Charged/deducted for 1 KB data and duplicate text messages

[FrankMtl]

Hi folks,

I have an iPhone SE running iOS 10.3.1 on a Prepaid plan

Since signing up I get charged on occasion for data usage even though everything in Settings regarding Cellular Data is disabled including Wifi Assis and apps that may work in background. Yet pennies get deducted and flagged as PDA.

Also past 2 days text messages are counted in duplicate greatly reducing my quota.

Any ideas? 

Thanks

[NFtoBC · Accepted solution]

First - text messages. If your character count is over about 160 characters, the message gets split in two, and sent as two messages. Some characters count as more than one, and emoji may count as many 10's of characters.

Data - I have found small amounts of leakage when connected o US cell towers - often reported as 1X or EXDO data, and seems a legacy of the 2G data systems they use. Do you travel where your phone may connect to US towers?  I usually write it off as a 'cost of doing business.'  My iPhone 3Gs required a connection to the data network to work at all. I'm guessing there are a few check-ins the phone wants to do, and you see a tiny bit of leakage. For the occasional penny, I'd not worry too much, but if important to you, or if the amount becomes excessive, I'm sure Telus would refund it if you contacted them. 

[FrankMtl]

Once again, NFtoBC, you're a trove of useful info. Thanks.

I did not know the 160 character limit and indeed the message I sent was 204characters. Howeverr this doesn't explain why it each half got sent twice unless it gets split to smaller pieces?

Regarding the data I may send the logs to Apple to see if there is indeed a leak, whether from iOS or an app.

Thanks again for your help.

Frank

[Nighthawk]

Oversize texts are often split in to smaller chunks. It's most likely why you are seeing duplicates.

If you hear anything from Apple that may be of use here, please feel free to share. 🙂

[FrankMtl]

That'll teach me to keep my text short 😄
Thanks, Nighthawk. Will definitely post Apple's response.

[Joadee]

For your data leaks, this fixed the problem for me. I had the same problem of getting charged one or two cents everyday on my prepaid account for data usage even though mobile data was turned off and all apps were not allowed to use data in the background. I went to my settings and under mobile networks I switched my mobile network to 3G only (it had previously been 3G/2G auto connect).  Since then I have not had the charges on my account.