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Any way of knowing if data is coming through 3G or WiFi?

Pretty self explanatory this one - is there any way of knowing whether your mobile internet connection (3G) or WiFi is being used in, for example, a browser session? Just don't want to make the mistake of looking at YouTube on the phone, meaning to use the home WiFi, and end up using my 3G by accident, and paying through the nose for extra feed.

ryanbryan said:
Pretty self explanatory this one - is there any way of knowing whether your mobile internet connection (3G) or WiFi is being used in, for example, a browser session? Just don't want to make the mistake of looking at YouTube on the phone, meaning to use the home WiFi, and end up using my 3G by accident, and paying through the nose for extra feed.
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The icons on your task bar should indicate if you have a active data connection.

Or, you can use Spb Wireless Monitor (which you need to purchase). It produces reports telling you which software uses which connections and the amount of data transferred.

In a discussion I had with HTC Tech Support, they told me that wifi, when enabled, over-rides the cellular data. I'm not sure if this just applies to the settings or always. Hopefully, someone can provide a definitive answer.

Yes that is correct, if WIFI is enabled you WILL NOT have a cellular data connection.

Umm. There is a wifi icon in the taskbar o.o and a signal icon also.....whichever is there means it's active and if wifi is there, your data will not be active, only wifi.

What all you are saying is true but some applications still use the data network even if wifi is turned on and connected it seems. I have the same issue(i don't have a data plan with my fuze since my college has wifi everywhere). But things like weather and other native apps on the phone will just turn on the 3g network and stat using data instead of wifi.

if a device is transfering data over gprs/3g whatever
it show arrows moving in the signal str icon
otherwise it use wifi

Applications can choose to use a certain connection if they are programmed to do so, windows only gives each one a type of 'ranking', the fastest connection having the highest ranking and being the one an application is to use by default, but the application can override this and choose whatever connection it likes. This ranking is called the "Interface Metric" if you'd like to learn more about it.
There's an HTC program called 'bytecounter' that monitors the SMDx: ports in the system, which are the ports the system uses for data.. in bytecounter you will see the values increase if an application is using data over cellular network. let me know if you'd like me to upload it.

Umm. There is a wifi icon in the taskbar o.o and a signal icon also.....whichever is there means it's active and if wifi is there, your data will not be active, only wifi.
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Well that wasn't particularly helpful. I too have made the same assumption, but the question asked if there was any way to make sure.
windows only gives each one a type of 'ranking', the fastest connection having the highest ranking and being the one an application is to use by default, but the application can override this and choose whatever connection it likes
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Well that was the kind of answer I was looking for, and is particularly pertinent in my case, as my connection through my mobile provider is about as fast (or maybe even faster) than my fixed line connection at home. A rather bizarre situation, but such is the advancement of Australian broadband infrastructure.
The last couple of times I have used it, I have taken to turning off the phone connection so that only WiFi is running, and then using the internet. It would be good if you can upload the byetcounter program, seems like a free (?) version of the software programatix mentioned.

Here ya go!

Maybe this is just me, but when I try to unzip that file, nothing comes up....?

lol, i always forget to remove the hidden attribute.. let me go ahead and fix that..
Edit: fixed

Newer Windows Live (including the one that come with Touch Pro) will always dial-up the 3G/GPRS connection when checking for email in Messaging. But if you are checking in Windows Live, most of the time it doesn't dial-up but sometimes, it does.
So far that is the only program that I know of behaves like this. I contacted Microsoft regarding this and they keep asking me to contact my celular provider for help. In other word, they are not helping (or do not understand the problem).
Anyway I solved the problem by changing the Connections setting to "My Work Network" for Internet. The catch is, if I really want to use 3G/GPRS, I'll have to change the setting to my celular 3G/GPRS connection.

Or you could use the nodata application from modaco and disable whenever you like the cellular 3g connection just to be sure you are using wifi.When you are away from wifi networks you can in a matter of 2 clicks reenable the cellular 3g connection...

[Q] How to force the phone to never use anything but wifi?

I sometimes uses the wifi connection to surf the web on my touch pro, problem is that the wifi reciver don't look to be very strong so sometimes I loose the connection, especially if I'm moving around.
I have found the program nodata, but it doesn't seem to work that well. Even if I activate nodata and have it running in the background while surfing the phone still connects to gprs/3g connection if the signal is lost. My guess is that if I click a link after I loose the wifi connection the phone seem to override the funtion of nodata. Is there any other software that I can use instead?
I want the phone to wait until a wifi connection is established again instead of changing to a 3g/gprs connection.

I'm not sure. Once I removed all the data connection settings, but then I couldn't use the data ever. I've been keeping an eye for a program that does this, but it seems that everyone under the sun other than me has a data plan.

hahaha yo are noy allone out there, I would alslo like to know how to disable data conection.

the answer - modaco nodata. Its not the neatest but the only one
EDIT: and also you can do this in Advanced Configuration Tool from "connections" menu item. If you want a more permament solution (because of the long way to the choise in the app)
All the apps I mention are really easy to google for

darfri said:
the answer - modaco nodata. Its not the neatest but the only one
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yes...nodata is the one you want.....just search and you shall find

Not sure if this helps but when I handed down my Hermes to my Father in Law just so he could use it for phone calls and TomTom (via BT GPS). I had AT&T block all data so he can only use wifi.
It works great! when his wifi is turned off and he tried to go to the web it says connection refused.

Thanks for the input guys, but nodata don't seem to help me. It's the software I use now, but it seems that somethign is able to override the nodata software leading the phone to dial up when the wifi connection gets a low signal.
I'll give the Advanced Configuration Tool a go, but it seems to be a lot of work going in there turning things off, just to go back and activate them again if I want to check my mail "in the field".

I have an at&t Fuze with no data plan, just unlimited text/mms. I cannot disable data by using Modaco's NoData because mms requires Media Net.
What I have done so that all apps use WiFi is the follows:
Under Start / Settings, select the Connections tab.
Launch Connections.
Select Advanced tab.
Click on Select Networks.
Under Network Management, change "Programs that automatically connect to the Internet should connect using:" to "My Work Network".
With this setting, I don't have Internet connection unless WiFi is active, which is what I want. Maybe the Touch Pro has something similar.

Thanks icwinner, that seem to have made the trick.

[Q] 200 MB Of Data Gone In 2 Days?

I have the LG G2x with T-mobile using the 500 minutes of talk, unlimited text, and 200 MB of Data plan. My phone has Wi-Fi capabilities so what i wanted to ask was if i use my Wi-Fi instead of my phones 4G or 3G connection, does it still take away from my 200 MB? And what exactly takes away from the 200 MB? Surfing the web obviously, but what else? Android Market? I'm sorry if this is already a thread, if it is just point me in the right direction
Thanks.

If you use wifi, it will NOT count against your 200mb plan.
Anything that involves network/internet access will use up your plan. So internet, any audio/video streaming, the android market, social networking apps, advertisements in non-internet applications, its a pretty long list.
If that bothers you, you can always turn off your cellular data by going Settings > Data Manager > Data Delivery > Uncheck Data Enabled. Wifi will still work fine but your phone will stop anything from using up your plan.

Using Wi-Fi shouldn't use your data plan--Wi-Fi uses your Internet Service that you connect with from your computer which is separate from your phone's data service. Like how a PS3 or Nintendo DS can connect to wifi and browse the web, it doesn't cost anything except your House Internet bill that you get each month.
I'm not too sure what all uses the data plan but I can assume what they likely do based on the fact that phone companies are sneaky cheaters.
While on data:
Any application (or widget) that accesses the internet (includes accessing and downloading from the Android Market, Weather Widgets, Posting highscores, downloading information/new levels, etc.)
Anytime you use the internet (this downloads temporary files so you can view material)
Anytime you download a file from the internet to your phone
While on Wi-Fi (house internet connection, starbucks, airport, etc.):
Nothing.

Turn data off when you leave and only turn it on for a short while when you need and or want it.
That's what I do and it works out great. !

Happened to mee too once :S

you can use juice defender to turn off you wireless connections.

If use wifi it don't count your 200M plan

Make sure you are in range of the wifi 'hotspot', some users have been thinking they are using wifi and downloaded heaps only to realize they were out of range of the access point.

Can I turn off data plan access on AT&T Smart Phone?

So I've had this HTC S743 for about 5 days and I thought I had it setup correctly to use wifi for data comm.
wifi enabled and selected to use my home network. I can see the radio tower status icon and my locally named network is also displayed.
Under the comm manager the data connection is off.
I have a very simple $45/mo plan with no monthly data plan.
Over the last 5 days I have been surfing the web a bit did some email tests with my ISP and used the on board GPS app which is horrible. Not heavy usage but experimentation to see if I like how the phone works.
After 2 days I get an email from AT&T that I have extremely high data usage exceeding my account limit (for having no monthly plan) and that I should sign up for a data plan at once.
$29 over 2 days for this little bit of fluff? A total of 2,900kb in data.
So I call up AT&T and they tell me this and that and want me to sign up for a plan which I may do. But I want to be able to know that the datacomm is happening via WIFI when I can see a selected WIFI is in service.
They also told me that all GPS data is forced through 3G and bypasses WIFI???
Can anyone here give me an idea about what I may be doing wrong and whether AT&T is correct about the GPS service?
Is there a better GPS app that doesn't do this? This one pretty much stinks anyway. A resolution of 1000 meters doesn't cut it.
AT&T also informed me that I can't have a smart phone without a data contract. Really? I've had one for 6 years like that but it wasn't WIFI capabale and too small to bother with web access.
Thanks for any light you shed on the subject.
One thing I have subsequently found out is that if data connection is off and WIFI is off then when I go into IE and start surfing it does bring up pages. Then when I go back to the Comm Manager the Data Connection to check the status of my connections it is still off for an instant and then it automatically turns itself on as though it had been turned on by use of IE and the status was just being updated.
Last night I installed a newer version of Google maps and was only able to install it via the web browser as opposed to via the Activesynch application on my PC. I was concerned that this might trigger turning on the 3G connection. So I had it set up for a WIFI connection ONLY and installed the app. Afterwards I went into the connection manager and once again the data conn. was turned back on so it's possible that it utilized AT&T's 3G network instead.
Is there any way to control or stop this?

GPS data doesn't have anything to do with 3G/Wifi data......

I know it's supposed to be positioning via the satellites through the GPS antenna but the the description data is coming over the network right? So it appears that even though I'm setup for WIFI access and it's showing as connected with an IP address etc. when I try the Googlemaps GPS app it turns the data conn. for 3G back on.
Thanks for chiming in ...
I have been copying over and installing some new apps to try out this morning via usb. WIFI is on and I'm loged in. None are datacomm oriented that I know of (unless they'r trying to make an internet access to notify about being installed) none the less I just checked again and my data conn. is once again turned back on. Is this typical behavior for a windows mobile phone (6.1) or is this just an AT&T "feature".

Sorry, I don't have a WM6 phone!

[Q] 3G for specific program while on Wifi without net access

Hello,
I have done a bit of a search about this but havent found an answer.
At work we have a network with wifi which is behind an authenticated proxy which the admins wont allow cell connection to. I have tried with various proxy apps but no luck. I need the wifi network to sync with the email server, which does work, however while on wifi I cant use the internet or receive txts from WhatsApp etc.
Basically I am just wanting to know if there is a way or an app, to enable 3G for a specific application while on Wifi, or to somehow enable both on request.
The dataplan I have at work is very restrictive, only 100 txt a month and 512mb Data a month on 3G. I therefore rely on WhatsApp to stay under this limit, but dont want my email app to sync to the server and download large emails while on 3G, only while on Wifi. And I need WhatsApp to use 3G as it cant get out via Wifi.
If anyone has suggestions or knows of something to get around this, I would really apprecitate it.
I am on a Galaxy S2 with Root.
Thanks

try droidwall- android firewall

Same issue
I have the same issue, only opposite, I use my phone at work to connect to a machine specific wifi router and vnc into the controls to control the machine. While I am on this connection without internet my 4g turns off and I get no data. Is there a way to force the 4g on while i am on a wifi without internet access so i can still access my email, pandora, etc?
I tried droidwall, but all that does is block the specific app from accessing the wifi connection, it still wont use the 4g connection while there is a wifi network connected, whether there is internet or not.
Oh yes, I am on a rooted Skyrocket on SKY ICS RC7.4 Speed (Great ROM BTW).

I'm guessing by the lack of response, nobody knows of a way to do what we are wanting, but I want to try refreshing this the once just to see if maybe the person who has the solution just missed the first time.
I did reflash my rom to SKy ICS 4.2A-8 if that helps. Im willing to use different roms, mods, hacks, whatever it takes to make this work.