Submitted by mcbizco t3_11cyzc7 in iphone

A week ago I noticed something was weird when my carrier notified me I’d used 75% of my data plan. A single text iMessage was using around 100mb. So I disabled iMessage, updated to the most recent iOS and restarted my phone. Waited for my data plan to roll over to the next month and tried again. It’s not as dramatic, but it’s still using ~10 mb for a plain text message each time. Any ideas why this might be the case?

I’ve turned off iMessage again for the time being.

Thanks!

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ZGTI61 t1_ja6kdmz wrote

Contact your carrier and see what they say and talk to apple.

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mcbizco OP t1_ja6kfvw wrote

Yeah that’s the plan tomorrow

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jerolyoleo t1_ja8efbn wrote

You must have some app doing data transfer in the background like a system update etc.

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mcbizco OP t1_ja8gtc9 wrote

The data is specifically attributed to messaging services in the cellular use breakdown. I reset it before testing and checked after every message. Was consistently ticking up about 10mb after every iMessage sent. That seems to be the source.

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Darnitol1 t1_ja9uxz3 wrote

I'm not doubting that you're experiencing what you're experiencing. I am, however, asserting that for this to happen, something is drastically wrong with your iPhone. This doesn't happen to other iMessage users.

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mcbizco OP t1_ja9whab wrote

Ahh gotcha, yeah I agree. Something is definitely wrong. I’ll see what apple says.

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cedarpangolin t1_jaaehm8 wrote

Do you have old iMessages that are syncing? There’s no way one text only iMessage can use up 100mb, it’s not possible. If the message is a video or something that makes sense. If you’re upset about it, just disable iMessage in settings and use regular sms.

Or if you’re up for it, do a full reset and restore of your phone - that should fix whatever is going on.

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mcbizco OP t1_jaaex7q wrote

Don’t think so, yeah it was definitely alarming. At least it wasn’t using that much yesterday. Some serious bug or something. But still making 10mb disappear off my data plan to “messaging services” every message I sent yesterday. Gonna talk to apple when I get the chance. In no world does a text based iMessage use that much data.

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cedarpangolin t1_jaaf8yg wrote

Wait, your original post says 100mb per message, now you said 10mb per message. Which is it?

Either way it’s way too much - and this is for a plain text only message?

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mcbizco OP t1_jaag28h wrote

a week ago, I noticed it was eating up 100 mb per message so I turned off iMessage, updated my phone to the latest iOS release and waited for my data plan to roll over to the next period (because this bug ate up most of it). Yesterday I tested it again and it’s now eating 10mb per message, which is better, but still wayyyyy too much data.

And yeah, just plain text. The word “Test” as an iMessage caused a consumption of 7mb of “messaging services” data. Something definitely wrong.

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dblrnbw30 t1_ja5terc wrote

iMessage uses data. SMS doesn’t. This is excepted.

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Entertainnosis t1_ja5ttki wrote

A single iMessage should absolutely not be 10MB.

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IncapableOfLaughing t1_ja6kqud wrote

No it didn't.

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mcbizco OP t1_ja6q61q wrote

I reset my statistics before I sent that and 100 mb of data was used by messaging services. Ticking up with every message. Obviously it SHOULDN’T be taking up that much space and data is getting over counted or something. Something’s bugging out.

No need to be so contrary. I understand that it doesn’t take 100mb to send that information, something is clearly malfunctioning.

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mcbizco OP t1_ja5to2i wrote

To clarify, I mean I’m sending an iMessage that is only text, not an SMS message. And it’s using way more data than it should be. My messaging services usage in the cellular data section jumps about 10mb each message.

Like not a picture or video or gif or anything. This issue is that sending the word “test” on iMessage ate up 7 mb of my data plan.

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