AT&T May have Inflated iPhone Data Bills

And this come as a surprise to anyone? Cell phone carriers have been raising their rates as of late, Sprint being the latest carrier to do so. I have Sprint and found out yesterday that all smartphones, including 3G, will require a $10 extra a month for data usage. These carriers want more money for less service and they complain about the bandwidth usage from smartphones. Here's an idea. How about finishing the 3G network before moving onto 4G. There are still some parts of the US cell network that don't have 3G and some of those are near some urban areas. There are a few small cities down south of me on 2G still. I'm sick of the carriers and their games with data usage. But, what can you do...

C'mon Tom's, be honest with your units, don't quote everything in MB's then state an outrageous number of KB's as the overage, 2.3MB of excess data is still significant, but calling it 2300KB is just dishonest sensationalist journalism.

What ever happened to WP7 using about 3MB/hr or whatever that problem was? This doesn't seem like a problem with iPhone4, but modern phones in general.

Modern day smartphones are using data at incredible rates. Even people who don't think they use their phone that much will go over 200MB. My wife uses her MyTouch4G for email/weather/facebook/twitter/blogger/flickr updates, and that's it. She has never attached it to a computer and used it as a data modem. Yet, the last time our bill cycled over, she had managed to use 140MB in 4 days (luckily we have "unlimited" *cough*5GB*cough* data on T-Mobile).

Even if AT&T didn't know the iPhone4 would consume extra data each month (and I doubt they did), they should, in light of any proof in the future, perhaps increase their base cap to, say, 500MB?

Of course, we could just ask Apple what's going on, but we ALL know what their response would be.

This reminded me of something I read elsewhere, which might also point to some fault on AT&T's part. AT&T rounds-up data transactions, to something like 10KB or 100KB. This means if your phone sends a 1KB data package back to Apple's servers, AT&T charges you for 10/100KB. Therefore, 2300KB might have been billed, but in reality only 23KB of data might have been sent. Not sure why any rounding has to occur, except that AT&T knows it can bilk more money out of you.

It's sensationalist to use a different prefix on units? This is a tech site where the majority of its readers can easily differentiate between a MB and KB. To me, the author is simply being more precise with the data usage. Now reporting in bits would be overkill but I believe that using a different, but well known prefix within this community is acceptable.

Yeah this is the same thing they do to voice minutes. Talk on the phone for 10 seconds got charged for 60. It's all ways just to get a few extra dollars. I also don't think that 3MB of traffic over 10 days is hardly proof that AT&T is sending "phantom" traffic though. Any smartphone is going to have some sort traffic to check for updates, etc. Also this only amounts to about 300KB/day which amounts to about 10MB/month. If you're getting to a point that an extra 10MB is putting you over the cap (which i also think is ridiculous) every month then maybe you should upgrade to the next level. I'm not really trying to defend AT&T but when you put it in perspective the article makes it seem like AT&T is adding much more traffic then actually is going on.

Well considering the wp7 issue turned out to be with yahoo accounts, it would not surprise me if this was something similar. I would imagine that there are plenty of people with an iphone on the 200 MB plan.

everyone knows 2300 kilobytes is more than 2.3 megabytes because 2300 > 2.3

I was grandfathered in to my unlimited $30 month plan when I got my 4 last fall. New customers werent allowed to though, sucks for them. My bill on average is the same as it always is. Im sure its like this with all carriers they nickel and dime or penny people as much as they can they think most people dont read their monthly bills and just pay it which is true 99% of the time.

Being more precise? Negative.

Math, is almost always expressed in the simplest way numerically possible. I.E. 1/3 instead of 12/36, or 10 billion instead of 10,000,000,000.

Yes, both are correct. But If you don't think seeing more zeroes isn't going to have a more "wow", aka sensational, effect on people.. You need to learn a little more about journalism/writing class.




Well, the only problem I see with your statement is that "3MB" isn't proof.. 3MB, or 2.3MB in this case, is 2.3MB of more data than was used. Before you can say it isn't much.. more questions need to be asked. Like... Does this scale/ramp up with more data intense usage? Or is this some sort of solid cap? Or something of that nature. Many questions can be asked, and regardless of how little, or how much more traffic, they are adding,it is still incorrect, and needs to be fixed. 2.3MB of data from one user, multiplied by millions..

Equals one huge paycheck for AT&T. One they most certainly do not deserve.

No matter how you look at it, consumers are being nickle and dimed by cell service providers! :-P

This is hilarious. I have an iPhone and do not use the data very much (about 50-100MB a month). I get several messages from ATT when I reach certain limits that tells me I am using so much data. I get one whenever I go over 30MB and then at set intervals from there. ATT does a lot to let their customers know when they are approaching the 200MB limit. It is not ATT's fault if he is not smart enough to read the 10 emails and text messages he gets.

Also, as the article states, every smartphone uses data without the user specifically requesting it. The visual voicemail uses data, which if I remember right is why ATT requires a data plan with the iPhone.

This is a dumb lawsuit.

GreenSpoon, I've had an iphone for 5 years and have never seen these features you're describing.. emails from AT&T... I'm not doubting you, enlighten us all by describing how to activate said features.

Second note: If Sprint just jacked up your rates, you may have just been handed a 'get out of contract free' card.. I know that would render my contract with AT&T materially adverse, and nullify our contract. It's in the fine print, you have 30-60 days to tell them to let you out free

As far as data usage, I reset my data counter every 16th (when my billing cycle restarts) and the bill is always MORE than the phone reads... I had a falling out with AT&T last month so i've turned my wifi off to make sure i'm using my data plan i'm paying for... AT&T cust service is awful (spoke with 29 people to resolve my issue.. it still isn't fully resolved), but i doubt Verizon or Spring is much better..

This simply shows why they had the unlimited data plan back in the day. Now they are regretting that move and also the people who came off it.

Every time I pay my AT&T bill for my two iphones for less than $140 total with unlimited data, I smile. Because it gives me little joy that I am getting back at them.

Is anyone really surprised that AT&T has poor business practices?

i would be interested to see if the phone were placed in 'airplane mode' with all voice and data disconnected completely, would they still run up the data? that would show that either the unit is not actually disconnected from the network in this mode and something still transmits or that AT&T is falsifying data usage...

"Everyone" must just be you then because, unfortunately, 2300 kilobytes = 2.24609375 megabytes....

This reminds me of the news which were on TV some time ago: "Hot news! the gouvernament finished 1.000.000 cm of highway!"

You're just mad because you have a lousy 1,677,721,600 bits data plan.

1) An the iPhone and it's apps are not to blame? I guess he thought AT&T was an easier target than Apple.

2) I do love the MB, KB notation trick. Instead of 2292 KB, why not say 2,347,008 bytes or even 18,776,064 bits! Almost 19 million bits! That sounds big!!

2300 is < 2.3
2300 divided by 1024 is 2.2461MB not 2.3MB.
Mathematician4fail

You have TWO options:

1. Stay with AT&T and get ripped off.
2. Go over to Verizon and get ripped off.

Say what you will, but at least you have TWO OPTIONS NOW!

lol

That's nothing my local carrier charges 50cents a MB or $5/5MB. they do have an unlimited plan I just laugh each time I look at their plans.

Really, you mean corporations are greedy capitalistic entities that try and rip you off of every dollar they can? I'm shocked, but you Republicans in here swear by it, failing to realize, he who holds the capital makes the rules. And no they don't pay any taxes and do not have the highest taxes in the world, corporations in the US actually have one of lowest "effective" tax rates in the world. And if think lowering US tax rates on corporations would bring more jobs here, no they wouldn't, you know why because the cost of living is simply higher in the US than in India, China, parts of Eastern Europe, etc ... so bottom line business are in the business of making money,not providing jobs, so guess what they will still ship the jobs over there. End rant.

Greed.

ATT can s*** a big one.

of course they inflate the bills. after all its the government.

Hey, that's what you get for having a monopoly on iPhones.

Considering that AT&T data plans terms of service specifically prohibit "(vii) software or other devices that maintain continuous active Internet connections when a computer's connection would otherwise be idle..." Doesn't that make anything using data like this in violation of their own agreement. Certainly sounds like Windows Phones are candidates for this as soon as you open the box.

For the past two months, AT&T has recorded 2-3GB (yes, GIGABYTES) more data usage than my iPhone itself has recorded. For the six months prior, while I certainly wasn't a 'light' user, I was always at 1GB +/- 200MB. Then, in February, right around the time they said they'd start throttling back heavy users, AT&T reported a fourfold jump in my phone's data usage. At the end of that billing cycle, I reset the stats on my phone, which 22 days later says I've used around 900MB. AT&T is reporting that I've used 2.9GB.