When I am on the train reception is full bars and 3G for 90%+ of the route
During off peak hours I get reliable and fast internet
During peak hours I can hardly connect. 25% to 50% of the time it will be successful.
Therefore it must be because lots of people are accessing the network at the same time. I am with Telstra, the best network in Australia. Tried other networks and it is even worse.
Is there an app (root requirements is fine) that will make my phone very aggressively connect to the mobile network and once connected, keep pinging/transferring data to maintain the connection continuously? Battery life and mobile data usage is not an issue
Related
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
Ok I've got a few questions about the different network types and battery usage.
As far as I know there are 4 different possible scenarios:
3G mode active
3G mode active and connected to mobile data (3G/H showing in notification bar)
2G mode active
2G mode active and connected to mobile data (E or G showing in notification bar)
Currently I have settings default with "Use only 2G networks" unchecked, and "data enabled" unchecked. I have tasker made to automatically turn mobile data on whenever I open any app that may require it, and then turn it off after the app closes, or I can switch it on from the status bar power control.
This is because I assumed having it constantly activated would consume more power. Is this true? does it consume more power having data enabled even when no traffic is going through? If this wasn't the case, I might as well leave it enabled. However with my current system I could still be saving power because if I leave data on, traffic WOULD periodically be used for automatic sync and apps randomly using network and stuff.
The other thing I was wondering about is if there was any major difference in power consumption between 2G and 3G network modes with no mobile data connected. if 2G uses much less power, I could have it set on 2G by default then use tasker to switch to 3G and activate mobile data when opening any internet requiring app. Are there any other advantages of having 3G active over 2G other than mobile data transfer speeds?
Thanks for any help!
Imho your settings are good. Mobile network is one of the battery killlers, so not using (or better using it when you really it), is very good. You are right, 3g has a higher speed on mobile network. Whereas the 2g-network has a much better network coverage. And the permament switch between 2g and 3g drains the battery very fast, too (happens e.g. when you travel).
To sum it up: Use 2g and mobile network off. If you need to use mobile network, turn 3g and mobile network on. Are you done, turn them off again and switch back to 2g.
When you say mobile network, do you mean when an active data connection is enabled?
Because just by the name 'Mobile network", you can be connected to a mobile network for calling and texting etc. without being connected to mobile internet/data.
Is there a difference in call quality between 3G and 2G networks?
Also when toggling between forced 2G only and 3G there seems to be an inactivity period where the reception icon at the top shows like 'disconnected' like it cuts all network communications, then shortly connects again to the specified network type. This delay might be annoying when trying to get internet fast on apps that need it... might not be worth the power saving, if it is only minimal power saving
battery
for the best battery duration, use GSM ONLY!
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!
Does anybody know a wifi traffic monitor app that will show you how much data you have used at any certain time, per period (day/month/etc) but also grouped by network ssid? Like for example I'm running a personal hotspot (portable 3g router - say ssid TEST) that has a certain ammount of data available per month, and I want to see on my phone for example, how much data I have used on that particular network (ssid TEST).
I found some apps that show monthly and daily wifi usage, but it's combined for all wifi networks you connect to. I am looking for an app that shows usage per wifi network.
Anybody have any tips?
Thanks.
Built in functionality
The built-in data usage monitor in 5.0 and up is sufficient for me, it perfectly shows the data used per app (so also when using a hotspot)
What Android are you running?
Hi All,
I recently changed to Dommel, a provider in Belgium, who gives a very detailed list of mobile data use.
I was astonished that I use mobile data every day while my mobile data is standard off because I have Wifi at home and at work.
After asking an explanation from Dommel, I searched the internet for an explanation for this problem and the only relevant thing I found was the following thread:
http://android.stackexchange.com/qu...ing-used-even-when-mobile-data-setting-is-off
In essence, they say that every time you call or get a phone-call, your phone reverts to 3G, HSPA+ in my case, if your provider does not support VoLTE (= telephony over 4G, packet based in stead of circuit-based) and goes back to 4G (LTE) after the call, leading to small amounts of data use during each protocol-switch. Apparently, this hidden data usage while mobile data is off happens all over the world but as only small amounts of data are used, most people do not notice it.
I compared my data usage with my call history and sometimes they coincide, sometimes not.
Then I noticed that many of the small data usages coincide with the typical moments I commute between home and work. Hence, moving seems also to consume small amounts of data maybe due to the handover from one antenna to the other, maybe because one supports 4G and the other only 3G.
I also noticed that amount of data consumed varies between 0.0002 MB and 0.18MB -- one would expect that a protocol switch between 3G and 4G or a handover between antennas consumes more or less equals amount of data.
Luckily, I remained in Belgium when I consumed about 50MB this way and it only cost me a few EUR/month. Looking at the data roaming tariffs of my provider, it turned out that if I had the same issue while traveling in Algeria, it would have cost me about 600 EUR (Yes, you read it right: six hundred EUR for 50 MB).
I have also good news: setting the preferred mobile network type to WCDMA (=3G) in the mobile settings seems a work-around to this problem. According to the tech guy at the provider-side, I did not use any data anymore with this setting unless I put mobile data to on.
I would really like to understand what is going on. Unfortunately, the tech guy at the provider-side really tries to help but seems to understand even less about this issue than myself.
Hence, I felt it is time to call the experts: xda-dev Does anybody understands this hidden data usage while mobile data is off?
regards
Dries