Database Info

'Bands' tab and Advanced config questions

I've searched the forums for an answer to this and I've found partial answers. I'm hoping I can get a response that will work for me.
Firstly, in the 'Bands' tab, I'm looking for some clarification on the options available. Under 'network type' there is 'Auto', 'GSM', and 'WCDMA'. Auto, I understand. GSM I'm assuming means GSM network (T-Mo, AT&T and not CDMA). WCDMA, according to Wikipedia, is basically the network that allows 3G speeds over GSM networks.
Now, when I set the network to GSM, I get an EDGE icon in place of the 3G. When I set it to WCDMA, I get 3G, as well I should.
First question: If I set the network to WCDMA, will it force my Fuze to ONLY connect to 3G? Where I live, I'm finding it hard to find a 3G dead zone to test without traveling 30 miles...
Second question: Does forcing 3G only improve battery life? I read in one post there are separate radios for 3G and EDGE/GPRS (which makes sense as to how you're able to talk and use the data connection simultaneously) and by forcing one, the phone doesn't constantly scan for the other.
My third question has to deal with having my device automatically disconnect the data connection after it finishes its business. I read in several posts that 'Advanced Config' has an option to set the data timeout, but I've read through the menus several times and have seen no such option. Are there multiple versions of advanced config floating around? Barring that, could someone just tell me what registry entry to add/edit to set the timeout? I read in yet another post that the phone automatically disconnects after 30 minutes, but that doesn't seem to be the case, as I tested mine and we're going on over an hour with no connection drop. (No email is being checked and weather is disabled. Prior to me starting this particular data connection, the phone had been connectionless for almost 16 hours.)

AdvancedConfig/Menu/More settings/Connections.
There is also that option in DiamondTweak.
WCDMA means 3G only, which means that your phone isn't searching for GSM signal. I haven't noticed battery improvement when forcing 3G, although that would be logical.

Fieldtrial.exe explanations

Looking for a line-by-line explanation of Fieldtrial.exe.
For example, some articles I've read say Rx Power is the tower strength, while others say RX Ec/Io say that's what I should be watching.
Any guides/FAQs?
Thanks

I'll give it a go...
- Rx Power is the actual power of the signal you are receiving, measured in dBm.
- Rx Ec/Io is essentially the signal to noise ratio (signal quality) of the signal you're receiving. It's a negative number in CDMA because the pilot carrier's signal strength is just a part of the total carrier energy received, so essentially the "noise" is stronger than the signal. I won't go into the gory details of how that all works, but it's pretty cool. Ec/Io is the more important factor to look at if you're wondering how your call will sound and if it will drop...a strong signal is useless if it's dirty. Ec/Io also maps to the "bars" on the phone. -3 dB is the maximum (best) value and -12 or -13 is about as low as you can go and carry a call.
- Rx FER is the received frame error rate. Basically it's how many errors (due to poor signal quality) were detected in the received signal.
- Tx Adj is how much the phone is powering itself back when transmitting back to the tower. Higher values mean you're closer to a tower. I'm not sure of the units here, but maybe just dB.
That's all the signal related stuff. The rest is Network ID, System ID, Channel, etc. The phone also shows the Active Set, which is the PNs (codes that distinguish one sector from another) of the sites you are connected to. This will be 1 site when you're idle, but can be multiple sites when you're on a call. Candidate set is the list of sites that are being considered for promotion into the active set. They are just being measured, you aren't connected to these. Neighbor set is the set of sites that are on the active site's neighbor list. These are nearby sites that your current site might want to hand your call off to if you move towards them. These PNs tell an engineer which site you're on, but unless you have a PN list it's hard to say what site goes with what PN. If you use Google Maps though, and don't use the GPS, it locates you at the cell tower you're currently on.
I hope that helps.

Wonderful! Thank you so much...
I had pretty much given up on getting either Verizon or HTC to answer this for me. "Not supported" was all I could ever get out of them.

change interval for "searching for cell tower"

I have an HTC diamond CDMA and when I am at certain areas at work I won't get a signal and my battery will drain very quickly. Is there a way to change the interval that the phone will attempt to find a cell tower to 10 minutes or something instead of having it constantly drain searching for a connection?

[App Idea] GSM/WCDMA Switcher

Hey guys,
As the radio stack is the second cause of battery draining after the display, I was thinking about a way to save battery life by reducing the impact of the 3G connection. Most of the energy saving apps on the market are only disconnecting the phone from the APN, but this isn't a great solution as each app could be set to update at different times and thus being unable to download data even if the user sets some exceptions. So I thought that an application which operates in the following way could be great to save power:
- The phone uses the 3G network while the screen is on;
- It switches to 2G when phone is in standby mode;
- It disconnects the APN data connection while the phone is using a WiFi Network;
Obviously to avoid possible issues during the switch between 2G and 3G the following rules are applied:
- If there's an incoming call or a phone call is being performed, there won't be any radio switch until the phone call is ended;
- If there's an incoming SMS/MMS, there won't be any radio switch until the text message is fully received.
Unfortunately as I'm not a Java developer I can't code anything like this. But let me know what you guys think about my idea and if it's technically feasible... Maybe some developer could be interested into further exploring my thoughts and will try to create such an app
Cheers

I'm not a developer but I think it sounds like a great idea. I go into settings and switch it to 2g when I'm in spotty areas outside of town. I have to work a bit to keep my N1 battery alive all day...

Hello I'm new here.
I don't know if your suggested profiles are the best case scenarios. You would need to calculate your data throughput, not just the radio power.
If you need to send 100 packets, your radio would be on the longest for edge > 3g > wifi. So, even though wifi uses the most power, it would be for a much shorter duration.
A profile for "place calls only" would work somewhat like airplane mode, but still keep track of towers. Your phone just wouldn't register on the network unless you wanted to place a call. You would miss your incoming calls, have no data connection, or sms. But, you could have it check at an interval for voicemail or sms. This would be most useful for "ringer off" situations like class or meeting.

Afaik Android is always connected to the APN even if the phone is not downloading anything, consuming a lot of battery power. On other platforms, i.e. Windows Mobile, the connection can be terminated by user and re-established when an app needs that.
The amount of data downloaded by widgets, Google mobile applications or apps which operates in background like eBuddy or Facebook should be quite low, so downloading the required data by using GSM or WCDMA while the phone is in standby would be pretty much the same. The only difference is that downloading stuff using GSM/EDGE should take much less energy power.
So that's why I thought about the app I described before: the phone can save a lot of energy power while in standby and be back to its full horsepower when there is any kind of user intervention. Pretty much the same thing that the system already does for CPU usage. It scales to the less consuming protocol (or, in the case of CPU, frequency and voltage) to save power

I know on the google api it isn't possible to do this, but I don't think that isn't the problem.
At the moment you have 3 options. GSM only, WCDMA only and GSM/WCDMA. Whenever you switch between the 3 of them, the phone will lose signal for 10 seconds before it can find the best network. So the switcher here is not the best as you will lose connection, and what if you are downloading something at the same time...
What you need is when the phone is on GSM/WCDMA that it knows the best network to pick from depending on the phones lifecycle. GSM/WCDMA loses battery power because it always tries to find the best network to connect to, so for example if you are on GSM it will constantly try to find a 3G network etc (as far as I understand it).
What we need is the ability for the phone to stay on GSM when the phone is idle and then when the phone is woken up to automatically start to search for a WCDMA network and then gracefully switch over like it does now. For this I have no idea if it is possible as I don't know how the scanning of the network works. If it is possible then that would be wicked. But this is what we need.

my preference would be if the phone would stay on 3g as long as any possible even if there would be a more reliable 2g connection and only switch to 2g if there really is no way to connect to 3g. turn of apn if the screen us turned of for longer then 1 or 2 minutes and only check every 15 minutes or so.
most of the time I'm on 3g only mode . since I live in a city I got good coverage almost all over the city. only problem is that when there is no 3g available also my phone is unreachable. I don't really miss data connectivity when there is no 3g since 2g is so slow that I rather have no internet at all but not being sale to be called or texted is a major disadvantage...
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

Why does it take so long to connect to lte?

When I reboot my phone I have an lte connection within a few seconds. When I set my phone to 2g though and then enable lte it takes multiple minutes to connect, why is that?

It honestly depends on the LTE towers near you're area

That's what I mean: it doesn't. I didn't even move yet the time to connect differs by more than a minute between rebooting and switching from 2g to 4g.

Try setting the APN "Bearer" to LTE. This sped it up for me.