 IPPlanManHoly Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC |
How?How is it possible to have phantom traffic?
At what level does the screwup occur? |
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shoan
join:2006-02-27
Benton, AR |
shoan
Member
2011-Jan-31 10:17 am
I believe this totally. We opened a third cell line to leave at the house in emergencies. This phone was not turned on at all and had no data package on it, I was billed for several data transactions. I called AT&T and they corrected the issue and issued credits to my account. The saving grace for me was the phone was never turned on since I got the sim card since it was a back up card. But of course they acted like they were doing me a favor to fix the issue. I had to put a data block on the account to stop these charges. Something is not right on their end with this data billing. |
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moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD |
to IPPlanMan
said by IPPlanMan:How is it possible to have phantom traffic?
At what level does the screwup occur?
By design. As a poster said later, the phone reverts to using 3G service when in standby mode. This could be nothing more than the phone acknowledging where it is and making sure all updates have been downloaded (like service packs on Window PCs.) |
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 Zulu3
join:2008-03-17
Port Saint Lucie, FL
1 recommendation |
to shoan
Turn your data off. Settings > Network > Enable 3G > off
Cellular Data > Off.
Simple as that |
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 morboComplete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000 |
morbo
Member
2011-Jan-31 10:45 am
>Simple as that
not really. that is the point of this news story. even not using data AT&T will charge you for using data. |
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MRCUR
join:2007-03-09
Lancaster, PA |
to Zulu3
So I should let all of my friends know who are on tiered data plans to turn their data OFF when not in use? That's absurd. This seems like an issue with AT&T's billing system. Maybe it's an issue with an iPhone, but from the sound of these comments, many non-iPhone users have seen this happen before. |
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88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness |
to moonpuppy
said by moonpuppy:said by IPPlanMan:How is it possible to have phantom traffic?
At what level does the screwup occur?
By design. As a poster said later, the phone reverts to using 3G service when in standby mode. This could be nothing more than the phone acknowledging where it is and making sure all updates have been downloaded (like service packs on Window PCs.) Then that data should be FREE of charge. |
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 dvd536as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ |
to IPPlanMan
said by IPPlanMan:How is it possible to have phantom traffic? When A T & T isn't generating the amount of overages they thought they'd generate by removing unlimited plans. exactly why UBB is bad[for the consumer] |
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 Gbcue
Premium Member
join:2001-09-30
Santa Rosa, CA |
to 88615298
said by 88615298:said by moonpuppy:said by IPPlanMan:How is it possible to have phantom traffic?
At what level does the screwup occur?
By design. As a poster said later, the phone reverts to using 3G service when in standby mode. This could be nothing more than the phone acknowledging where it is and making sure all updates have been downloaded (like service packs on Window PCs.) Then that data should be FREE of charge. So you want AT&T to do DPI on your packets to determine which should be free or not? That opens the door to net neutrality violations. "AT&T's new walled garden packets will now not count towards your overage!" |
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 your moderator at work
 hidden : Personal attacks
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to moonpuppy
Re: How?said by moonpuppy:said by IPPlanMan:How is it possible to have phantom traffic?
At what level does the screwup occur?
By design. As a poster said later, the phone reverts to using 3G service when in standby mode. This could be nothing more than the phone acknowledging where it is and making sure all updates have been downloaded (like service packs on Window PCs.) And AT&T shouldn't be charging anyone for data that they request for "acknowledging where it is." And updates for phones don't happen often enough for the phone to need to constantly check for updates. iPhoneOS and Android updates are few and far between. |
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 TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA |
to Gbcue
It doesn't need to be a deep packet inspection. AT&T should know which update servers its phones regularly hit. It can then say "any traffic to update.thisserver.com doesn't count towards the cap/overage" while still counting traffic to other data sources (even its own non-update sources) towards the cap/overage. This wouldn't be a network neutrality violation at all. They'd simply be filtering out system updates so that the customer is only charged for data they requested. |
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innoman-
Premium Member
join:2002-05-07
Seattle, WA |
innoman
Premium Member
2011-Jan-31 1:29 pm
It doesn't even require that. All of those updates occur on different logical channels. (google Location Area Updates / Routing Area Updates and GSM or UMTS). All of that stuff takes place on the signaling side and doesn't even reach the systems that handle data billing. In GSM and earlier revisions of UMTS (3G), it is all handled over circuit switched, not packet switched.
AT&T is very capable of doing things the way you said though. All it has to do is assign certain communication to a different APN (as it does with visual voicemail on the iPhone, FOTA updates on any phone that does FOTA, etc...) |
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| innoman |
to Gbcue
Communication between the mobile device and the network should not be billed. A great deal of communication occurs between the mobile device and the network, near constant communication actually. No inspection is required to determine what is what here anyway... That communication does not occur on the same logical channels that data is passed.
If it did, you would be saying AT&T should also be billing you for the data your voice traffic consumes. |
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to 88615298
said by 88615298:said by moonpuppy:said by IPPlanMan:How is it possible to have phantom traffic?
At what level does the screwup occur?
By design. As a poster said later, the phone reverts to using 3G service when in standby mode. This could be nothing more than the phone acknowledging where it is and making sure all updates have been downloaded (like service packs on Window PCs.) Then that data should be FREE of charge. but then, you'd be getting something for nothing! Egads, that's...like...stealing!  |
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innoman-
Premium Member
join:2002-05-07
Seattle, WA |
to skuv
Actually... they happen almost constantly... as least it would appear that way if a human is looking at the log files (I have done a great deal of this on many devices). There are measurement reports, location/routing area updates, paging requests, handover requests, cell reselection, acknowledgments for everything, etc... A device has to talk to the network often or it won't know where to send the page requests if someone calls it. In UMTS, coverage for each cell site grows and shrinks (it's referred to as cell breathing I believe) based on the number of users, network conditions, etc... to prevent interference, saturation, etc. |
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 r81984Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX |
to IPPlanMan
said by IPPlanMan:How is it possible to have phantom traffic?
Easy. Traffic that your phone did not request is being sent to your IP address. The network has no idea if that traffic is legit/requested by you, it just send it to your phone and counts it as usage. Now your phone reads the packets and drops them as it knows it did not request the data. So you might not have used your phone, but you get charged for data as the network sent it to your phone. Also there can be apps or even the OS using bandwidth without you knowing about it. Your phone might phone home to tell ATT where it is at over data and ATT could be counting traffic like that even though it is their traffic to your phone. |
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Gbcue
Premium Member
join:2001-09-30
Santa Rosa, CA |
to innoman
said by innoman:Actually... they happen almost constantly... as least it would appear that way if a human is looking at the log files (I have done a great deal of this on many devices). There are measurement reports, location/routing area updates, paging requests, handover requests, cell reselection, acknowledgments for everything, etc... A device has to talk to the network often or it won't know where to send the page requests if someone calls it. In UMTS, coverage for each cell site grows and shrinks (it's referred to as cell breathing I believe) based on the number of users, network conditions, etc... to prevent interference, saturation, etc.
But should all those "behind the scenes" data transactions be counted towards a users' data bucket? No. This stuff happened long before there was 3G data and nobody was charged for it. |
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to Zulu3
How would that fix Shoan's problem if his phone was never on? |
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to skuv
said by skuv :And updates for phones don't happen often enough for the phone to need to constantly check for updates. iPhoneOS and Android updates are few and far between.
iOS updates are actually done from iTunes which gets the software update over your computer's broadband connection, not over 3G. |
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innoman-
Premium Member
join:2002-05-07
Seattle, WA |
to Gbcue
They should not, nor are they.
Those types of communications between the device and the network take places on different logical (and in some cases, physical) channels. There are a number of logical and physical channels that are established between the device and network.
They can't be counted towards the users consumed data. Who know's what AT&T is doing in the instances that they are billing for data not consumed... |
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