iphone question - emergency!

[LadySasaki]

Short version: is my iphone charging me to connect to my home wireless internet?

Longer version: okay I finally gave in and bought an iphone the other day and already wishing I hadn't. Spent my first 48 hours of ownership finding out what it wasn't compatible with, what it wouldn't transfer from my old phone and basically every other reason why you shouldn't buy one of the little buggers. *deep breath* so I connected the damn thing to my home wireless internet, put in password etc (I believe this is called 'tethering?'). It's showing as connected. But without making any calls or texts or buying anything from itunes, in 1 day my credit dropped from £3 something to 80p! The hell!? I only became aware of this when my phone sent a message saying I was low on credit! I used the internet function again (only to email myself some pictures and download, seeing as my new phone doesn't like bluetooth) and was alarmed to see my balance had dropped to 18p.

This is fucking ridiculous. Someone help, please!? Don't understand why it would cost to connect on my home wireless internet when my 3ds and laptop both do it for free. I'm on pay as you go and usually £10 lasts me around 6 months. I cannot afford this shit. Am kind of panicking and wishing I hadn't spend a lot of money just to get all this grief.

Any advice at all would be appreciated, thanks ;__;

 

[industry]

I don't know whether or not you're still having this issue, but here goes..

Short Answer: Probably not.
I'm not sure what the service provider in your country is doing, but I'd recommend reading your license agreement carefully, especially the part about data usage. It's highly unlikely, and much more probable that you're somehow eating up data over 3G/4G/EDGE.

I'm guessing that your iPhone is still using data, perhaps sending or receiving media over a cel network even while connected to WiFi, or automatically connecting to 3G and 4G networks when out of range then syncing and updating apps. You'll want to disable this. Look up a video tutorial for disabling application sync and updates for your specific model phone. You should have to option to autosync and update ONLY when connected to WiFi. (syncing, if you didn't know, is where an application such as an email client will "synchronize" and match data with its cloud database, in this case an inbox.)

To keep the phone off of networks that employ 3G, 4G, EDGE, etc, you'll have to disable that network adapter on the phone. (This isn't as hard as it sounds, I promise, and it'll extend your battery life too!) You see, cellular phones actually have several network interface cards (NICs), so they can connect to WiFi, 3G, 4G, etc.

Typically this is a toggle switch in your settings, and may differ from phone to phone. Some carriers (read: bastards) will actually have this removed to force their customers to pay outrageous amounts for continuous data.

I recommend finding a tutorial for "turning off network data" for your specific model phone. It may require jailbreaking if your carrier has this option removed.


Best of luck to you, and I sincerely hope it's as simple as turning off a switch in your options.