[Q] Wi-fi and 4g on at same time - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Hello,
Just bought the Galaxy Nexus CDMA version and have a question. Many people suggest turning off the 4G to conserve battery. If I'm on a Wi-Fi network for most of the day, is it necessary to turn off 4G? If Wi-Fi is on (and connected), is 4G still being used and draining the battery unnecessarily? I figured Wi-Fi would "trump" 4G.
Thanks in advance for your help.

The radio is still active and maintaining the signal will sap your juice. Think of it this way: when your phone is only on 4g and you're not using it, it still drains the battery even though you're not downloading files and whatnot.
I've flashed a new rom on days where I was just home and in wifi-range and forgotten to re-toggle 4g off, and found that my battery had drained all that much more than normal.

Thanks Joe for the reply..... IMHO, it doesn't make sense to me. I wonder why 4G is active (or even 3g for that matter) with a Wi-Fi connection? It makes sense to me when you are not on Wi-Fi because you need to have the data connection (4G) readily available for data. But if you already have a connection via Wi-Fi, why do you need another data connection (3G or 4G).
I did notice this though:
1. Wi-Fi is active (blue status bars at Wi-fi status and data connection status)
2. Turn off Wi-fi (Wi-Fi status dissapears as expected)
3. 4G status is blue for about a second or two.
4. 4G status turns grey for about a second or two.
5. 4G status turns back to blue.
If 3G/4G is truly active (with Wi-Fi Connection), I would assume that the status would never turn Grey for the second or two. In past experiences with other devices, when the status was grey, I couldn't get data connections.

When you turn on wifi, it disconnects you from the 3G or LTE network. You can check this from network status.
So no, you do not need to turn off LTE if you are on wifi all the time.

adrynalyne said:
When you turn on wifi, it disconnects you from the 3G or LTE network. You can check this from network status.
So no, you do not need to turn off LTE if you are on wifi all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm well I see where it says disconnected, but I still get a signal reading and it says I am on LTE or eHRDP in the usual spot.
I understand about the radio being in a low-power state, but I was left with the impression, from my usage, that battery always seemed to drain that much more when I didn't toggle 4g off altogether. But it's been a while since I just wrote 4g off altogether so I'm going to test it again tonight when I have a chance to leave the phone undisturbed with wifi and 4g on.

JoeSyr said:
Hmm well I see where it says disconnected, but I still get a signal reading and it says I am on LTE or eHRDP in the usual spot.
I understand about the radio being in a low-power state, but I was left with the impression, from my usage, that battery always seemed to drain that much more when I didn't toggle 4g off altogether. But it's been a while since I just wrote 4g off altogether so I'm going to test it again tonight when I have a chance to leave the phone undisturbed with wifi and 4g on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can never actually turn a radio off, so you will not see a battery life difference if you set it to cdma only and use 3G while on wifi.

When you turn on WiFi it doesnt disconnect your Data connection but your phone will know when WiFi is on to use WiFi instead of Data. The only way to save power is to manually turn it off. Just remember that when you do you cannot receive or send picture texts. There may be other things im not sure. Youll still know you recieved a picture text so just make sure you turn on your Data connection before downloading it. Otherwise you have to wait for another or send one of your own to download it.
Now I dont know the situation of your area for service but here we get great 3g coverage. It serves me well for surfing the net, using Google Navigation, just about everything but videos. So why waste the power for 4g? If I need it I can get a connection quick enough but I dont usually. I dunno, For what I need using 4G is like bringing a bazooka to a knife fight. Why? Id rather leave it in the trunk of my car close by just in case

IFLATLINEI said:
When you turn on WiFi it doesnt disconnect your Data connection but your phone will know when WiFi is on to use WiFi instead of Data. The only way to save power is to manually turn it off. Just remember that when you do you cannot receive or send picture texts. There may be other things im not sure. Youll still know you recieved a picture text so just make sure you turn on your Data connection before downloading it. Otherwise you have to wait for another or send one of your own to download it.
Now I dont know the situation of your area for service but here we get great 3g coverage. It serves me well for surfing the net, using Google Navigation, just about everything but videos. So why waste the power for 4g? If I need it I can get a connection quick enough but I dont usually. I dunno, For what I need using 4G is like bringing a bazooka to a knife fight. Why? Id rather leave it in the trunk of my car close by just in case
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does turn off data when switching to wifi. Check your network status.
To be clear, I mean mobile data network when I say data.
Look at the last item.
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Thank you all for your help.
@adrynalyne -- Thanks for showing me the network status location. Didn't even notice that. You are indeed correct that it displays "disconnected" when on Wi-Fi.
@IFLATLINEI -- Regarding 3G service speeds.... in Manhattan, 3G is horribly slow. 4G is great. Even though I'm on Wi-Fi most of the the time at work, there are times when I step out for lunch and need 3G/4G. I find it somewhat cumbersome to flip back and forth from 3G to 4G..... The switching of networks seem to sometimes take up to a minute (or longer) to find the data network specified. That is why I would rather leave the phone in 4G mode when Wi-Fi is turned on.
@JoeSyr -- Let us know the results of your test. Once my phone/battery is broken in, I plan on doing the same... but I'm fairly confident that the results should be relatively close due to adrynalyne's comments.

IFLATLINEI said:
When you turn on WiFi it doesnt disconnect your Data connection but your phone will know when WiFi is on to use WiFi instead of Data. The only way to save power is to manually turn it off. Just remember that when you do you cannot receive or send picture texts. There may be other things im not sure. Youll still know you recieved a picture text so just make sure you turn on your Data connection before downloading it. Otherwise you have to wait for another or send one of your own to download it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It definitely does not keep data on when you're on WiFi. It specifically disconnects your data network. It makes no sense to keep both enabled at once.

I seen the first 3 posts saying the same thing. Obviously there is more to it than that right? If I have both wifi and data on how would I still receive a picture text? Since as I explained before. You cannot receive a picture text without data turned on. Again turning on wifi is not turning data off. The network status seems to be telling you it will just use wifi instead. If I'm wrong address my example with picture texts. Dont just direct me to Network Status again. We already established that on the first page of the thread.
To the O.P I didn't expect you to do what I do. Just an example of how I manage to get my phone through the day. If you don't have good 3g like we do then it makes no sense to save power with my method. So you can still just turn 4g when on wifi. But unless some one can clarify what actually happens to data when wifi is turned on then I would recommend doing it manually.

On other devices, it was handled by the incoming MMS for a split second switching to the mobile network. Now on the Nexus, the uaprof is generic and uses a google server, so I don't think it matters anymore. Or maybe it switches faster than I can see it. Would be interesting to logcat it. Either way, once the MMS is received, the mobile network disconnects. I just sent an MMS and watched my network status. It never changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAProf

Lol. I'm not trying to be a pain about this. Its just weird. I would really like to believe that when I turn my wifi on data was actually turned off. If its true then I can stop toggling my data connection all the time.

IFLATLINEI said:
Lol. I'm not trying to be a pain about this. Its just weird. I would really like to believe that when I turn my wifi on data was actually turned off. If its true then I can stop toggling my data connection all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It effectively does. You're taking an extra completely unnecessary step by manually turning off your data when you're on WiFi.

Look at it like this. You are using more battery switching to 3g while on wifi because thats a few more seconds the soul sucking screen is on

Alright then. Settled. Thank you

Well quick update, I found that 4g vs 3g w/ wifi on came out to about the same in a single overnight test for each, as far as total battery drain goes. I couldn't stick to a completely standard testing format for timeframe and hours, but the difference was pretty negligible. 89% after 10.5 hours with 4g, 91% after just under 9 with 3g, slight differences in syncing apps grabbing some juice for either.
However, I did notice that there's an alarm coming from com.android.internal.telephony.gprs-data-stall that was waking my phone up a lot, and it did differ between the two tests. According to the people over in the better battery stats thread, this item indicates that the data connection was disrupted. The going theory there seems to be that there's a core ICS bug that's causing this to still fire when wifi is on. Apparently it's pretty common for them to get reports of it from ICS devices, but I only know as much as skimming the last few pages of that thread has told me.
For what it's worth, my gprs-data-stall count was 368 for 10.5 hours on 4g+wifi, and 89 for about 9 hours on 3g+wifi (although if this affects battery life, it's only on the order of .1% per hour according to my quick little tests). Seems like it could be due to either random interference or an ICS bug that meets different outcomes when using the 4g/3g radios. I imagine that if my phone lost and re-established a 4g data connection 368 times overnight I'd see a noticeable battery drain, so if this is a bug it might be pretty benign.
Perhaps if more people could start compiling BBS logs for wifi+data time we could get a better picture about whether there's a bug in the source that's causing the gprs-data-stall behavior.

IFLATLINEI said:
I seen the first 3 posts saying the same thing. Obviously there is more to it than that right? If I have both wifi and data on how would I still receive a picture text? Since as I explained before. You cannot receive a picture text without data turned on. Again turning on wifi is not turning data off. The network status seems to be telling you it will just use wifi instead. If I'm wrong address my example with picture texts. Dont just direct me to Network Status again. We already established that on the first page of the thread.
To the O.P I didn't expect you to do what I do. Just an example of how I manage to get my phone through the day. If you don't have good 3g like we do then it makes no sense to save power with my method. So you can still just turn 4g when on wifi. But unless some one can clarify what actually happens to data when wifi is turned on then I would recommend doing it manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A picture text temporarily turns on 3g data, receives it, then shuts it off. All while keeping wifi on.
This happens to me all the time.

Related

[Q] Sprint 4G sleep issue

Issue: When 4G is selected, it goes to sleep after a few minutes and then GTalk loses connectivity. IM messages sent after 4G goes to sleep aren't received (instead go to Inbox as sent while the user was offline).
I have confirmed this on two devices - Samsung Epic 4G Touch (stock non-rooted and rooted stock) and Motorola Photon 4G (stock non-rooted).
When 4G is turned off, and phone is connected via 3G, GTalk works normally, that is, if you send an IM to the user registered on the phone, GTalk wakes up and receives the IM.
How to replicate: Login to your phone, turn on 4G and then let it go to sleep. After a few minutes send an IM to the Gmail user logged into the phone. You should not receive any notification for IM (if you have notifications turned on) or, if you login to the phone, you should not see any incoming IM.
Switch off 4G and let the phone go to 3G and suddenly you will see email and IM come up.
My questions - Is it a Sprint, 4G or Android issue?
You are on to something here. I have been testing this today and it seems that they aren't coming through when 4g is sleeping.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Xparent Blue Tapatalk
Yeap, I have been also noticing this but I thought it was just my imagination
My wife pointed it out because the E4GT belongs to her but I had no way to test since we don't get 4G at home. Today, I got a Motorola Photon 4G to test at work and I was able to replicate the issue and confirm.
I can confirm that this is an issue not just with the E4GT but with most (if not all) Sprint 4G phones. I first noticed it almost a year and a half ago on my OG EVO and I remember commenting about it on a thread on the EVO forums here on XDA but nobody seemed to confirm so I thought maybe it was just my phone.
After playing around with an Epic 4G, an EVO Shift, and an EVO 3D, I can tell you it happened on all those phones as well.
The problem seems to be in the way our phones communicate with the WiMax network. When WiMax goes to sleep, it takes our phones several seconds to wake it back up.
It super simple to duplicate the issue.
Just let 4G go to sleep then quickly go into an app that requires an internet connection (like the Android Market) and you'll see that the app tells you that you have no connection. As soon as you try again, the connection is back, so it seems it takes our phones a few seconds to wake up the connection to 4G.
Do y'all think there might be something that could be done about this annoying little quirk or are we stuck with our phones handling 4G this way?
I believe you can change the wake-up time in WiMax settings ##data# with your msl number. I changed some of my settings but I am going to have to go back and see if I can shorten the wake time more...
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Xparent Blue Tapatalk
JohnCorleone said:
I believe you can change the wake-up time in WiMax settings ##data# with your msl number. I changed some of my settings but I am going to have to go back and see if I can shorten the wake time more...
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Xparent Blue Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was just thinking the same thing.
I went into my WiMax settings just now and there's a setting called IdleSleep and the number value associated with it is 10.
Looks like that might be it.
I can't test it out right now even though I live in a 4G area. I live in a STRONG "indoor" 4G area, according to Sprint, but the reality of it is that I can't get 4G inside my apartment unless I'm standing by the window, on my head, with two fingers up my ass.
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EDIT:
Just found this thread discussing this very issue over on the original Epic's forums here on XDA: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1312681
Seems like people had success with changing the "IdleSleep" setting in WiMax from the default 10 to a more acceptable 300.
For those who don't know how to reach their 4G/WiMax settings, here's how you do this: (no, you don't need to be rooted)
1. Go to your phone's dialpad,
2. Enter ##3282#
3. Tap on "View"
4. Tap on "WiMax"
5. Enter your MSL code (here's how to get your MSL without calling Sprint for it)
6. Scroll to the bottom and tap "EXTENSIONS"
7. The third item on the list is called "IdleSleep," which is set to 00010. Press and hold on it until an action comes up called "Write Extension"
8. In the box provided, enter 00300
9. Press the home button to go back to your home screen and you're done.
It's my understanding that this only prevents your phone from sleeping the 4G connection too quickly but it will not make the connection wake up any faster once it does go to sleep. By default, 4G goes to sleep after 10 seconds of inactivity. By changing this setting, 4G will go to sleep after 300 seconds of inactivity (5 minutes and 20 seconds).
JohnCorleone said:
I believe you can change the wake-up time in WiMax settings ##data# with your msl number. I changed some of my settings but I am going to have to go back and see if I can shorten the wake time more...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know much about CDMA/GSM but I do know a bit about networking in general. The behaviour we want is that after any radio goes to sleep or standby mode, part of it still keeps listening for incoming packets on either Layer 1 or 2. Also, the IP layer address must remain the same between sleep/wake-up, else, the application will have to re-negotiate the session.
On 3G, even when the radio goes to sleep, part of it listens for inbound packets. When a packet comes in, it wakes-up the phones other systems, processes the packet up to layer-3, wakes up the app and you get a notification.
With 4G, it seems as if, the stand-by thing doesn't happen at all. When it sleeps, it totally goes off the air. I suspect that is because the 4G chips are so in-efficient that the radio designers, to conserve power and keep the battery from going kaput in 30 minutes, decided to trade functionality over battery-life. When 4G goes to sleep, they do not or cannot even hand over the IP layer connection to the 3G radio. Not sure if it is a technical issue but my co-worker confirmed that switching between 3G and 4G causes IP address re-assignment. He travels on a shuttle to work everyday with a 3G/4G USB modem, and the entire road isn't covered with 4G.
So when the modem switches to 3G, his laptop loses VPN connection because the IP address changes and the VPN client terminates the IPSec session.
****, I've been trying to point this out since the day I got my phone and my threads have gotten no where(I got some discussion yesterday)
I was finding it hard to believe that one is upset about this if it's a Sprint issue. My messages would not come through for 30-40 minutes if I had my phone down while watching TV or something.
My solution is to keep it on 3g, or wifi at home.
Yesterday I changed wiimax sleep time to 300, this helped but it will also kill the battery.. IMO the phone should never lose connectivity all together, this goes against what push is meant to be.
Even after setting idle time to 300, today it went to (zzz) in the morning and I wasn't getting my emails(I tested it on the spot).. So not sure what's up.
IMO, this makes 4g totally useless unless I KNOW I'll need it, which is why I'm leaving it on 3g. We should be able to have 4g on and keep our phones functions.
Here is my thread so we can reference both.. I'd love it if it became a big issue and someone looked into it:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1398832
---------- Post added at 10:21 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:11 AM ----------
I've been wanting to post this on Sprint forums too, since yours is worded better with the issue stated I will use parts of it, hope that is ok.
I thought it was simply a bug in market when I first got 'no network connection' when using 4g! Being in an area most of the day where 4g is not available indoors (even when upside down and fingers inserted as stated earlier!) I find myself having to use 3g when it is not going on roam from poor connect (never finding a roam connect either , yet one more fail of poor radio and software from sprint).
jmejiaa said:
I've been wanting to post this on Sprint forums too, since yours is worded better with the issue stated I will use parts of it, hope that is ok.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure, go ahead and copy-paste it all you want
Sent from my HP Touchpad using xda premium
longhorn65 said:
I thought it was simply a bug in market when I first got 'no network connection' when using 4g! Being in an area most of the day where 4g is not available indoors (even when upside down and fingers inserted as stated earlier!) I find myself having to use 3g when it is not going on roam from poor connect (never finding a roam connect either , yet one more fail of poor radio and software from sprint).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think we've been screwed with the 4G scam. I will go to an AT&T store and see how things work on a 4G iPhone.
Sent from my HP Touchpad using xda premium
I am pretty sure its the EntryDelay or ENTRYCINR that dictates how fast the 4g reconnects. I currently have EntryDelay at 1 and EntryCINR at 4. I am digging around for more info about making the connect time quicker
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Xparent Blue Tapatalk
If you are in a good 4g area, these settings may help. There is a 300 second delay reconnecting to 4g (entry delay) you can change it to 1. It absolutely reconnects faster. Please read OP before changing anything. Thread link...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=833332
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Xparent Blue Tapatalk
JohnCorleone said:
If you are in a good 4g area, these settings may help. There is a 300 second delay reconnecting to 4g (entry delay) you can change it to 1. It absolutely reconnects faster. Please read OP before changing anything. Thread link...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=833332
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Xparent Blue Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It definitely reconnects faster once you wake the phone but the issue still persists that when 4G goes to sleep, you have no data connection at all until it wakes up again, hence push notifications and the like don't come through.
After all the reading I've done on this over the last couple of days, it seems to me like this is inherently how our 4G modems were built in order to conserve power and there's not much one can do about it. There doesn't seem to be a way to modify the way 4G sleeps so that it still listens for incoming packets like 3G does when it sleeps.
Oh well.
kindaskimpy said:
It definitely reconnects faster once you wake the phone but the issue still persists that when 4G goes to sleep, you have no data connection at all until it wakes up again, hence push notifications and the like don't come through.
After all the reading I've done on this over the last couple of days, it seems to me like this is inherently how our 4G modems were built in order to conserve power and there's not much one can do about it. There doesn't seem to be a way to modify the way 4G sleeps so that it still listens for incoming packets like 3G does when it sleeps.
Oh well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I don't think it is a sleep/wake-up or reconnect time issue. The issue is that the 4G radio has to go to sleep some time and when it does it has no ability to wake itself up in response to an incoming packet. So you can delay its sleep or make it reconnect faster but while it is sleeping, the 4G radio is as good as dead.
Secondary issue is that at the radio layer, handing off a session between 3G and 4G networks while preserving the IP layer connection does not happen.
Sent from my HP Touchpad using xda premium
Yeah, if seems like an issue that's not fixable at the moment
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using xda premium
hmmm
dont forget we have all the wimax settings in ##DEBUG# too. looking into this myself right now.
THANK YOU!
4g that goes to sleep after 10 seconds is beyond worthless. I have been struggling with this for over a year and a half. Thank you!
[/B][/B]
kindaskimpy said:
I was just thinking the same thing.
I went into my WiMax settings just now and there's a setting called IdleSleep and the number value associated with it is 10.
Looks like that might be it.
I can't test it out right now even though I live in a 4G area. I live in a STRONG "indoor" 4G area, according to Sprint, but the reality of it is that I can't get 4G inside my apartment unless I'm standing by the window, on my head, with two fingers up my ass.
EDIT:
Just found this thread discussing this very issue over on the original Epic's forums here on XDA: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1312681
Seems like people had success with changing the "IdleSleep" setting in WiMax from the default 10 to a more acceptable 300.
For those who don't know how to reach their 4G/WiMax settings, here's how you do this: (no, you don't need to be rooted)
1. Go to your phone's dialpad,
2. Enter ##3282#
3. Tap on "View"
4. Tap on "WiMax"
5. Enter your MSL code (here's how to get your MSL without calling Sprint for it)
6. Scroll to the bottom and tap "EXTENSIONS"
7. The third item on the list is called "IdleSleep," which is set to 00010. Press and hold on it until an action comes up called "Write Extension"
8. In the box provided, enter 00300
9. Press the home button to go back to your home screen and you're done.
It's my understanding that this only prevents your phone from sleeping the 4G connection too quickly but it will not make the connection wake up any faster once it does go to sleep. By default, 4G goes to sleep after 10 seconds of inactivity. By changing this setting, 4G will go to sleep after 300 seconds of inactivity (5 minutes and 20 seconds).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Why data connection lost and why reboot fixed it?

Hi,
Using GNex, stock JB 4.11, Wind Mobile Canada, $40 plan, unlimited data & Canada wide.
Please excuse in advance for the novice questions. I am not yet familiar with Wind Mobile. The customer support is too long and submitting a question to their website required around 5 days to get an answer which is generally irrelevant in my short experience. Hope some expert users here can share some of your knowledge.
Last week, suddenly during a phone conversation, the phone became totally disconnected voice & data. The next morning, the situation didn't improve, so I rebooted the phone (power off / on). Then the phone could connect to voice, but no data (gray icon instead of blue). I stayed with no data for 3 days. During that time, I tried a few reboots, changing various network settings (APN, Network Operators, Data roaming, etc.). None of that worked, then I made another reboot and suddenly everything is back to normal (no roaming and data OK).
Q1. Signal strength variation: what is the cause that makes a signal vary? For the same location, sometimes signal changes from 3 bars to 1 within a few minutes.
Q2. What caused a network to black out temporarily? That's what I got last week during the entire night. The reception icon is a black outline triangle (no voice, no data). I purposely disabled roaming, I admit a network could have some issues, but I have hard time to admit that a disruption could last 12 hours. May be the issue is my phone? It was not rebooted since 7 days.
Q3. How often should I reboot the phone? By reboot, I mean power off/on. I hope this is the correct term. Is it possible that a frequent reboot help the phone to be more responsive? I tend to think so because all the network issues I got were magically fixed by reboot.
Q4. Why would a reboot fix a data connection issue? In my case, a few reboots on day 1 didn't fix. Many network settings changes didn't reconnect data. Then finally another reboot on day 3 fixed data connection.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Welcome to the Nexus and its crap radio. Try turning off 4G, once I did that I never lost signal again. With 4G on I get disconnected from the network randomly throughout the day
SirVilhelm said:
Welcome to the Nexus and its crap radio. Try turning off 4G, once I did that I never lost signal again. With 4G on I get disconnected from the network randomly throughout the day
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How to turn off 4G? Wind Mobile operates on AWS network 1700/2100 MHz (UMTS band 4), and HSPA+ for data. I believe it is not 4G. On the phone Network Settings, there is only an option "Use only 2G Network" which is not a good option for me. If I enabled "Use only 2G Network" the phone shuts off data and changes to roaming mode.
just set ur nexus on airplane mode for a second..
then disable the airplane mode instantly..
u ll gain ur net working widout reboot... )
dinglic mass
ronakmachhi said:
just set ur nexus on airplane mode for a second..
then disable the airplane mode instantly..
u ll gain ur net working widout reboot... )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh wow, that's a cool tips.
I hope someone can answers my other questions, I like to understand the "how things works" side.
2LoT said:
Q1. Signal strength variation: what is the cause that makes a signal vary? For the same location, sometimes signal changes from 3 bars to 1 within a few minutes.
Any number of influences. A microwave, air ionization, temperature, humidity, output from the tower not consistant, and plus just the variations of the phone. Going by bars is a bad way to gauge anyways, it could have only dropped signal for a split second but it doesnt update the bars frequently so it would appear to be low signal longer than it could have actually been. Your phone works by line of sight, picture a tight wire from your phone to the tower, anything that crosses in that line reduces signal.
Q2. What caused a network to black out temporarily? That's what I got last week during the entire night. The reception icon is a black outline triangle (no voice, no data). I purposely disabled roaming, I admit a network could have some issues, but I have hard time to admit that a disruption could last 12 hours. May be the issue is my phone? It was not rebooted since 7 days.
That actually is hard to answer, you would need to contact your provider to see if they have a log of an outage at that time before going into whether it was the phone or not.
Q3. How often should I reboot the phone? By reboot, I mean power off/on. I hope this is the correct term. Is it possible that a frequent reboot help the phone to be more responsive? I tend to think so because all the network issues I got were magically fixed by reboot.
Never unless things act funny. A reboot is usually healthy for operating systems (i know many do not). I personally don't intentionally reboot mine, it usually happens because I'm screwing with clock speeds
Q4. Why would a reboot fix a data connection issue? In my case, a few reboots on day 1 didn't fix. Many network settings changes didn't reconnect data. Then finally another reboot on day 3 fixed data connection.
Like any software there are chance of a 'glitch' where the modem and the driver have issues communicating. Toggling airplane mode off and then back on re-initializes this and in most cases fixes the communication problem. Rebooting will have the same effect. I would only worry if you are needing to do this often.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hope this helps a little.
I would also contact your provider. They may have an issue with the tower you are connecting to.
Perfectly understood, appreciated very much your detailed answers. Can you please clarify below?
Darunion said:
Any number of influences. A microwave, air ionization, temperature, humidity, output from the tower not consistant, and plus just the variations of the phone. Going by bars is a bad way to gauge anyways, it could have only dropped signal for a split second but it doesnt update the bars frequently so it would appear to be low signal longer than it could have actually been. Your phone works by line of sight, picture a tight wire from your phone to the tower, anything that crosses in that line reduces signal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Makes sense. Indeed, when I said "For the same location, sometimes signal changes from 3 bars to 1 within a few minutes". Actually, I mean a room and I was walking/moving so may be the orientation of the phone explained why the reception was inconstant.
Regarding your answer above output from the tower not consistant. Is it possible that the tower reduces its signal strength when the number of users increases? Similar to users sharing a finite band width?
Yes, even orientation of the phone can have an affect, depends how the antenna is set up inside the phone, i havent seen it so i have no answer for that.
ya, as you move around you could have been what blocked the direct sight of the tower, signal passes through nonmetal objects but each time it does, it loses strength depending what it passes through
@OP I also have the same problem, I am also with Wind and had to do force reboot to make it reboot.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Flash the UGLC1 radio to your nexus. I'm with Wind as well and that radio gets me good service!

When on Wifi, cell signal switches from 4G and I lose all bars

So when I'm on wifi in my house, my phone appears to switch to edge or something and I lose most connectivity (goes from 4 bars to none). Enough to initiate a call, but simple head turning will cause me to drop. If I turn off wifi, I get 4G back and full bars and no dropped calls.
Wifi calling is too inconsistent to rely on, and this basically makes my phone unusable. I don't want to keep wifi off, as it's a lot faster and I only get 2.5Gbs of high speed data to use a month.
I'm also in the middle of a major city with great coverage 4G coverage, as long as I'm not on wifi....
apols said:
So when I'm on wifi in my house, my phone appears to switch to edge or something and I lose most connectivity (goes from 4 bars to none). Enough to initiate a call, but simple head turning will cause me to drop. If I turn off wifi, I get 4G back and full bars and no dropped calls.
Wifi calling is too inconsistent to rely on, and this basically makes my phone unusable. I don't want to keep wifi off, as it's a lot faster and I only get 2.5Gbs of high speed data to use a month.
I'm also in the middle of a major city with great coverage 4G coverage, as long as I'm not on wifi....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you go into your wireless settings, you can uncheck Wifi Calling so that if you do connect to Wifi, you will retain your regular amount of calling bars.
djpingpong said:
If you go into your wireless settings, you can uncheck Wifi Calling so that if you do connect to Wifi, you will retain your regular amount of calling bars.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate the response, but I've already had wifi calling off.. because that feature was basically useless (could not rely on it ever).
My wife Note3 got the same problem, set cellular network preferred and then turn off wi-fi calling. Lose all cell signal bars. When no cell signal, caller ID became funny, like 718-123-4567;oli=63 212-123-4567;oli=00, had no idea.
My own note3 had the same setting, but everything fine. full cell signal bar. Try to google it, no glue!!!
Then I returned my wife note3 and get another one, everything fine.
I had the same problem. When I was on wifi I had no signals. I got a new sim card and the problem is now gone.
Sent from my GT-N8000 using XDA Premium HD app
danstarr said:
I had the same problem. When I was on wifi I had no signals. I got a new sim card and the problem is now gone.
Sent from my GT-N8000 using XDA Premium HD app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont think thats the issue, and why do you care because if you call someone it should be able to call and once you need to switch back to tmo it will w/o issue.
XxLostSoulxX said:
i dont think thats the issue, and why do you care because if you call someone it should be able to call and once you need to switch back to tmo it will w/o issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uhh... it certainly doesn't switch back to t-mobile without issue. I drop the call. I haven't had a single call work the entire time while leaving my wifi on in my home.
Clearly, when it's on wifi, even if you have wifi calling turned off, it switches to some other network specifications, which appear to barely work where I live. The problem likely lies in the fact that when you turn wifi calling off, it does not switch your cellular network preferences back to normal properly, Instead, when wifi calling is off and you're still on wifi, it just doesn't route things through wifi, but doesn't actually change your mobile network settings back properly.
apols said:
Uhh... it certainly doesn't switch back to t-mobile without issue. I drop the call. I haven't had a single call work the entire time while leaving my wifi on in my home.
Clearly, when it's on wifi, even if you have wifi calling turned off, it switches to some other network specifications, which appear to barely work where I live. The problem likely lies in the fact that when you turn wifi calling off, it does not switch your cellular network preferences back to normal properly, Instead, when wifi calling is off and you're still on wifi, it just doesn't route things through wifi, but doesn't actually change your mobile network settings back properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well here's a question do you leave mobile data on even though you're connected to WiFi? As i have no problem because i have bars even when connected to WiFi because i leave mobile data on and have WiFi calling turned off. even if WiFi calling is turned off, and i turn WiFi off it switched to T-Mo network in seconds and i'm able to call someone so yeah no issue. you clearly have a problem with something or its the network where you live.
i'm not trying to be rude but it just doesn't make sense to me that you're having issues with something that shouldn't be a problem.
XxLostSoulxX said:
well here's a question do you leave mobile data on even though you're connected to WiFi? As i have no problem because i have bars even when connected to WiFi because i leave mobile data on and have WiFi calling turned off. even if WiFi calling is turned off, and i turn WiFi off it switched to T-Mo network in seconds and i'm able to call someone so yeah no issue. you clearly have a problem with something or its the network where you live.
i'm not trying to be rude but it just doesn't make sense to me that you're having issues with something that shouldn't be a problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do leave mobile data on, all the time, continued issue.
djpingpong said:
If you go into your wireless settings, you can uncheck Wifi Calling so that if you do connect to Wifi, you will retain your regular amount of calling bars.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This doesn't actually work currently on the Note 3. there is a bug where any time you have wifi on the cellular entenna turns off regardless of the state of your wifi calling on a very large number of Note 3's. Lost Soul clearly hasn't been reading on the threads here. there are many on this topic. We get that you don't have the issue LostSoul, but that doesn't mean it isn't an issue.
HughesNet said:
This doesn't actually work currently on the Note 3. there is a bug where any time you have wifi on the cellular entenna turns off regardless of the state of your wifi calling on a very large number of Note 3's. Lost Soul clearly hasn't been reading on the threads here. there are many on this topic. We get that you don't have the issue LostSoul, but that doesn't mean it isn't an issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Hughes,
I have found that when it enters that state, that if I go and turn wifi calling on and then set it to mobile-network preferred, it turns the cellular modem back on, at least for a little while. Can you point me in the direction of a more robust thread where others are discussing the issue?
apols said:
So when I'm on wifi in my house, my phone appears to switch to edge or something and I lose most connectivity (goes from 4 bars to none). Enough to initiate a call, but simple head turning will cause me to drop. If I turn off wifi, I get 4G back and full bars and no dropped calls.
Wifi calling is too inconsistent to rely on, and this basically makes my phone unusable. I don't want to keep wifi off, as it's a lot faster and I only get 2.5Gbs of high speed data to use a month.
I'm also in the middle of a major city with great coverage 4G coverage, as long as I'm not on wifi....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same problem on stock rom. Flash wicked rom earlier this morning, signal bars now showing bars instead of no bars on stock rom. been testing it all day long, signal bars still showing. Didn't change any settings. Just disable wifi calling.
sic_lic1o1 said:
I had the same problem on stock rom. Flash wicked rom earlier this morning, signal bars now showing bars instead of no bars on stock rom. been testing it all day long, signal bars still showing. Didn't change any settings. Just disable wifi calling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've flashed a rom as well and it appears as it might be fixed... hope so.. my phone is useless if it can't function as a phone while on wifi.
I had same issue. Called TMo and had them unregister my wifi calling, and got bars back immediately. I had wifi calling turned off, but it seemed to be the default regardless. I could only receive and make calls with wifi turned off...but it all works fine now.
That didn't work for me
debz said:
I had same issue. Called TMo and had them unregister my wifi calling, and got bars back immediately. I had wifi calling turned off, but it seemed to be the default regardless. I could only receive and make calls with wifi turned off...but it all works fine now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I called Tmo four times and asked them to unregister wifi calling. They said that it wasn't even turned on for my account then that it doesn't matter what is or isn't turned on. The phone is going to run calls, text over whatever wireless connection it thinks is appropriate. When you have a strong wifi connection, it chooses that connection regardless of wifi calling being turned off or on. I set the wifi calling preference to cellular networks and it still does the same thing.
I'm pretty pissed off about it. Anyone fix this?
Not true. I shut off Wi-Fi calling on T-Mobiles site and bars came back. Had the exact same problem.
Sent from my SM-N900T using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Cannot make or recieve calls after lollipop advanced calling activated.

I did not find anything in my verizon to activate so I simply turned on the feature with my phone and lost ability to call.
To make a long story short, after pulling Sim card, battery, clearing cache, partition cache etc I still could not make or recieve calls on my verizon note 4.
After activating the advanced calling feature, it asks you to wait about 5 min and reboot.
I waited about 20 min and lost my ability to do calls afterwards. Even after turning off the feature I still could not get or send calls.
Here's what fixed it..
1. Turn off advanced calling feature in the phone.
2. Then reboot
3. After that you can turn it on or off and calling is restored.
Just wanted to share as I could find no help online.
Turned it on after the upgrade a couple days ago. Works for me. Get a little "HD" icon on calls and the video button. Haven't tried video, and don't notice a difference in call quality yet. But I've not made many calls and even few to other verizon users.
Seems the voice is still dependent upon the regular voice channel bring intact.
I was on hospital wifi and recieved a call but the call still dropped when walking deeper into the building where 4g was lost. Point being it did not handshake over to wifi.
I think only video does that.
But all of my calls have been good, but like you, I can't tell if a real change yet or placebo.
windstrings said:
I did not find anything in my verizon to activate so I simply turned on the feature with my phone and lost ability to call.
To make a long story short, after pulling Sim card, battery, clearing cache, partition cache etc I still could not make or recieve calls on my verizon note 4.
After activating the advanced calling feature, it asks you to wait about 5 min and reboot.
I waited about 20 min and lost my ability to do calls afterwards. Even after turning off the feature I still could not get or send calls.
Here's what fixed it..
1. Turn off advanced calling feature in the phone.
2. Then reboot
3. After that you can turn it on or off and calling is restored.
Just wanted to share as I could find no help online.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed on my Note 4, the stock dialer keypad has the video call icon grayed out. Is this correct? I was able to receive a HD call as well as a video call.
Seems it is greyed out until the other party actually connects then it checks their status and only then are you allowed to push the icon button and it will tell you if the party is not a candidate
Even when the icon becomes active is still appears grayed out, maybe it only turns color once a connection is made you do the HD service?
windstrings said:
Seems it is greyed out until the other party actually connects then it checks their status and only then are you allowed to push the icon button and it will tell you if the party is not a candidate
Even when the icon becomes active is still appears grayed out, maybe it only turns color once a connection is made you do the HD service?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not particularly intuitive. I'm not sure how I initiate a video call if the icon is greyed out. The video call I got was a test from a Verizon store employee testing the system. He wasn't all that sure about the feature. However, once I received his call, I can use Recent. There is a video icon available in this screen. But, the keypad video icon stayed greyed out even if I manually typed his phone number. Non-intuitive.
well it was practically quite funny when I called Verizon tech support and I got a level 2 tech. I ended up solving my own problem and teaching her the whole time, she asked me if my phone was damaged because she couldn't retrieve any information off of it.... of course I neglected to tell her I had all of that stuff blocked!
To me had dangerous situation. Couldn't get call in my house as my 4g signal is iffy (cell signal fine).... HD voice doesn't automatically swap to old cell towers if no 4g. Not good for people who rely on cell phones for jobs at hospital
jeffrubenstein17 said:
To me had dangerous situation. Couldn't get call in my house as my 4g signal is iffy (cell signal fine).... HD voice doesn't automatically swap to old cell towers if no 4g. Not good for people who rely on cell phones for jobs at hospital
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am moving to a new location with much better service so I will not be needing my verizon booster, if you or anybody is interested PM me
Lol. Thx. Really hoping for an auto hand off to old cell method.
Verizon says you can tell it's activated if you have the video calling in your contacts groups which I do.
However do you guys have this greyed out like here?
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
That must mean it's activated... Or it would be available.
My next screen shows checked as here...
But still trying to confirm it's actually working... Guess I'll never know till I connect with someone else that has it?
I have a similar problem. Making calls seems to work OK, but anytime someone calls me it is just dead air. I have tried toggling HD voice on and off, restarting the phone, and popping the battery out and removing the SIM, etc. Nothing seems to work.
windstrings said:
Verizon says you can tell it's activated if you have the video calling in your contacts groups which I do.
However do you guys have this greyed out like here?
View attachment 3252995
That must mean it's activated... Or it would be available.
My next screen shows checked as here...
View attachment 3252996
But still trying to confirm it's actually working... Guess I'll never know till I connect with someone else that has it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine looks exactly like your screenshots. I also was able to test both HD calling and video calling with a relative who has a Note 4 as well. I couldnt really notice a difference with HD calling since we both were using BT but the HD icon was on during the call then we switched to video calling and it worked without any problems.
AndroidFTW11 said:
I have a similar problem. Making calls seems to work OK, but anytime someone calls me it is just dead air. I have tried toggling HD voice on and off, restarting the phone, and popping the battery out and removing the SIM, etc. Nothing seems to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try the sequence that fixed mine in post #1?
Turn off the feature. Then reboot and let your system reconnect to the network while the feature is off.
Then turn it back on.
Seems once you activate the feature the first time and the switch is turned on for you in the network it needs to connect to your phone while the feature is off... Once connected, it stays connected when the feature is turned back on.
Once you're past this phase, seems you can turn it off and on at will without issues.
windstrings said:
Did you try the sequence that fixed mine in post #1?
Turn off the feature. Then reboot and let your system reconnect to the network while the feature is off.
Then turn it back on.
Seems once you activate the feature the first time and the switch is turned on for you in the network it needs to connect to your phone while the feature is off... Once connected, it stays connected when the feature is turned back on.
Once you're past this phase, seems you can turn it off and on at will without issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that. I even did a factory reset with no luck. So basically I did a factory reset for no reason. I went into My Verizon and removed the feature from my account entirely and it seems to work fine now.
AndroidFTW11 said:
I tried that. I even did a factory reset with no luck. So basically I did a factory reset for no reason. I went into My Verizon and removed the feature from my account entirely and it seems to work fine now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange.. I never went into my verizon at all... Correction, I did look but couldn't find the option so I just activated it only on my phone.
I had Verizon check and they said they show it activated.
They definitely have a few bugs yet getting set up.
windstrings said:
Seems the voice is still dependent upon the regular voice channel bring intact.
I was on hospital wifi and recieved a call but the call still dropped when walking deeper into the building where 4g was lost. Point being it did not handshake over to wifi.
I think only video does that.
But all of my calls have been good, but like you, I can't tell if a real change yet or placebo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Calls will not work on WiFi since Verizon has not enabled this feature yet citing there network is good enough where they don't need to rely on WiFi.......that's literally what they said. Advanced calling strictly enables VOLTE which is voice over LTE as opposed to over their old 3G CDMA network. Also allows for native video chat which also uses LTE. They said WiFi calling is planned but not a priority.
If they let you do WiFi calling they wouldn't get to sell the network extenders at an outrageous price. They get no benefit out of allowing WiFi calling.
Edit: bastards.
I turned on Advanced Calling on my Note 4 and haven't had a problem. However, I tried turning it on on my wife's LG G3 and she had the same issue. She could make or receive any calls, but could send and receive texts. It took a while playing around with it, but I finally got turned it off and it's fine now. Not sure why her's won't work.

Difference between Smart Switch and Wifi Calling....and performance questions

I've read (and THINK I understand) what smart switch is supposed to do (going all the way back to the Note4.
And it seems like the complete opposite of what wifi calling does.
Anyone care to explain the difference or real reasons one is used over the other?
Also on a related note, in the developer options category there is an option to turn on "Aggressive Wi-Fi cell h.."
With the explanation "switch from wifi to mobile networks more quickly when wifi signal is weak"
Kind of self explanatory and my question would be real work use. If you have unlimited data, any reason you would NOT want to check this?
Unless this just sounds great, but doesn't work well......
Thoughts?
vtcats said:
I've read (and THINK I understand) what smart switch is supposed to do (going all the way back to the Note4.
And it seems like the complete opposite of what wifi calling does.
Anyone care to explain the difference or real reasons one is used over the other?
Also on a related note, in the developer options category there is an option to turn on "Aggressive Wi-Fi cell h.."
With the explanation "switch from wifi to mobile networks more quickly when wifi signal is weak"
Kind of self explanatory and my question would be real work use. If you have unlimited data, any reason you would NOT want to check this?
Unless this just sounds great, but doesn't work well......
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Smart switch imports the data from your old phone when you switch to a Samsung phone; WiFi calling routes voice traffic over WiFi when available.
Sorry, I meant to say Smart NETWORK Switch. It says your phone will be connected to a mobile network if Wifi becomes unstable.
And Wi-fi calling kinda of says the exact opposite. If mobile becomes unstable, it will switch to Wifi......
Anyone?
Many times.. even when the wifi signal is weak, as long as wifi is turned on, the phone will remain connected to it. This especially happens when you are just pulling out of your house and you are trying to get to google maps for directions or something.. but because the phone is still connected to your home wifi, it'll remain so and since the connection is weak, you won't be able to browse or anything and google maps may say "no network connection".
I believe what Smart Network Switch does, is that in such cases, it'll immediately switch to mobile data.
androidbuff123 said:
Many times.. even when the wifi signal is weak, as long as wifi is turned on, the phone will remain connected to it. This especially happens when you are just pulling out of your house and you are trying to get to google maps for directions or something.. but because the phone is still connected to your home wifi, it'll remain so and since the connection is weak, you won't be able to browse or anything and google maps may say "no network connection".
I believe what Smart Network Switch does, is that in such cases, it'll immediately switch to mobile data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This happens to me every morning in my driveway trying to route Waze. I get a weak wifi signal that the phone hangs onto and I get a no network error from Waze.

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