As previously reported here on Neowin last week, Microsoft launched an investigation into reports that its Windows Phone 7 operating system was sending and receving data without the knowledge or consent of the user.
Now BBC News is reporting that Microsoft has confirmed the issue and given some details about the root cause. Microsoft is initialy claiming that in most cases, a third party service is to blame, though they declined to actually name which service. Microsoft was also quick to add that they were still looking into other possible root causes. Currently Microsoft is still looking for potiential workarounds while work on a fix continues. They also claimed the issue only affects a "very small, single digit percentage of Windows Phone users"
Devices affected by this issue were consuming between 2 and 5MB of data per hour. The problem was initially discovered in late December of last year, when a user received an email from AT&T alerting them to the fact that they had almost reached their limit on data. In an email to Paul Thurrott's Windows Supersite she said:
"On December 22nd I received an email from AT&T saying that I was close to my 2GB data limit which truly shocked me as which truly shocked me as I feel I do not use data that much"
Microsoft has also admitted that not all of the reports of "phantom data usage" are the same issue, and that additional reseach in to the other issues was still ongoing.
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