Is it possible for applications to bypass Data Transmission switch and Roaming block?
I have been traveling abroad recently and even though I have Roaming Data disabled and Data Transmission disabled in the system I still got charged for data transmission.
I have travelled with it before last two trips and have not seen the problem.
Since I had similar situation last time I was traveling, I made sure that those settings are off couple of times over the course of the trip.
When I check data usage (Settings -> Data Usage) for that period is practically zero, but there are some Google apps listed for that period: Internet, Kids Mode, Youtube, Smart Remote, and Google Movies BUT they all list 0kB for usage and I'm not using neither KidsMode nor Smart Remote.
It does not look like operator related since I got charges from several countries.
Any ideas what might be going on? I will file a complaint for the charges with my operator (not counting on positive response there), but I still would like to use my phone when travelling, but if blocking data transmission is not enough to prevent roaming charges - what is?
For reference my phone is European Galaxy S5, running Stock, not rooted, 4.4.2 Android
thanks in advance,
Kubak
Data off from settings will surely off any transmission. No app is allowed to bypass that setting. Dont know if you are talking about check on data roaming, you should just off the data.
There could some problem with the data switching. Since your phone is not rooted it shoudn't happen but some apps may be doing this. Try flight mode/airplane mode. If problem still does not go OR if you want your data on Try the app permission management.
Settings-->Security-->App permission management.
Thanks for the replies guys!
To clarify - I have been always using the Roaming data off setting when traveling. And it worked until my last two trips.
On previous one I did not disable data since the setting always worked before. When I got charged for data, I made sure I additionally switch off the Data and keep it off during my trip.
The data usage meter on the phone shows 0.0 kB with several Google apps listed (as mentioned initially) they are all set to restricted mode - no background data.
It looks that IF there was any transmission it was small - one of the operators on route charged just 1kB, but ATT was happy to charge me 50kB up and down every time this happened?
The Airplane mode can be a solution but will pretty much "kill" the phone - I would still like to be able to be reachable under that number.
I was a bit suspicious of Llama app fiddling with data, but even that should not bypass the Roaming setting (and there would be a lot of data being transferred)
And the problematic part is I don't think I can check data usage with my operator in real time - I just learn from my monthly bill...
So it looks like "something" is bypassing the "no data in roaming setting" - but what?
Any suggestions are welcome
I had the same experience recently and I've figured it out. Even if your roaming function is turned off there are VOIP apps that can bypass your roaming and you will get charged for data. Facebook calls, Whatsapp calls and IMO calls are a few. I noticed the last time when I was travelling through the States (with my roaming off) that when a fb call rang my phone (I did not answer), every frickin' fb notification for the week came through during the duration of the ringing (remember ... I did not answer / connect to call), and I got dinged for 4 bucks for every one. The only way to get around it is to have phone on airplane mode or delete / uninstall the apps while you are away.
Related
hi all
so I am going out of the country later this week and had a simple silly question. I want to be able to use wifi on my phone for late night email checks. I do not want to accept calls or send text or use any data over the network.
are these the settings I need:
wifi - on (duh!)
mobile network - off
data roaming - connect to data services when roaming - off
Is there a setting for roaming for regular calls? I do not see it. note this is with a rooted inspire using rcmixkingdom.
thanks
aeneas3 said:
hi all
so I am going out of the country later this week and had a simple silly question. I want to be able to use wifi on my phone for late night email checks. I do not want to accept calls or send text or use any data over the network.
are these the settings I need:
wifi - on (duh!)
mobile network - off
data roaming - connect to data services when roaming - off
Is there a setting for roaming for regular calls? I do not see it. note this is with a rooted inspire using rcmixkingdom.
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try and answer your questions, but I would still recommend you contact your mobile provider and confirm first. This is from my personal experience.
BE PREPARED ... THIS IS A LONG REPLY
Whenever you leave your service area, the area covered by your mobile provider's network, you enter what we call "roaming." Two things can now happen. Either your phone will not work at all in terms of calls or data, or everything will work. It depends on what agreement you have with your provider. With me, for example, I had long ago called my provider and asked them to NOT allow my phone to operate if I went "roaming." Then, suddenly, when I visited the U.S. last week, I realized that my phone wasn't working and remembered what I had told my provider. A quick phone call to them corrected the issue.
All that being said, if you are set up to roam with your provider, you need to consider a few of things.
One, you need consider where you're going. If you're in Canada, and you're traveling to the U.S., roaming charges may be somewhat expensive. If you're doing the reverse, visiting Canada from the U.S., the same would probably apply. However, if you're going overseas, your roaming charges could be quite expensive, as much as several dollars per minute, depending on the country. Data can also be expensive. For example, with my provider (Rogers - Canada), I have 500MB of data with my monthly plan; however, when I visited the U.S., my plan no longer applied, and I would be charged 3-cents per KB, or a whopping $3.00 per MB. I ended up buying a 10MB extra service fee for $10.00.
Okay, let's consider what you want to do.
If you only want to use WiFi, it will work perfectly if you have the WiFi name and password (if applicable). If you do NOT want to be able to take calls, send texts, or use data, you MUST TURN THEM OFF. Keep in mind, too, that certain programs may automatically access Data for up-dating, such as weather, stocks, sports scores, currency exchange rates, etc. You can turn off this automatic function, which I would suggest. I don't know exactly where this function is on your phone, but you'll have to check it out. This applies to the SYNC function as well. Turn OFF sync to make sure it doesn't accidentally access Data.
Now, for your other question re local phone calls. Once you leave your service area, your phone either works, or it doesn't. There is no other choice. If you don't want to accept calls from home, or make long distance calls, then you have to turn off roaming. If roaming is off, you cannot make local calls either.
Also, keep in mind that if you did make local calls, they would all be considered long distance because, as far as your provider is concerned, your phone's area code is static. If you leave your area code, ALL calls become long distance even though, if you're in another country, and you only want to make a phone call across the street, it will still be a long distance call. Think of it this way, billing begins the moment you press call on your phone, yet in this case, that call effectively begins from you home area code. Therefore, to make a call across the street, it would be identical to making the same call from you home, plus roaming charges.
There is one work-around for the local call issue. You could buy time from a local provider in the country where you will be travelling. This may end up being quite inexpensive. Think of it as a pay-as-you-go plan, if they offer it. So, you would simply remove your existing SIM card and replace it with a new one from the provider in the new country. Use it for local stuff. It may even include data, who knows?
When I visit China, which is rather often, I have a "pay-as-you-go" SIM card which I have with me when I visit. I always keep a balance on the account so they don't cancel it. Then, when I arrive, I make the SIM switch, and voila! Cheap local calls.
Peter
If ALL you want is data for email and internet, turn airplane mode ON (I use a power widget to have this close at my fingers, but you can long push the power button and the option is there as well as in menu>settings>wireless & networks) then turn wifi back on.
Airplane kills all radios, then you have the option to turn wifi only on (specifically for those airlines that provide wifi).
thanks guys! I figured I was going to call AT&T today to make sure but stealthpsycho - airplane + wifi will work wonders. I just tested it out at home and it is beautiful I am going to turn off roaming by calling just to make sure as well. In case I need to reboot and forget that airplane mode is not on.
thanks again!
Went to Vietnam a few weeks ago. Turning on airplane mode and then turning wifi back on does the trick you want.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
W00t! I gots a thx!!!
You're very welcome. I use this trick a lot at the school where I work, b/c I have no cell signal and I want to prevent cell searching. It's also a useful trick if you want to install market apps that AT&T blocks (I.E. PDAnet)
Easy way I go to Japan all I do is take out the sim. Wifi on.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA Premium App
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!
This happened to me earlier.
I was at a party and there was no wifi connection available, my wifi is off, I also don't have a data connection so my data is always turned off. Then, my friend tried to call me on viber, and my phone rang. I know that maybe since I don't have an active data connection, maybe the call turned into a regular one. But the problem is I also received Facebook notifications, tweets, and other data related stuff. I checked and I still have my data off, there's still no wifi.
So I guess my question is, how could I receive those if I don't have an active data connection?
I also checked my data meter but it's still zero.
Could my phone be actually turning my data on without me knowing? Cause since I don't have a data subscription, I don't want to receive a huge bill containing metered data charges.
I live outside the states so we don't have forced data subscription here.
Sent from my MK16i using Tapatalk 2
Hi there.
I have been recently working outside my home country and I disable my mobile data as soon as I reach the airport.
My Nexus 5, now with 4.4.3 reports 0 bytes of data when I am in roaming and I never got a notification or any sort of activity that may point to a data access being made, yet my service provider sent a big bill with many 10KB accesses during the time I was in roaming.
The same problem might exist while at my home country, but since I have a few hundreds of MB to use each month, I can't really tell.
Anyone else is facing the same problem?
I will temporarily ask my service provider to block my data access while in roaming, but I would like to understand if that is some sort of Android bug or a service provider charging what it shouldn't.
I've looked a bit more into this issue and I suspect that it was the Google Location Services that try to obtain the positioning from the cellular mobile network.
I've installed the Network Monitor Mini and it showed me a few times that process has a residual network usage.
Since I'm on Wifi most of the time, I assumed that network usage was on the WiFi but now I understand that being connected to the WiFi doesn't mean that the phone cannot use cellular data.
Can anyone that uses little Mobile Data (disabled in the Settings most of the time) confirm that the eventually you get some cellular data charged if you have the Location Settings set to use the mobile networks?
Sorry for the monologue, but this might be useful for someone that may face this problem in the feature.
After being more attentive to the network usage pointed by Network Monitor Mini, I think I found the culprit.
I've spent the last weeks with mobile data completely off, using only WiFi, yet on a couple of occasions I noticed Network Monitor Mini reporting minimal network usage being made when no know network WiFi was around.
As the screenshot shows, the WiFi is not connected to any known access point, yet some data was being uploaded by one of those processes.
I think the phone is trying to ping the cellular antenna for a location, thus accounting for mobile data access.
I've disabled the location and I will keep monitoring the data usage to see if that is the real culprit. Also noticed that Network Monitor Mini has a traffic breakdown mode per interface. I'll use that to distinguish wifi and cellular data.
why not just disable data complete, a data signal wont even appear because it wont be connected to data? go to main settings, more, mobile networks, data enabled.. now uncheck it and your data connection will disappear, but your phone connection will stay.
edit.. and if you have root, you can install the disable service app, then you can disable the 5 differing types of location services that your phone uses.
Hi simms22.
Like I said on the first post, that was the first thing I did in the airport. I'm not saying simply disabling roaming data, I disabled data completely.
The point I'm trying to show is that even with mobile data disabled, in roaming I still got several tiny chunks of data registered by my operator and I occasionally noticed Network Monitor Mini showing 0.1KB upload, as shown in the screenshot.
Regards.
VuDuCuRSe said:
Hi simms22.
Like I said on the first post, that was the first thing I did in the airport. I'm not saying simply disabling roaming data, I disabled data completely.
The point I'm trying to show is that even with mobile data disabled, in roaming I still got several tiny chunks of data registered by my operator and I occasionally noticed Network Monitor Mini showing 0.1KB upload, as shown in the screenshot.
Regards.
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Click to collapse
well, a little bit of data can be transferred through the phone signal(sms). do you have disabled in wifi settings, bottom right three dots, advanced, scanning always available? that uses the wifi to scan for location even when wifi is off, maybe they do that with the mobile signal as well. anyways, about a month ago, google location services kept waking my device non stop, so i completely disabled them in the google play services using the disable service app(i have root). now google never checks for my location unless i let it.
Hey.
I disabled the Location services in Settings, restricted the background data and so far it has been three days with no data accesses registered by my provider.
I don't think the background data is responsible for the traffic so I will wait a couple more days and then re-enable it.
I think the Location services are useful and I do like those small things it offers like weather prediction for where you are, where you parked the car, time to go home/work and movie times near you. The only problem is that it doesn't seem to respect the Mobile data status.
Just raised an issue in the AOSP tracker
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=72332&colspec=ID Type Status Owner Summary Stars
If you share the concern on this problem, please star it to give visibility.
VuDuCuRSe said:
Just raised an issue in the AOSP tracker
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=72332&colspec=ID Type Status Owner Summary Stars
If you share the concern on this problem, please star it to give visibility.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It also happens with me but I have a Galaxy S4. It's a huge defect to alow location to consume mobile data even with the data roaming and mobile data disabled.
Hi Guys,
I am here with a..I hope possible to solve situation.
I have switched to our local carrier, which provides only 2G and 4G connection, but... I have 1GB of data for 4G, but my OPO is sometimes switching to EDGE, which makes me fury, because I am paying for anything transferred through 2G (separately as it is not in the data package I have), but all calls are on 2G, which makes restricting the connection to "LTE-only" impossible, becuase it would result in no access to the calls/text messages.
I have found this article
http://editorsean.com/articles/how-to-force-three-to-use-3g-and-4g-only/
which is really great, but with those options I am forced to use GSM/LTE and such..
Is there any chance of letting my calls and text messages just using 2G network as usuall, but forcing my internet access using just LTE ? There is of course an option for disabling "national roaming" (I hope, it is called the same in english), I have it disabled, but it is still connecting to the 2G and draining data from it...
Is there a chance it is a problem from my side ? I did not factory reseted the phone since buying, doing just OTA upgrades and such, so I was thinking, if the system is not kind of bloated...I had some weird things happening with it too in the past - recently I have seen that in the battery saving mode I could see some like various screen brightness jumps while playing a game for example.