iPhone Data Usage: Fighting the Man

Users don’t believe that their actual data usage matches a true representation of what they’re being billed.

Going up against the Man can either be entertaining or frustrating depending upon your outlook on telecommunications carriers. The phantom data usage remains an issue, as I wrote about previously: AT&T or Apple: Whose Problem Is iPhone Phantom Data Usage?

iPhone users are encouraging one another to file FCC complaints against AT&T for the phantom data usage. Primarily, users don’t believe that their actual data usage matches a true representation of what they’re being billed. Secondly, the word on the street after AT&T made its policy change about data usage billing at the end of May is what really prompted users to review their data usage by accessing their online AT&T reports. Thirdly, from June until present, both AT&T and Apple staff have failed to adequately address the phantom data usage that customers are citing. Instead, customers were given varying reasons and at various times--meaning the story changed, as did the theory for the root cause of the data usage.

Possible causes for the phantom data usage cited in the past:

* Your iPhone Apps are updating
* Airplane mode is on or off
* WiFi is on or off
* Turn your iPhone off at night
* Your iPhone is updated with the latest iPhone OS
* Your iPhone needs to be rebooted
* You agreed to send data to Apple for customer improvement
* Your web surfing and email usage
* Email hourglass icon continues to spin after receiving/sending email is finished
* Safari web browser hourglass continues to spin after page is loaded
* AT&T does an update to its billing system in early morning hours
* It's an Apple issue; or, It's an AT&T issue

What I'd call a classic and expected response from AT&T concerning phantom data usage is in a letter dated September 2, 2010, which a customer received after posting an online FCC carrier complaint. The letter refers to AT&T Terms of Service (ToS). Note two key reasons that AT&T states to the customer as contributing to phantom data usage: "Overhead data" and "Many devices including iPhone transmit and receive data without user intervention"

In an earlier response in July 2010, AT&T told Gizmodo that,

This is a routine update of your daily data activity on your device to ensure the accuracy of your data billing. Customers are not charged for data usage, given that no data session is generated. It's not uncommon for devices that are "always on", like iPhone, to process data event records for billing purposes after a certain amount of inactivity or after long periods of time. It's also separate from how our system lets you monitor your data consumption.