Unexplained iPhone Data Transmissions

September 25, 2009 4:37 AM

Why is my iPhone is transmitting data OUT on a daily basis without my knowledge?

My wife and I each have an iPhone 3G 8GB and each phone is transmitting data out nearly every day. Since we got the phones in June, they send data out at seemingly random times and sometimes the data is in large chunks, up to 22MB at once. The data transmission has increased each month.
I have spoken with Apple and AT&T reps about it and not only do they not have an explanation for this, but say they have not seen this before.

What is it doing? What is included in this data? Where is it going? Any other iPhone users have this issue?

Other relevant info: Not jailbroken. Hardly any apps (facebook, Google, Fandango, bank app, Urbanspoon). WiFi is OFF. This is not internet usage. There is no data transmission coming in. We have an unlimited data plan, so cost is not a concern, just privacy. I never notice the data transmission while using the phone...I only noticed it after looking at the bill. The phone is kept on at all times and only synced with iTunes about once or twice a week. There seems to be no correlation between the amount of phone usage and the size of the daily transmission. Located in DC Metro area.



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Data (just from my phone) from my latest bill is included below. 200MB transmitted. My wife had an additional 74 MB transmitted during this billing period.
176 SUN 08/09/2009 11:55PM Data Transfer Data 2,613 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
177 TUE 08/11/2009 2:55AM Data Transfer Data 1,287 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
178 TUE 08/11/2009 10:14PM Data Transfer Data 7,598 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
179 FRI 08/14/2009 10:14AM Data Transfer Data 14,591 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
180 FRI 08/14/2009 11:14AM Data Transfer Data 2,243 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
181 SAT 08/15/2009 12:14PM Data Transfer Data 837 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
182 SAT 08/15/2009 10:14PM Data Transfer Data 1,249 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
183 SUN 08/16/2009 9:14PM Data Transfer Data 190 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
184 MON 08/17/2009 4:14AM Data Transfer Data 3,026 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
185 TUE 08/18/2009 7:14AM Data Transfer Data 3,340 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
186 WED 08/19/2009 3:14AM Data Transfer Data 21,838 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
187 FRI 08/21/2009 11:13PM Data Transfer Data 22 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
188 TUE 08/25/2009 10:54AM Data Transfer Data 3,903 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
189 WED 08/26/2009 6:54AM Data Transfer Data 1,879 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
190 THU 08/27/2009 1:54AM Data Transfer Data 4,240 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
191 THU 08/27/2009 10:54PM Data Transfer Data 3,904 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
192 FRI 08/28/2009 8:54PM Data Transfer Data 9,601 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
193 SUN 08/30/2009 9:54AM Data Transfer Data 6,564 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
194 SUN 08/30/2009 3:54PM Data Transfer Data 607 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
195 MON 08/31/2009 10:58AM Data Transfer Data 22,827 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
196 MON 08/31/2009 6:37PM Data Transfer Data 1,226 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
197 TUE 09/01/2009 2:37AM Data Transfer Data 4,642 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
198 TUE 09/01/2009 10:37PM Data Transfer Data 5,358 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
199 WED 09/02/2009 5:46PM Data Transfer Data 523 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
200 WED 09/02/2009 7:46PM Data Transfer Data 5,539 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
201 THU 09/03/2009 1:46PM Data Transfer Data 3,434 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
202 FRI 09/04/2009 1:46AM Data Transfer Data 11,270 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
203 FRI 09/04/2009 11:46PM Data Transfer Data 1,279 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
204 SAT 09/05/2009 8:46PM Data Transfer Data 19,525 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
205 MON 09/07/2009 3:45PM Data Transfer Data 16,582 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
206 TUE 09/08/2009 10:57AM Data Transfer Data 6,066 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
207 TUE 09/08/2009 8:57PM Data Transfer Data 12,362 KB CMB1 AT GPRR Out 0.00
Subtotal of KB's 200,165 KB 0.00

posted by nineRED to Technology (9 answers total)

Some of it might be explained in this piece on privacy and tracking. The PrivaCy app described there is one of many reasons to jailbreak the device.
posted by exogenous at 5:21 AM on September 25, 2009 [2 favorites]

Their stats are weird. Don't worry about it.

My bill shows nothing "incoming" either. My guess is that every few hours the phone sends AT&T a summary of its use, or AT&T summarizes recent use. The usage stat gets recorded as "Out" for whatever reason, even if it's mostly incoming. Obviously if they gave you a line for every data transaction, your phone bill would be hundreds of pages long.
posted by paanta at 5:40 AM on September 25, 2009

FWIW, even if you're not using the phone, it's _constantly_ talking to AT&T. AT&T always knows where you are if you have a phone on their network. There's no such thing as staying anonymous to them.

Individual apps, though, can't report to their parent companies on the iPhone because they can't run in the background. Only Apple can make the phone do stuff all on its own.
posted by paanta at 5:43 AM on September 25, 2009

Do you have any mail accounts set up on the phone?
posted by mikeh at 6:20 AM on September 25, 2009

Visual Voicemail?
IMAP email or push?
posted by blue_beetle at 6:22 AM on September 25, 2009

Yeah, the phone is constantly talking to the network. But that's on the telephone side, and shouldn't count toward data. Something like every 1.4 seconds, it sends out a "here I am" message to find out if there are any calls coming in.

You say none of that is internet usage. But what about the apps? When you use them, they send data back and forth.

That said, I know what you are talking about. I have a Blackberry, and I see it's little data transfer icon doing things when I'm not (AFAIK) sending or requesting data.

And yeah, if you have a non-push email program running, it is going to send data all the time to check and see if there are any messages.
posted by gjc at 6:55 AM on September 25, 2009

Do you have it set to sync contacts, calendars, etc. over the air?
posted by nathan_teske at 7:38 AM on September 25, 2009

Syncing was my guess, because 22MB (really? Not megabits?) is way too much for e-mail user-and-password, even a thousand times per day.
posted by rokusan at 11:22 AM on September 25, 2009

200MB is A LOT. My suggestion would be to uninstall ALL apps, and then install, lets say 3 apps per week. If it's an application that's causing the uploading, you should see a week where there are no uploads, and then see the uploads start again when the apps are installed. You would then have it narrowed down to 3 apps, repeat until single app causing the problem is found.

Easier than waiting for the bill at the end of the month would be to just watch the network usage from the network panel in the settings.


If it's not an app, I'd wonder if it's some kind of virus/rootkit.
posted by Sonic_Molson at 9:26 PM on September 25, 2009