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Wi-Fi dropping off

Skull One said:
That is incorrect. WiFi will not turn back on until you bring it out of sleep mode. Mainly because it has no need to. Push notifications are done thru a persistent IP connection that is opened thru the cellular data connection. The only time Push notifications are done thru WiFi is if you turn off cellular data.

The reason for that is pretty simply. There is no such thing as Push in TCP/IP. Doesn't exist. You have to open a port between the two IP addresses and keep it open. At that point they are both listening for data. That port can stay open 24/7 till the end of time if the data connection is not broken.

Since they turn off WiFi they do everything thru cellular since it is already on and has to be attached to the tower to begin with. Actually a pretty brilliant design.

Yeah your rite Skull One.

I had received that information from a website I found when I was looking for a fix for the solution myself. it was a whole ago, so I don't even remember what site it was.

Thank you for the correction.;)
 
Oh, ok great!

Well that makes a lot more sense thank you for explaining that to me. I had been trying to research that answer for the past 3 months that i have had the phone.

I think the best solution for me is when I am at work(in a weak zone for data) is to just turn off cell data. That will save my battery from it going into highest transmission power.

Thanks for all the replies and sorry if I offended anyone, didn't mean to imply there was a design flaw, I was just ignorant on the subject. Love me some apple!
 
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Oh, ok great!

Well that makes a lot more sense thank you for explaining that to me. I had been trying to research that answer for the past 3 months that i have had the phone.

Now when it is asleep(previously connected to wifi) and the phone is roaming with low data in the area, is the phone trying to find data connection? Why I ask is because when I have tested turning off my data during the day and just being on wifi, I will still get all my notifications and I don't lose like 50% battery throughout the day with it just sitting there.

Ok, hopefully I won't bore you with the long explanation for your situation :)


Lets start with the cellular side only without worrying about data at all. Modern cell phones communicate with the tower periodically for a few reasons.

1) Is a tower there?
2) How much power is needed to communicate with that tower.
3) To see if a tower switch is needed.
4) Report which tower quadrant you are near for incoming calls, SMS and MMS.

You can be 100 feet or 5 miles from the tower and it always does that check list. Now there are a few variables that affect how good of a signal you have. Distance, line of sight obstructions, bouncing/reflective signals, EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) and the number of people already connected to the tower.

So lets use a layman's example to explain how this all works.

I am standing 10 feet from you. You (the cell phone) can say something and I (the tower) should be able to acknowledge you with no issues. Now because you are 10 feet from me, you can use a very soft voice (lower power at about 1/8 to 1/4 of a watt) and I will be able to hear. Now on the other hand because I am the tower you will get a VERY LOUD response back. Why? Because I say (transmit) my answer at my max power because I don't know what distance you are from me.

Life is good. You can last all day (battery usage) at this distance. But as you get further away, you have to talk louder and louder (higher power at around 1/4 to 3/4 watt) as the distance expands. Eventually you will hit the limit of your voice (1 watt of power) and I will no longer hear you even though you can hear me (I have LOTS of power since I am tied to the power grid). As you can see you can end up using up your battery 4 times faster.

Now that is for only you talking with me. Imagine if there are 100 people that are 100 to 5000 feet from me all talking to me at once. Now you have to talk louder (use more power) to get my attention. Now imagine 1000 people near me. You can see where this is going. As the number of cell phones increases more and more power is required to get the cell towers attention. Now to help that, the cell phone only "talks" or "pings" the tower when needed to make sure everything is ok. That helps reduce the power needed to maintain the check list.

But the second you switch to data or voice mode, then the connection has to be maintained 100% and that is where you can get very serious battery drain. So when you switch off cellular data and use only WiFi, you remove that battery drain scenario since WiFi requires much less power than the cellular connections.


Hope that clears everything up.
 
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Thank you for the explanation sir.

I had added this after reading your post more closely and wanted to make sure you saw it. Thank a bunch again.

"I think the best solution for me is when I am at work(in a weak zone for data) is to just turn off cell data. That will save my battery from it going into highest transmission power.

Thanks for all the replies and sorry if I offended anyone, didn't mean to imply there was a design flaw, I was just ignorant on the subject. Love me some apple!"
 
You are very welcome and I doubt anyone was even remotely offended.

But I actually believe there is a design flaw that could be corrected and it wouldn't take much to fix it. Of course no one is going to do it. Mainly because it makes too dang much sense. Especially since it doesn't cut into the cell phone providers profits.

Personally, I would change the cell phone system to use both cellular and WiFi for calls, SMS and MMS. It would use the antenna with the lowest power requirement to transmit the data. This would extend the life of batteries tremendously. And since the current smart phones already transmit their voice data in a digital pattern, switching it to WiFi and routing it to the end caller is pretty simple. Like less than 3 months worth of work simple if they did it right. Vonage already worked out all the issues :)
 
I would love to see that kind of change I am all about battery life and feeling like i can do anything when i need to do it, so I agree!
 
Skull One said:
You are very welcome and I doubt anyone was even remotely offended.

But I actually believe there is a design flaw that could be corrected and it wouldn't take much to fix it. Of course no one is going to do it. Mainly because it makes too dang much sense. Especially since it doesn't cut into the cell phone providers profits.

Personally, I would change the cell phone system to use both cellular and WiFi for calls, SMS and MMS. It would use the antenna with the lowest power requirement to transmit the data. This would extend the life of batteries tremendously. And since the current smart phones already transmit their voice data in a digital pattern, switching it to WiFi and routing it to the end caller is pretty simple. Like less than 3 months worth of work simple if they did it right. Vonage already worked out all the issues :)

Have you tried contacting any carriers for this suggestion?lol.
 
Skull One said:
So when you switch off cellular data and use only WiFi, you remove that battery drain scenario since WiFi requires much less power than the cellular connections.
Hope that clears everything up.

Will iMessages still be able to be received and sent when the cellular data is switched off and the phone is connected to wifi?

Thanks

Sent from my iPhone 4S or iPad 3rd gen, whichever I happened to have in my hands at the time, using iPF.net
 
5er driver said:
Will iMessages still be able to be received and sent when the cellular data is switched off and the phone is connected to wifi?

Thanks

Sent from my iPhone 4S or iPad 3rd gen, whichever I happened to have in my hands at the time, using iPF.net

Yes.

If it cannot send through cellular data, it will send over wifi.

If it cannot send through wifi, it will send through cellular data...

If it cannot send through cellular data OR wifi, it will send as a regular SMS.
 
So let throw a slightly different scenario at you. I'm sitting at my desktop PC, checking my Facebook or playing WoW. I have the wireless router right next to me because we also have a laptop and now 2 iPhone 3GS's. I have my phone on the charger, wifi connected, listening to country music on IHeartRadio. I look over, the wifi is stil connected. Look again, we're on the 3G. I have no idea how long it's been there but as soon as I open the Settings, it automatically gets back on the wifi. I don't have to open the wifi menu. I only get concerned because data isn't cheap with AT&T so we try and be as thrifty as possible. Any ideas what's causing my issue?
 
The moment that the screen turns off, a 30 minute timer starts. At the end of that time, if NO applications are registered to use the WiFi chip, it turns off. This is NOT a design flaw. It is exactly how iOS was designed.

Pretty sure you are wrong about your 30 minute timer theory, my 4S loses WiFi instantly when locked. If I press the home or lock button it'll reconnect right away, also every time I wake it the arrow showing GPS usage turns on for a few seconds and then goes off.

The reason I stumbled upon this thread was because today I got a notice from Bell in Canada saying that I was at $250 of data overage and that they were stopping my usage. I called them and they claim I am nearly 7GB over my 6GB monthly cap with 4 days left in my billing cycle. Upon looking at my detailed usage on their site I have documented large amounts of data usage while within strong home or work WIFI coverage often at strange times.

Examples:
27/09/2012 @ 12:25pm 564MB
25/09/2012 @ 12:25am 966MB
22/09/2012 @ 6:51pm 1708MB
22/09/2012 @ 4:52am 734MB
21/09/2012 @ 4:00am 847MB
20/09/2012 @ 3:20am 638MB

My 6-month trend shows an average of around 2GB per month in March, April and May. In June usage doubled to 4GB, then doubled again in July to 8GB, and last month down to just shy of 6GB. I didn't notice the increased usage in July because I knew I had Long Distance charges so I just paid the bill without checking it, my fault I know.

I don't have iTunes match, have "Diagnostic & Usage" reporting turned off, "Automatic Downloads" turned off over cellular.

Please help me understand the large chunks of data being used over cellular while within WiFi, often times while I am sleeping.

edit: I am also not jailbroken, and always keep my phone updated to the most current firmware.
 
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The Apple SDK is where I got my information. And at the time I had no reason to believe it was wrong.

I am at a complete loss to explain your situation. iOS 5 and 6 don't have anything, that I am aware of, that runs in the background using that much data save for the iCloud backup system. And that system only automatically kicks in when you are plugged in and on WiFi.

I highly recommend you take this up with Apple. They have the tools to look at what is going on with your phone.
 
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