I'm traveling in Europe with my Sprint Galaxy S5 Sport running Android 5.0 on Sprint's global roaming plan, which is awesomely providing me with free 2G data in Germany, Spain, and England. However, every 30 seconds, if I'm connected to the international carrier's data network, my phone's Wi-Fi turns itself on to search for Wi-Fi networks nearby. Being on 2G and constantly searching for Wi-Fi networks is causing my battery to die twice as fast, which is the last thing I need while traveling abroad.
I've been through ALL the settings to be sure location is not using Wi-Fi (and even that location is turned off), that Google is not scanning Wi-Fi for random crap, not always scanning for networks, unchecked and killed Connections Optimizer, disabled Wi-Fi power saving mode via *#0011#, booted the phone in safe mode, killed every running app... Still, once I connect to an international carrier's data network (in this case Movistar in Spain), my Wi-Fi turns on after about 30 seconds. I turn it off, the cycle repeats.
If I turn off mobile data or unregister from the network or go into airplane mode, Wi-Fi does not turn itself on automatically. When I am on my home network, Wi-Fi does not turn itself on automatically. Only when actively connected to data on an international network.
I have talked to a few people at Sprint and they simply advise to disable Wi-FI notifications - which obviously does not solve my battery-drain problem - or factory reset the phone. However, the behavior feels too calculated to be that simple. It seems like a "feature" Sprint would try to sneak in to minimize use of international data roaming when possible, perhaps even for the customer's benefit.
Has anyone heard of this? Is it a bug? "Enhancement?" Something new they're doing for the global roaming plans? Or just a crazy software glitch as SprintCares suggests?
Thanks!
EDIT: Another data point from Reddit: this also seems to happen for people roaming domestically, not limited to international.
Related
Hi!
I am looking for a tool to prevent data roaming ONLY: I tried Modaco Nodata but with this one you only can deactivate the connections permanentely...
I am here nere the border so sometimes the network is switching over to the one of the next country. I dont want to switch to "manual" network selection because i want to stay reachable... on the other hand, direct push / data connection should only be active in my home network.
Does anyone of you have a similar problem or a solution for this one?
I set my network to home only and when I travel to Michigan I use nodata to keep data turned off... ever since I haven't received any data roaming charges and my data service is on without worrying about roaming... the downside to this is I cannot take advantage of the extended calling area but oh well if I need to call to US with phone I turn data off and then switch to normal mode....
Hey Everyone,
I am not certain how specific this issues is to my exact situation, so I am describing every related aspect that I can.
Details
Phone: HTC MT3G (3.5mm Jack version), rooted, running CM 6.1.0 RC1
Network: Wind Mobile (in Canada)
-- please indicate if any other details are needed for troubleshooting --
Issue
Wind mobile offers an unlimited plan that includes data, provided you stay within what they call their "Home Zone (ie the metropolitan area known as GTA, in my case). When travelling outside of the Home Zone, you enter an Away Zone. This is essentially roaming on Rogers network, using 2G (Edge) for data. This costs a lot and so naturally I don't want to roam.
Before the phone was rooted and upgraded, I had checked the box to in settings to disable data while roaming. I travelled in and out of the Home Zone and it worked as expected - that is, turning off the data connection as soon as the network switched from Home to Away. As expected, it re-enabled data upon re-entering the Home Zone.
Since rooting/updating, this functionality seems to have disappeared. I have the box checked, but as soon as I step into an Away Zone, it switches to 2G and starts using data whilest roaming. At first, I thought this might be because I performed the upgrade process in an away zone and as such, the phone would associate that with being "Home". However it keeps data across Home and Away (which negates that theory as "Home" should now be "Away" and data disabled.
I wiped and started again in a Home Zone, with no success.
So:
1) Is there something I am doing wrong, or a known way to remedy this issue?
If not,
2) Is there any way to disable 2G (similar to the way you can disable 3G for battery savings?) This would be an indirect way to solve the issue, as the only time 2G is used is when the phone is in an Away Zone.
Thanks for any advice and help you can provide!
Bump - any ideas?
Edit: writing it down helped me understand that i actually never activated "2g or 3g or 4g" in elixir2>information>telephony>turn 4g on.
So this was how i got onecall to work properly, in case there's other Norwegians with the same problem.
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In areas where my provider doesn't have reception it uses another provider. My phone then shows that it's roaming and that it has data connection, but in reality it doesn't, i can't access the net. Roaming is activated, the apn of my provider is setup correctly. My provider uses 2g and 3g, the other provider uses 4g as well. When the issue appears it doesn't help to turn on and off airplane mode, doesn't help to turn off and on obile data or to reboot the phone. The problem appears no matter if I choose the other providers network manually or let the phone do it automatically. I tried every possible setting in elixir2 regarding "preferred connection speed - 2g only, 3g onlyn 2g or 3g or 4g and so on.
Anyone with a similar issue on this or a different phone and a possible solution?
On a recent trip I made which took me outside my network's coverage area, I found that, on returning, my phone did not re-connect to the network. And, when I went to look at what might be wrong, I found that the "Mobile Networks" panel was missing from the Settings menu.
This problem was also reported by an S6 user here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s6/help/mobile-networks-disappeared-settings-t3211167
Now, in my case, a reboot immediately restored the network connectivity and the settings panel, and all is well again. However, I was back inside the service area for most of a day before I realized the problem and did the reboot. So almost a day's worth of messages were delayed. This is obviously not a good thing.
In my case, my SIM is with US-Mobile, a T-Mobile MVNO. The trip was a drive outside the coverage area into Canada and then northern Maine. I mention that it was a drive to point out that the phone was not put into flight mode during a flight somewhere, it was simply moved out of my own network's coverage area. When I drove back, the phone bars did show service active again, but no data service. Simply toggling the "Mobile data" toggle in the pull-down, as well as toggling "Airplane mode" had no effect - on turning them back on, the voice bars came on, but not data service. When I eventually rebooted, the data service came back immediately.
My phone is the SM-G935FD, not rooted, running stock Samsung firmware, up-to-date G935FXXU1APEQ version. It is UAE firmware.
I'm reporting this here in the hope that someone knows some way of automating the re-start of the Mobile Networks system, so that folk don't lose a whole day of messages.
Or maybe a Samsung dev will read this and figure out what bug caused Mobile Networks to stop in the first place. Maybe this bug can be fixed, please?
I'm using a provider which offers national roaming. This means if my network provider (let's name it A) doesn't have a (good) signal, phone switches to another network provider B (for which they have a contract). While on network B, I can call, SMS without limitation, but I'm limited to EDGE while using the mobile network.
It works ok, but there are some cases when I wish to change network faster.
For example - I came to the shopping center and in one part of it, the phone loses signal with my network provider A. It switches to provider B and then often stays with provider B (on roaming) too long. Even if I came out of center where my provider A has 4G, phone still uses provider B ... often quite a long time.
I can go to Settings, but it is quite deep and you can't create a shortcut to there. And it also takes quite a long because of the phone checks for all networks in surroundings.
What I want is just a simple jump to my provider A as quick as possible.
Any idea? I saw some apps on Google's Play which refresh network. Maybe this will be a solution.
Probably there is a setting for refreshing somewhere on Android system?
Turn on airplane mode until the data indicator goes away and then turn it back off
Interesting I have the same problem. I always change manually which is very annoying
braschlosan said:
Turn on airplane mode until the data indicator goes away and then turn it back off
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks.
I'm sure that I have tried this in the beginning. And it didn't work (maybe I change the state too fast and phone didn't disconnect the first network).
I will try this again when the described problem occurs again.
I have tried with airplane mode today (for about 10 seconds), but if reconnect again to roaming provider. After a minutes or two, it automatically reconnects to my main provider.
I didn't look at the phone all the time, because I was driving ... so I will try with this again.
I have tried again (different location and time) and it doesn't work. It simply reconnects to roaming. If I stay there for an hour or more, then it will reconnect to the main provider. Quite annoying.