Apple iPhone: Phantom Data Outstrips Bandwidth Supply?

The data consumption of smart phones may be in fact heavy or burdensome but one has to ask the simple question: why?

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said at the CES show in Las Vegas:

As evidenced by the trade show floor, the consumer electronics industry is going wireless, and the future success of this industry and our innovation future depends on whether our government acts quickly to unleash more spectrum--the oxygen that sustains our mobile devices. We’re in the early stages of a mobile revolution that is sparking an explosion in wireless traffic. Without action, demand for spectrum will soon outstrip supply. To seize the opportunities of our mobile future, we need to tackle the threats to our invisible infrastructure. We need to free up more spectrum.

The phantom data usage being billed against customer accounts, contributes to bandwidth depletion in our "invisible infrastructure" and without action, demand for spectrum will soon outstrip supply.

Apple isn't the only one having problems. A few days ago, Microsoft Windows Phone 7 users complained of inexplicable data usage being charged to their cell data accounts. The difference is Microsoft, to their credit, tracked down the "phantom data" bug that they attributed to a third party. Apple continues to remain silent and some customers of the iPhone in the U.S. and abroad continue to complain to their carriers about "phantom data" usage.

Users that remain on unlimited plans have no incentive to check their data usage or complain. The carriers are absorbing data traffic whether it is justified or not. This mindset isn't surprising since the same mentality has always existed in the carrier space. I have to wonder what an ounce of being proactive could do for this business.

Apple continues to rock the industry with sales of iPhones and iPads. Soon enough Verizon will attract AT&T customers and it will be interesting to see if AT&T's problems move over to Verizon. Sprint just announced they are increasing their data plan costs due to the smart phones wireless data explosion.

It seems that smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices are an indicator that people are addicted to their mobility while carriers are chomping at the bit to monetize the opportunities without minding what matters.

Unexplained phantom data usage: Customers complain of data usage and traffic that they are charged for by AT&T that, customers say, "is not attributable to their usage." Customers have called both Apple and AT&T tech support and the answers range from elusive to ridiculous in explaining why customers' data traffic is high. Customers are told to call back each month after reviewing the data usage to receive a credit after challenging the bill, track their data consumption by purchasing an application such as DataMan and/or turn off and disable applications and functions generating data traffic. Some users have found since Apple's iPhone OS update 4.2.1 with over 40 security fixes, that their data traffic is aligned with AT&T's billing, however, many users still find huge discrepancies. (Here is an earlier posted customer complaint September 2, 2010)

Many customers that are either grandfathered on AT&T's old data plan (Unlimited Usage) or upgrade or sign up for the current unlimited usage plan do not complain since there is no incentive. For those that have data plans it is seemingly impossible for them to stay within the usage guidelines of those plans. I have found this both in the USA and abroad with carriers other than AT&T. The fallacy is that smart phones consume too much bandwidth and the iPhones do not enable users to consume what they want when the features, applications and other characteristics of the hardware and software remain out of control of the customers. As reported in the WSJ there is also a privacy concern of iPhone Apps and Apple or Application makers harvesting customer data. These activities also consume bandwidth.