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I was wondering why someone would want to be connected to 3G all the time for talking. I could only guess that it is somewhat better quality. In my case I don't see it that much. I do however know that it waistes about double the battery using 3G all the time. If I am not using data is there any real advantages of it? and what if I am talking to someone who does not have a 3G phone.
Thank you,
Hmm, of course I could be wrong (but I doubt it), Data and voice are 2 different things. 3G is data, voice is voice.
Thats what I was thinking, but I dont understand why it would be connected via 3G all the time if im not even using the data. and 3G and EDGE connections seems to have different signal strengths. If it's only for data I guess I will leave 3G off all the time.
3G signal is emitted on a different frequency than GSM/Edge signal - it does drain the battery faster and is pretty useless if you are in a well covered GSM area and only using voice (phone) function. The quality gain isn't significant enough overall to make it worth battery drainage on a device like the Kaiser/Tilt.
The advantage of 3G is its data stream but it's also good with voice for hard to reach areas only reached by 3G signals - those are rare nowadays, especially in the US, but in some cities with landscape blocked coverage (like in some skyscrapers in Manhattan for example) you might not pick any GSM network at your work desk but might pick up 3G - in such places, using "bandswitch" regularly makes sense.
Lastly, 3G signal is slowly replacing GSM/CDMA (2G) as the broadcasting standard so I wouldn't be surprised that in the next 5 years, more and more GSM phone operators will stop mantaining there GSM frequency towers in favor of 3G.
Thanks jonas that's the answer I was looking for. I will use edge untill my signal gets low.
Jonasteddybear said:
Lastly, 3G signal is slowly replacing GSM/CDMA (2G) as the broadcasting standard so I wouldn't be surprised that in the next 5 years, more and more GSM phone operators will stop mantaining there GSM frequency towers in favor of 3G.
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Interesting, since that means AT&T has a lot of work ahead of them and better get their butts in gear rolling out 3G. I live in the whatever-it-is, 90%, of the network area that does NOT have 3G.
Or I suppose I could be an optimist about what you say, and think that maybe it means AT&T really will be accelerating the rollout of 3G. That would be nice given the snail's pace of 3G expansion in the past couple of years.
Over in the UK 3G is the standard 2G is still available but the telecommunications offcom have required all UK operators to offer a minimum of 90% 3G coverage by 2010
I've always heard that Voice on 3G uses less power on standby and when talking, but I might be remembering it wrong.
Data on 3G uses significantly more juice than EDGE does (over double in my experience!) but I don't think you'll see a significant difference without data usage on 3G vs GSM but I could certainly be wrong.
I always have FlexMail and IM+ running, I haven't compared battery usage without them yet.
One big advantage that 3G has over EDGE is you can do voice and data at the same time. I've heard varying stories about some phones can do it on EDGE and some can't, but I know on my Tilt my connections die when I'm on a voice call and reconnect after but does not on 3G.
The biggest advantage of 3g besides the penetration is that you can talk and maintain a data connection. Edge gives you one or the other at a time--data or talk.
Ive read several things on battery consumption and one the things is being in a bad service area. I am currently not in a bad service area (atleast I don't think) but my phone keeps swtiching from 3g to H and then H to 3g. Is this a problem if so what can I do to fix?
If I look at phone info whilst on 3G, I notice its switching between UMTS and HSPDA. Is the same thing? I also believe that battery life isn't as good as others report. Could this be why?
Your phone's connection idles at 3G and when you make a request, it switches to HSDPA and then retrieves information. It is normal to constantly see it switch between the two if you're using your data.
This is how I always understood it and am pretty confident this is what you are seeing.
cpm said:
If I look at phone info whilst on 3G, I notice its switching between UMTS and HSPDA. Is the same thing? I also believe that battery life isn't as good as others report. Could this be why?
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I think the phone idles on 3g but when ya use data say in browser it'll kick up to H...
I think idling down to 3g saves power. But I don't like the 1 or 2 seconds at first when ya do data it has to switch to h taking the couple seconds. Now if ya instantly go to another page Its faster cause its on h. But if I wait lime 5 seconds it'll drop back to 3g so next page I go to it'll need to bump to h again...
Annoying but whatever
well I use juice defendor so when it snaps on when I take it out of sleep it snaps to 3g and then to H. So I'll pay closer attention to see when the phone takes it to 3g vs when it accesses the H.
i have a question about my "H". I do know that the H stands for HSPA which means im supposed to get faster speeds than 3G? or will i continue to get same speeds till my towers in my area are upgraded? im a little confused about all this! thanks in advance!
When there's a data load it will switch from umts 3g to hsdpa. For some reason it wont stay on hsdpa permanently. I wonder it there's a build.prop mod that can keep u on hsdpa instead of having the phone juggle hsdpa and umts.
Btw I'm new to android and could be wrong. Hopefully others chime in.
Having HSDPA constantly on will drain the hell out of your battery. I don't think you'd want that.
To the OP - H will show on custom ROMs only. Any time you're getting speeds above 400kbps - it's HSDPA kicking in. Search will answer the rest of your questions or new ones that you might have.
Jack_R1 said:
Having HSDPA constantly on will drain the hell out of your battery. I don't think you'd want that.
To the OP - H will show on custom ROMs only. Any time you're getting speeds above 400kbps - it's HSDPA kicking in. Search will answer the rest of your questions or new ones that you might have.
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Nonsense, no matter what data type it requires active data transferring to be using the battery. A completely idle connection uses the same power on E, 3G, or H.
khaytsus said:
Nonsense, no matter what data type it requires active data transferring to be using the battery. A completely idle connection uses the same power on E, 3G, or H.
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Do you have any idea what you're talking about? I would guess that the answer is no. People should keep their mouth shut when they have no idea.
Maybe you don't know that there is no "idle" for radio connection? There's always data transfer once in X time, several times a second at least, and the power required by that transfer is directly proportional to the required transmitter power (higher than the transmitter power). HSDPA creates another active channel using the UMTS band, with different modulation and encoding, and its receiver needs to work constantly to keep this channel alive (and the same goes for HSUPA):
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hsdpa.htm
And yes, keeping active data connection draws power. Both on GSM, when data connectivity is present in a form of GPRS or EDGE (again, additional tx/rx and additional power used), and on UMTS (but since UMTS - WCDMA - includes data, this happens only when HSDPA receiver / HSUPA transmitters are activated).
Ah, and a subset of what I wrote above is "probably" the reason behind much higher standby times on EDGE. It just doesn't use the same amount of power when connected with GSM+EDGE as UMTS alone.
Here, back in 2005:
"New HSDPA handsets, according to Lucent's Leonard, will need to manage higher power consumption and heat dissipation requirements in addition to integrating new algorithms in their chipsets."
http://features.techworld.com/mobile-wireless/1212/hsdpa-will-make-3g-start-to-deliver/
That's true. Battery drain will be a problem..... I wonder if there's a way to force hsdpa to switch from umts quicker
Jack_R1 said:
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? I would guess that the answer is no. People should keep their mouth shut when they have no idea.
Maybe you don't know that there is no "idle" for radio connection? There's always data transfer once in X time, several times a second at least, and the power required by that transfer is directly proportional to the required transmitter power (higher than the transmitter power). HSDPA creates another active channel using the UMTS band, with different modulation and encoding, and its receiver needs to work constantly to keep this channel alive (and the same goes for HSUPA):
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hsdpa.htm
And yes, keeping active data connection draws power. Both on GSM, when data connectivity is present in a form of GPRS or EDGE (again, additional tx/rx and additional power used), and on UMTS (but since UMTS - WCDMA - includes data, this happens only when HSDPA receiver / HSUPA transmitters are activated).
Ah, and a subset of what I wrote above is "probably" the reason behind much higher standby times on EDGE. It just doesn't use the same amount of power when connected with GSM+EDGE as UMTS alone.
Here, back in 2005:
"New HSDPA handsets, according to Lucent's Leonard, will need to manage higher power consumption and heat dissipation requirements in addition to integrating new algorithms in their chipsets."
http://features.techworld.com/mobile-wireless/1212/hsdpa-will-make-3g-start-to-deliver/
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I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't checked it myself. But sure, feel free to do it yourself too. Disable all stuff using network, set it on Edge, leave the phone alone for a few hours and monitor the battery usage. Repeat for 3G, HSPA.
I haven't done it on my Nexus One but I did it on my Tilt 2 and my Tilt and in both cases the battery usage for Edge vs HSPA was the same idle. Only when actively transferring was the power usage different. And idle in this context = not actively using the data connection. What the radio itself is doing to maintain state I don't care about.
Note I was not measuring in mAh resolution, only observation of battery charge and average consumption. I didn't have a power supply and monitoring the exact power used, etc. Only observation. IE: Maybe it's 10-15mAh higher on H vs EDGE, that would be well into the margin of error in my observations.
First, you couldn't measure it for HSxPA, because you can't connect it and leave it connected, unless you're pinging once a couple of seconds - and that would affect the results too much to neglect. The only things that can be measured are idle consumption of GSM/EDGE and UMTS - but again, they're measured and given as the spec of the phone, why would you think that phone manufacturers would write them differently if they were equal?
The difference between GSM and UMTS is around 20% tops, and mostly less, around 10%. You can't measure this difference accurately through short amounts of time, you need statistics. And again, you can't compare either to HSxPA because for this you'd need SW to make HSxPA stay constantly on for practical measurement, or figures from manufacturers citing HSxPA transmitter and receiver power consumption in working mode. If I understand the protocol correctly - HSxPA doesn't allow idle, it's just not built for it, about the same way as PCIe doesn't allow idle - to maintain the link, data needs to be streamed constantly, even if there is no data - "idle data" is streamed, when it shuts down - there is no link anymore.
Jack_R1 said:
Having HSDPA constantly on will drain the hell out of your battery. I don't think you'd want that.
To the OP - H will show on custom ROMs only. Any time you're getting speeds above 400kbps - it's HSDPA kicking in. Search will answer the rest of your questions or new ones that you might have.
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Jack_R1 said:
First, you couldn't measure it for HSxPA, because you can't connect it and leave it connected, unless you're pinging once a couple of seconds - and that would affect the results too much to neglect. The only things that can be measured are idle consumption of GSM/EDGE and UMTS - but again, they're measured and given as the spec of the phone, why would you think that phone manufacturers would write them differently if they were equal?
The difference between GSM and UMTS is around 20% tops, and mostly less, around 10%. You can't measure this difference accurately through short amounts of time, you need statistics. And again, you can't compare either to HSxPA because for this you'd need SW to make HSxPA stay constantly on for practical measurement, or figures from manufacturers citing HSxPA transmitter and receiver power consumption in working mode. If I understand the protocol correctly - HSxPA doesn't allow idle, it's just not built for it, about the same way as PCIe doesn't allow idle - to maintain the link, data needs to be streamed constantly, even if there is no data - "idle data" is streamed, when it shuts down - there is no link anymore.
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Therefore, your original argument is self-invalidated. Thanks for tidying that up.
khaytsus said:
Therefore, your original argument is self-invalidated. Thanks for tidying that up.
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My original argument is that keeping HSDPA constantly on will drain the hell out of the battery. I don't see, how by comparing UMTS and GSM standby times you understand anything about HSDPA that DOESN'T HAVE STANDBY. And I guess you don't know enough about high speed protocols to understand anything I wrote after that, so I'll just leave it at that. If you don't want to understand - I can't make you.
Hey guys,
I flashed cm7.1 rc1, it's cool but I found the cell standby cost 40%, and phone idle also takes a lot of juice. My previous rom is arhd 1.10, on which the cell standby only takes 4%. I'm on the virgin's network in Canada. The virgin is acquired by Bell and of course it's using bell's network.
Is this network HSPA only? So in the *#*#4636#*#*, can I set the network mod as WCDMA only? Or by toggling 2G/3G to 3G only? Not sure if this will save some battery?
Switching to 2G only should save you a bit of battery. However, by far the best way to save battery is to switch mobile data off completely when you're not using it. I do this and my battery loses only 2 or 3% on standby overnight.
Switching to 2G wont work as Virgin Mobile/Bell does not have a 2G network backend like rogers or fido only 3G/4G so switching to 2g would make you have no service.
Yes. Virgin/Bell only use 1900MHz, the PCS band for their mobile communication, both voice and data.
In my opinion, use 3G only will save some power because the phone won't scan 2G frequency range. Moreover, setting the band as US band also will limit the scanning scope to save power. But after one day using, I didn't find much enhancement on battery life.
Ah, didn't know that. My apologies.
geeti said:
Yes. Virgin/Bell only use 1900MHz, the PCS band for their mobile communication, both voice and data.
In my opinion, use 3G only will save some power because the phone won't scan 2G frequency range. Moreover, setting the band as US band also will limit the scanning scope to save power. But after one day using, I didn't find much enhancement on battery life.
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They act trully. Use 850/1900, bands ( for get the band number ) also if your in a area of low to no signal it kills battery becuase the phone is continues to serch for a signal almost as bad as call for battery. Also give you phone a week to calabrate your battery
Sent from my HTC Incredible S using XDA Premium App
if not just calibrate your battery I switched back to android revolution just cause i couldn't deal with the terrible camera app in cyanogen mod. And now display is back to my number one battery killer.
this is a "feature" of CM7.1, i found too
Yes, I also conclude this is a feature of AOSP.
I thought this battery use is a transient value for each process on battery draining, but now I found this is an accumulative statistics. The cell standby and phone idle's high usage make sense.
In the stock firmware, the fact that display always takes majority of the juice doesn't make sense actually, cuz the screen isn't always turned on.
Hi guys,
I have a Nexus One purchased from Google last year. I only started using 3G this month with Vodafone Australia. My battery drains ridiculously fast on 3G compared to 2G. On HSDPA("3.5G") network with everything off (including data) it uses 5-10% per hour standby. On 2G it drains less than 1% per hour. Using a battery monitor app I can see that 2G draws less than 10mA while 3G draws 25-100mA.
Since on 2G battery life is very good this should not be a problem with any software running in the background. I also tried the following with no help:
- Dial *#*#4636#*#*, set to WCDMA only instead of WCDMA preferred, and select radio bands to AUS BANDS
- Upgrade radio to the latest Korean version
- Force the phone to use UMTS instead of HSDPA network by editing build.prop
I tried both the stock 2.3.4 ROM and the latest CM nightly, but the problem persists. I really want to take the full advantage of 3G and leave it on all the time so this is very frustrating to me. I can use Toggle2G to automatically switch to 3G when screen is on, but that's not what I really want. I know although 3G uses more battery it should not be that dramatic. After all the specified standby time on 3G/2G are 250/290h by Google. With 3G my phone won't last even a day purely on standby.
I also wonder if it can be a problem with the network. My signal strength on 3G is around 2 bars - not particularly bad. It almost never loses signal. If anyone can post a ROM/radio from Vodafone Australia for me to try out that would be greatly appreciated too.
Thanks all!
2 Bars of Signal strength might be one of the reason that battery is drained faster. As the signal is not that strong enough, it keeps searching for stronger signal and results in faster battery consumption.
Personally the radio version '5.12' wasn't satisfactory. I prefer 5.08 version. (Signal strength, speed, battery...)
I recently upgraded from CM 7.0.3 to 7.1.0 RC1 and noticed battery life is much better.
So I am going to suggest a few things you might want to try:
- Downgrade the radio to 5.08
- Full wipe and flash CM 7.1.0 RC1 (or a different custom ROM)
- Try a different kernel (I personally like Cyanogen kernel though)
- Uninstall Task Killer if you have one installed.
zephyr18 said:
2 Bars of Signal strength might be one of the reason that battery is drained faster. As the signal is not that strong enough, it keeps searching for stronger signal and results in faster battery consumption.
Personally the radio version '5.12' wasn't satisfactory. I prefer 5.08 version. (Signal strength, speed, battery...)
I recently upgraded from CM 7.0.3 to 7.1.0 RC1 and noticed battery life is much better.
So I am going to suggest a few things you might want to try:
- Downgrade the radio to 5.08
- Full wipe and flash CM 7.1.0 RC1 (or a different custom ROM)
- Try a different kernel (I personally like Cyanogen kernel though)
- Uninstall Task Killer if you have one installed.
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Hi zephyr, I previously had CM 7.1.0 RC1 with radio 5.08 and the Cyanogen kernel but the problem remained. I also tried to put my phone near the window, where it has 4 bars signal, but the battery drained just as fast. Thanks for your suggestions though.
I know T-Mobile in the states screwed up something on their network a few weeks back. In doing so, it caused massive power usage on devices when using 3G/4G. I wonder if Vodaphone Australia did something to their network as well...
http://androidandme.com/2011/08/news/is-t-mobiles-network-killing-your-battery/
install current widget, and take logs of your current draw in mA during idle to see what's going on. do an overnight test, then during the day. post your logs.
So I just stumbled across this thread. I've been having the same issue on my Desire, it started suddenly a couple of weeks ago. In 3G mode my phone drains about 120mA. In 2g it drops down to 4-8. I've eliminated all the usual suspects by doing a factory reset (using the CM7.1.0RC but have also tried the latest nightly build), so no apps running in the background, and tried different versions of the radio. I am also with Vodafone in Australia. One thing that I have found is that if I go into Phone Info I can force the phone to make an EDGE connection by choosing the "AUS2" frequency band, and with an EDGE connection I get the good battery usage. But if I choose "AUS" or "AUTO", the phone makes an HSDPA connection and this drains the hell out of my battery.
Just wondering if the OP has had any joy with this?
stanleyguan said:
Hi guys,
I have a Nexus One purchased from Google last year. I only started using 3G this month with Vodafone Australia. My battery drains ridiculously fast on 3G compared to 2G. On HSDPA("3.5G") network with everything off (including data) it uses 5-10% per hour standby. On 2G it drains less than 1% per hour. Using a battery monitor app I can see that 2G draws less than 10mA while 3G draws 25-100mA.
Since on 2G battery life is very good this should not be a problem with any software running in the background. I also tried the following with no help:
- Dial *#*#4636#*#*, set to WCDMA only instead of WCDMA preferred, and select radio bands to AUS BANDS
- Upgrade radio to the latest Korean version
- Force the phone to use UMTS instead of HSDPA network by editing build.prop
I tried both the stock 2.3.4 ROM and the latest CM nightly, but the problem persists. I really want to take the full advantage of 3G and leave it on all the time so this is very frustrating to me. I can use Toggle2G to automatically switch to 3G when screen is on, but that's not what I really want. I know although 3G uses more battery it should not be that dramatic. After all the specified standby time on 3G/2G are 250/290h by Google. With 3G my phone won't last even a day purely on standby.
I also wonder if it can be a problem with the network. My signal strength on 3G is around 2 bars - not particularly bad. It almost never loses signal. If anyone can post a ROM/radio from Vodafone Australia for me to try out that would be greatly appreciated too.
Thanks all!
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Click to collapse
Try Juicedefender Ultimate, it shuts down data when not in use. I see 1-2%/hr max when used with a good kernel.
ctfrommn said:
Try Juicedefender Ultimate, it shuts down data when not in use. I see 1-2%/hr max when used with a good kernel.
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Alas it's not the data, this happens even with the data turned off. It's something to do with the baseband connection.
It's not data here either.
This just started happening on my 100% stock unlocked N1 about 2 weeks ago. (ATT)
Most of the time at work I'm on WiFi, yes the signal (cell) is very bad in my office. Has been for a long time, something else is strange.
No extra tasks running, nothing new installed.
Gets piping hot when on the charger - sucks juice like crazy when off.
Checked data log - nothing unusual transmitting...
What sort of area do you operate your phone in? My phone used to drain like mad inside my house (perth- vodafone) and in areas with spotty coverage. In my house my reception would be on the very edge of 3g with no bars and EDGE, constantly switching between the two. Do you have your wifi policy set to on while sleeping? Provided you aren't out and about all day, that would help, though i assume if you've had the phone that long, youd have changed the wifi sleep policy by now.
My wifi is always on - never has changed.
It gets hot at home where there is good reception and at work where there is crap.
I've had the phone for over 1.5 years and this just cropped up.
I rooted my wifes N1 and she doesn't have any issues...
liam.lah said:
What sort of area do you operate your phone in? My phone used to drain like mad inside my house (perth- vodafone) and in areas with spotty coverage. In my house my reception would be on the very edge of 3g with no bars and EDGE, constantly switching between the two. Do you have your wifi policy set to on while sleeping? Provided you aren't out and about all day, that would help, though i assume if you've had the phone that long, youd have changed the wifi sleep policy by now.
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I'm also in Perth, on Vodafone. I get a pretty decent signal strength at home, and it seems to be happening to me wherever I go, unless I'm "lucky" enough to get an EDGE connection. This started overnight, almost exactly two weeks ago. I've been speaking with Vodafone about this at length but not really getting anywhere. Yesterday they swapped my SIM but it didn't make any difference.
Yep, wifi is set to never sleep.
I bought a prepaid SIM card from another provider a few days ago. I only get a UMTS connection with them, but still the current drain when idle is what is considered "normal", 4-6mA.
One thought I've had is that maybe I never had an HSDPA connection before but recent network upgrades have meant that I'm suddenly getting one. Still, 125mA is way too big a drain and seems to indicate something wrong with the phone.
The last test I can think to do is to swap SIM cards with a friend who is on a third network, who gets an HSDPA connection. He has a Nexus One and gets very low current drain. At least that way I can be sure of whether it is or isn't the network. We're doing that tomorrow so stay tuned