a limited plan.
I do think that Apple has to provide much better tools for controlling Cellular data usage. What you describe is a nice start, but the iPhone could be MUCH smarter about making quick adjustments more obvious and easy.
One obvious solution would be to allow quick toggles to be exposed as one-click apps instead of requiring that we have to drill down through multiple screens in the Settings app.
One click to turn cellular on/off.
One click to turn wifi on/off.
etc.
The sad part is that these are all do-able by third-party developers now, but Apple for some reason doesn't allow it. (Apps that do these things have been rejected.)
What's up with that?

I am no longer able to turn off cellular data usage for individual apps. When I turn most of them off, they just automatically reset themselves to allow data usage. Any thoughts?

I am no longer able to turn off cellular data usage for individual apps.
When I turn most of them off, they just automatically reset themselves to allow data usage.
Any thoughts?

I am definately having the same problem and cannot believe there are no answers or even support that this problem exists. I never have to post on forumns, I read what is usually readilly availiable for the craziest of problems.
Anyways, the problem is just that, I can toggle off a individual app's setting of cellular data availability, but it changes right back on rescreening. After restarting, resetting etc, it seems that the big Apple Apps are the biggest offenders. Music is a very important one, Podcasts can kill you very quickly, app store, Photos, Facetime, Stocks?!?!?!
When one searches for solutions I have to see hundreds of links to "How great is ios7, you can turn off cellular data for individual apps FOR DUMMIES!". I am a dedicated apple fool since the Apple IIe (long time), but when they run afowl it is usually really bad. Why offer an on/off switch if the setting is always on?
I am writing just to add support to the existence of this problem, not so much for people to offer ideas of solutions as I now believe it is in the coding.
Thank you

Why can't i see "Find iPhone" App under cellular data so I can turn it on?

Why can't i see "Find iPhone" App under cellular data so I can turn it on?

We have cell data plan.
I have other phones (4s) and can see "Find Phone" App under Cellular Data and can turn on/off. But the problem phone does not have "Find IPhone" to be able toturn on/off. I made sure app is running when i go to Cellular Data. I guess the question is why do Apps show up under Cellular Data to be able to turn on/off? I thought if the app was made for Cellular Data it automatically showed up under Cellular Data.

Umm I just got this iPhone 5 and cellular data is not working, can't access apps, heck can't even download any and Safari...ummm yeah not happening. I'm with Sprint if that makes any difference.

Umm I just got this iPhone 5 and cellular data is not working, can't access apps, heck can't even download any and Safari...ummm yeah not happening. I'm with Sprint if that makes any difference.

Are you in an area where there is no coverage?
You can try a reset, hold down the home/sleep button together until you see the apple logo and then release, then wait for the phone to boot back up.
If that doesn't help, then yOu'll need to contact Sprint again.

Why do I have mysterious cellular data usage (Verizon) every 6 hours on all 3 of my iphone 5's?

I have recently uncovered mysterious cellular usage on three different iPhones. I am a Verizon customer and discovered this by examining the cellular data use logs. What I found are a long series of mysterious data usage logs. I have visited the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store 3 times now to log notes and discuss the issue. It is being escalated.
The characterstics are as follows:
All my family phones have the appropriate IOS and hardware updates (verified by the GeniusBar at my local Apple Store).
This is occuring across three phones, which happen to all be iphone 5. Two are 5 and the other a new 5s. We do have one iphone 4 in the family but the issue (so far as I can tell), is not happening on it.
One iphone 5 has IOS 7, the other IOS 6. The new 5s has of course IOS 7.
Mysterious data use happens even while connected to wifi.
Each mysterious data use log entry is exactly 6 hours apart. For example: 2:18 AM, 8:18 AM, 2:18 PM, 8:18 PM, 2:18 AM ... etc. It cycles AM and PM, same times, for a day to many days until some condition causes it to change (evolve).
The times evolve. One day it could be cycling through at one time series, then it changes to another time sequence and continues until the next condition.
The data usage is anywhere from a few K to many MB. The largest I've seen is over 100 MB.
The logs clearly show these usages are not due to human interaction. It is a program.
If cellular connection is used frequently (by the owner), the pattern is hard to pick out. Luckily, my family member is very good about only using wifi whenever possible, so these mysterious use patterns are easy to pick out.
Verizon allows access to 90 days worth of data logs, so I downloaded and analyzed them. This has been happening for at least 90 days. I have found 298 instances of mysterious use out of 500 total connections to cellular. A total of 3.5 GB of mysterious cellular data has been recorded as used in that 90 days by this phone alone. Only .6 GB of the total cellular data use is legitimate, meaning by the person.
This issue is occuring across three different phones. Two are iPhone 5, and the third is a recently purchased iPhone 5s. The 5s I have not touched beyone the basic startup. I have left it alone on a desk for 3 days, and looking at the logs, the mysterious data use in the same pattern is occuring.
So ... I am speaking to both sides, Verizon and Apple to get answers. Verizon puts their wall up at data usage. It doesn't matter how it is being used, you simply need to pay for it. Yes, the evidence I have gathered is getting closer to someting on Verizon's end.
Before pressing in that direction, I am hoping someone reading this may recognize this issue as a possible iPhone 5 issue ... OR ... you, right now, go look at your data usage logs available through your carrier's web account, and see if you can pick out a pattern of mysterious use. Look especially at the early morning instances when you are most likely sleeping.
I am hoping this is a simple issue that has a quick resolution. I'm looking for the "ooohhh, I see that now ..." But I am starting to think this might be much bigger, but the fact is, most customers rarely or never look at their data usage details, much less discover mysterious use patterns.
The final interesting (maybe frightening part) thing about all this is that I discovered while talking to Verizon ... they do not divulge which direction the data is going. This goes for any use, mysterious or legitimate. Is cellular data coming to your phone, or leaving it? Is something pulling data from your phone? We know that it is possible to build malware apps, but the catch with my issue is that it is also happening on a brand new iphone 5s with nothing downloaded to it.
Thanks for your time

Thanks for the replies. It took a while not hearing anything so thought I was alone. I have done many of the suggestions already. The key here is that it occurs on both phones with apps, and phones still packaged in a box.
A Genius Bar supervisor also checked his Verizon data usage log and found the same 6 hour incremental use. Suprisingly, he did not express much intrigue over that. Maybe he did, but did not show it.
I think the 6 hour incremental usage is the main issue here. I spoke with Verizon (again) and they confirmed that all they do is log exactly when the phone connected to the tower and used data. The time it records is when the usage started. I also found out that the time recorded is GMT.
What is using data, unsolicited, every 6 hours?
Why does it change?
Why does it only happen on the iPhone 5 series and not the 4?
Since no one from Apple seems to be chiming in on this, and I have not received the promised calls from Apple tech support that the Genius Bar staff said I was suppose to receive, it is starting to feel like something is being swept under the rug.
I woke up the other day with another thought ... What application would use such large amounts of data? Well ... music, video, sound and pictures of course. Well ... what would someone set automatically that is of any use to them? hmmm ... video, pictures, sound. Is the iPhone 5 succeptible to snooping? Can an app be buried in the IOS that automatically turns on video and sound recording, and send it somewhere ... every 6 hours? Chilling. I noted that the smallest data usage is during the night when nothing is going on, then it peaks during the day. The Genius Bar tech and I looked at each other when I drew this sine wave graph on the log print outs during an appointment ...

Iphone 5 - anyone having huge cellular data usage problem on ATT

I upgraded from Iphone 3g to Iphone 5. Over a period of last year, My average monthly data usage is approx 400MB (total less than 5GB in a year). AT&T is reporting that my Iphone 5 data usage crossed 6GB in a 3 day period . I called AT&T and have to listen to LTE, Iphone 5 and Multiple app running in background non-sense as an explanation for 6GB data usage over a 3 day period. My Itune and app store does not download over cellular network. Even though Iphone 5 automatically creates an Icloud account during initial setup, I am not connected to Icloud on Iphone and never even logged on to Icloud account. IOS 6 setting for sending data diagnostic over cellular network is set to no.
I feel this is same bug which Verizon user are reporting and ATT is not commenting on it till now. How can I consume over 6GB worth of data over a 3 day period which is more than my total data usage for a year. That is equivalent of streaming hd video (approx 300 MB per hour) for 20 hours.
CNN link to Iphone 5 data bug story
http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/01/technology/iphone-5-data-overage/index.html
Anyone is having similiar problems?

There have been lots of discussions about this particular topic
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19398807#19398807
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19780554#19780554
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19802173#19802173
and the list goes on.
Apple has zero control over what AT&T does in regards to their plans for data, their charges for data, or anything to do with their service that you pay for every month

Cellular/data usage while connected to Wi-Fi with iPhone 5

I recently upgraded from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 5 and when I view my usage details for data I am seeing small amounts of data use even while my phone is connected to Wi-Fi and charging. I did not see this with my iPhone 4.
The usage is small and I'm guesstimating adds up to 20-30MB per month, but wondering if this is normal.
My iPhone 4 was running iOS 5.1.1 and the iPhone 5 is running iOS 6.0.2 and Verizon 13.3.
I'm not if this is considered normal as I've read about the recent bug that was allowing a lot of data to leak while on Wi-Fi. Supposedly iOS 6.0.2 and Verizon 13.1 fixed this issue. Others have posted that a replacement phone fixed the issue.
The small data use seems to be about 30-90kb every couple of hours. Again, I never saw this with the iPhone 4.
Do others see this small data usage while on Wi-Fi?
Thanks!
David

Hmmm, I don't think that's the case. As I said, I can keep perfect track of wi-fi and 3G usage with the DataMan app. While I'm connected via wi-fi, there's a 90-10 ratio between wi-fi and 3G. There's a lot of wi-fi usage, meaning it is connected, at least, most of the time.
Maybe an alternative answer to my question, based on your reply, would be the fact that the connection might be dropped SOMETIMES, but not FOR GOOD, when the phone is locked. I would like to understand this behaviour better - why it is dropped? It really makes little sense to drop the wi-fi connection if it is known that it is much stabler, faster AND it costs me zero to use data with it.
I don't wanna spend my 3G data, that's why we keep looking for wi-fi connections everywhere we go, right?

Iphone 3gs:Cellular data usage

I recently purchased iphone 3gs with 200 MB data plan. 98% of my data usage was performed using wifi but i still see in the usage section that Data sent is around 225 KB and Data received is around 550 KB. My question is
1. Whether the usage in the phone matches the cingular.com records
2. Whether wifi adds to the usage and why
3. Is there any hidden app/ acct setting which is accumulating data during the sleep mode?
4. How to stop it
Thanks

Chittoo wrote:
1. Whether the usage in the phone matches the cingular.com records
Go with whatever ATT lists for usage on their site.
2. Whether wifi adds to the usage and why
No.
3. Is there any hidden app/ acct setting which is accumulating data during the sleep mode?
There are no hidden apps. The phone does do a brief send/receive data around 2:30 am.
4. How to stop it
Turn the phone off during the night

Iphone 5 excessive cellular data usage

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