Mobile data turned on itself

[anemcova]

Hi, I don't get it. I just found out my mobile data turned itself on without me even knowing it. I don't use mobile data at all, since I'm usually connected to wifi, so I have it turned off and it still seems like it's turned off, but I received a message, that my mobile data is on and also I had to pay for it, which really sucks, because I didn't turn it on, I didn't even have my phone in hand at the time in fact. I'd be alright with it, but it costs some money of course and I don't use it at all, so it's just a total waste of money. Could some good person at Vodafone at least fix it so that it wouldn't happen again?

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi

Turning off Mobile Data in the phone should be enough to stop this. If it has turned itself back on then it's either the phones settings or the phone that's at issue. Vodafone wouldn't be able to fix this from their end. A diagnostic by the manufacturer via contacting them in their uk website or ask Vodafone to send it off if purchased through them. 

Process of elimination: Can you try you're Sim card in another phone to rule out either the Sim or Account or Phone which may be at fault. 

An extreme option if you don't use data at all would be to navigate to the phones settings and find the APN settings and purposely change those manually. 

[kids]

Have you has a software update recently?

I ask as there was a similar issue with iPhones some months ago whereby when the software was updated the phone reset the cellular data to "on" which is the default.

A fix was however pushed out in the following update.

[hrym]

This arose some time ago and it seems that there may be some apps or system processes that manage to turn mobile data on automatically.   I don't think we ever got to the bottom of what it was, though, in order to see if it could be disabled.  However, if you look at the data usage monitor in Data under the main Settings menu, the first thing that was active might be the culprit.  The main purpose of a smartphone, of course, is to be a connected device, so it's sort of possible to see why this might happen, but it's frustrating if you're trying to minimise use on a PAYG device.

As I remember it, the workround that was suggested before was to set up a dummy APN (look under Access Point Names, also in Data) that would always fail as a connection and then set it as the default.   That way, if the phone does turn data on, it'll be unable to do anything.  If you do want to use data, just switch to the Vodafone APN temporarily.

[Paultuk5668]

I have had this issue on 3 phones , all with Vodafone but if check then shall see that data is actually off, running services confirmed it, however Vodafone kept taking credit for my data usage.. Incorrect, wifi being used as data off and to further refute this, iPhone 5s has wifi assist, if at home it would use wifi automatically even if data was turned on. Seems yet another problem related to Vodafone, one no doubt they shall deny and charge you accordingly.

[hrym]

I believe that there is been an issues with iPhones where, if the wifi connection drops, even momentarily, it isn't automatically re-enabled when the service becomes available again.

Any connection to mobile data will result in it being charged for.

[kids]

@hrym It is not so much an issue as a 'feature'.

When the iPhone goes into sleep mode or when the wifi drops for a split second the phone switches itself over to using cellular data.

It does not reconnect until the phone is manually woken up by using the slider button. Even if wifi resumes a signal the iPhone does not automatically reconnect but rather stays on cellular data.

[hrym]

It catches a few people out, though.  Thanks for confirmation of how it works in background.

[kids]

@hrym To add, there is only one excemption to the above, if the phone is connected to a power socket the phone stays connectedto wifi in sleep mode but will still switch to cellular if the wifi signal drops.

[hrym]

Is there any option to over-ride this in settings?   At least some Android devices have "keep wifi on during sleep" in the Power section.  Mine go off, but I haven't noticed any particular increase in mobile data use - probably because other processes are suppressed as well.  I assume that a sleeping iPhone also only uses a small amout of data??

Most of the problems we see here appear to relate to wifi not coming back on automatically when the device is woken, though the particular instance here may relate to PAYG charges, rather than a small amount of contract data that few people will probably notice.