iOS 4.2 Supports Cellular Network Performance Improvement Technology

[MacRumors]

In a blog post, Nokia Siemens Networks reveals that Apple's iOS 4.2 released last week supports new technology known as Network Controlled Fast Dormancy (NFCD) that can reduce strain on cellular networks while also improving battery life for devices. The technology allows devices to remain in an "intermediate state" instead of constantly alternating between active and idle states when sharing information with cellular networks.All this disconnecting and reconnecting takes time and can cause a frustratingly slow network response. On the other hand, leaving the smartphone in an active mode all the time drains the battery very quickly.

To overcome the problem Nokia Siemens Networks introduced a method that, instead of putting the handset into idle or keeping it always active, keeps the handset in an intermediate state. From here, a smartphone can wake up much more quickly and needs to send far fewer signals to and from the network to start a data connection. You get a fast network response and a longer battery life.The report notes that Nokia implemented the technology in its smartphones earlier this year, and with Nokia and Apple together accounting for half of all new smartphone sales on a global basis, the change is now widespread enough to be contributing to noticeably improved user experiences and cost reductions for cellular providers.

The post specifically references the network of one Middle Eastern cellular provider that has seen smartphone devices reach an average battery life of 11 hours on its networks, compared to six hours on competing networks. Meanwhile, testing in North America has shown reductions in signaling between smartphones and networks of up to 50%.

The technology does, however, require that Nokia Siemens' network equipment be used in order for the improvements to be possible, and it is unclear which regions and carriers have embraced the company's products. For example, AT&T noted earlier this year that upload issues being experienced by iPhone users were caused by software problems in network equipment from Nokia Siemens competitors Alcatel-Lucent. Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson have also been selected to provide equipment for AT&T's next-generation LTE (4G) network.

Article Link: iOS 4.2 Supports Cellular Network Performance Improvement Technology

 

[Frosticus]

Cool.

Ermm... anyone know if O2-UK use Nokia Siemens' network equipment ...?

 

[maturola]

THIS is why they update the BB- not to Fight Jailbreakers

This is the real reason they update the Baseband and not to fight Jailbreaker like everyone likes to fill the forums with every time there is a new update. Stopping jailbreakers is not a priority to Apple and it doesn't dedicate any resources to it, All they do (as any other company that develop software) is to fix bug, holes and add functionality to their software, this process may result on breaking of a jailbreak process 99 of 100 times but that is just a cherry in the top more than then actual ice cream

 

[Reason077]

But which iPhones support this, exactly? Just the iPhone 4? 3GS? 3G?

 

[Reason077]

Cool.

Ermm... anyone know if O2-UK use Nokia Siemens' network equipment ...?

They do. Ref: http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com...livers-superior-smartphone-experience-in-lond

 

[Maverick1337]

Still, it wont cause people to abandon their jailbreaks in hopes that the network is slightly improved in their area or see a slight increase in their battery life.

 

[zorinlynx]

This is the real reason they update the Baseband and not to fight Jailbreaker like everyone likes to fill the forums with every time there is a new update. Stopping jailbreakers is not a priority to Apple and it doesn't dedicate any resources to it, All they do (as any other company that develop software) is to fix bug, holes and add functionality to their software, this process may result on breaking of a jailbreak process 99 of 100 times but that is just a cherry in the top more than then actual ice cream

I don't know, I call bull here.

Apple has put code signing into pretty much every part of iOS even down to the raw bootloader. Notice there is no untethered jailbreak for 4.2.1 on iPhone 4 yet. If Apple weren't trying so hard to stop jailbreaking, jailbreaking wouldn't be taking so long.

It's curious, at least as far as unlocking is concerned. Apple gets fully paid for every iPhone they sell. They have no reason to fight unlocking so harshly, yet they do. It's all about control.

We just have to keep fighting the good fight.

 

[Frosticus]

They do. Ref: http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com...livers-superior-smartphone-experience-in-lond

Well Googled sir, well Googled.

Looks like this is just London though, not nationwide - perhaps this is only implemented in extremely high demand areas..

 

[Maverick1337]

I don't know, I call bull here.

Apple has put code signing into pretty much every part of iOS even down to the raw bootloader. Notice there is no untethered jailbreak for 4.2.1 on iPhone 4 yet. If Apple weren't trying so hard to stop jailbreaking, jailbreaking wouldn't be taking so long.

It's curious, at least as far as unlocking is concerned. Apple gets fully paid for every iPhone they sell. They have no reason to fight unlocking so harshly, yet they do. It's all about control.

We just have to keep fighting the good fight.

But the thing is in order to get these jailbreaks there seems to be an exploitation of a bug or a security hole in the OS allowing access into the phone. Don't you think Apple plugs these holes to not only block jailbreaks but to safen our devices?

 

[gnasher729]

Apple has put code signing into pretty much every part of iOS even down to the raw bootloader. Notice there is no untethered jailbreak for 4.2.1 on iPhone 4 yet. If Apple weren't trying so hard to stop jailbreaking, jailbreaking wouldn't be taking so long.

It's curious, at least as far as unlocking is concerned. Apple gets fully paid for every iPhone they sell. They have no reason to fight unlocking so harshly, yet they do. It's all about control.

We just have to keep fighting the good fight.

Jailbreaking always involves exploiting some vulnerability in the iPhone code. The same vulnerability, whatever it is, could be used to attack iPhones of any user. So whenever a hole is detected that allows jailbreaking, Apple _must_ close it down.

And in this particular case, it seems Nokia has provided some technology, and Apple is using it, that makes the iPhone battery last longer, makes the iPhone ready quicker when it was idle for a while, and at the same time reduces data traffic and therefore improves things for _everyone_ on that network. Unless you have a jailbroken iPhone.

 

[stationstops]

I wouldn't know it - I have 4.2 and yesterday was a typical nightmare using my iPhone 4 all over NYC - data, voice, and especially GPS were all terrible.

Meanwhile my development EVO had a happytime 4G connection, but Android has its own issues and my task switching was unusually slow. I also don't like to use the EVO while walking as the buttons are way too sensitive and you wind up hitting buttons you didnt intend to.

 

[Stella]

Jailbreaking always involves exploiting some vulnerability in the iPhone code. The same vulnerability, whatever it is, could be used to attack iPhones of any user. So whenever a hole is detected that allows jailbreaking, Apple _must_ close it down.

Just allow 'sideways' applicaton installations. Problem solved.

99% of users will still use the Apple AppStore.

 

[dscuber9000]

Jailbreaking exposes vulnerabilities. Of course Apple is going to fight that. Who wants to put personal information on a device that can be hi-jacked so easily?

 

[maturola]

I don't know, I call bull here.

Apple has put code signing into pretty much every part of iOS even down to the raw bootloader. Notice there is no untethered jailbreak for 4.2.1 on iPhone 4 yet. If Apple weren't trying so hard to stop jailbreaking, jailbreaking wouldn't be taking so long.

It's curious, at least as far as unlocking is concerned. Apple gets fully paid for every iPhone they sell. They have no reason to fight unlocking so harshly, yet they do. It's all about control.

We just have to keep fighting the good fight.

This is to warranty that user are running latest code/version, improvement like this will help the network and phone performance, not to mentioned security in general, just last year GSM key cracking was expose. Forcing user to run latest code it is just an obvious step towers security. And of course they are going to patch the jailbreaking holes, it is a hole after all that need to be fix, the only diference is that it wasn't found by Apple QA but by hacker community.

 

[shartypants]

Sounds like a good idea, but does it affect any of us in the US?

 

[goobot]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

When is hspa+ coming out?

 

[Xenomorph]

I'll stick with the 100 features jailbreaking has brought me with 4.1 instead of going to 4.2 for "potentially" better battery life and network performance.

I haven't noticed any network or battery issues with 4.1, so I'm not too concerned.

 

[joeconvert]

Let me guess, another breakthrough in network management that won't help AT&T users....

I know they are trying, but it seems like AT&T and Apple either don't talk or have some sort of passive aggressive relationship where Apple goes in an opposite direction of whatever AT&T plans....

 

[gnasher729]

Sounds like a good idea, but does it affect any of us in the US?

Not today. But networks using this technology work better than networks not using the technology, so capitalism, free market, competition and so on should bring this to the US eventually. So it is good news.

 

[stisaac]

I have 3GS and it seemed like the 3g performance *was* better.

Basically, I normally hate 3g on my iphone because browsing a webpage has this cycle:
Click on link -> 3g dials in connect (~10 secs) -> iphone loads page (~10 sec) -> read page, after 20 seconds iphone disconnects 3g modem.

Which means that each webpage click requires a 3g reconnect and takes longer than egde. But with 4.2 it seemed like faster time to start loading the page. But who knows, maybe it's just me.

 

[alent1234]

I don't know, I call bull here.

Apple has put code signing into pretty much every part of iOS even down to the raw bootloader. Notice there is no untethered jailbreak for 4.2.1 on iPhone 4 yet. If Apple weren't trying so hard to stop jailbreaking, jailbreaking wouldn't be taking so long.

It's curious, at least as far as unlocking is concerned. Apple gets fully paid for every iPhone they sell. They have no reason to fight unlocking so harshly, yet they do. It's all about control.

We just have to keep fighting the good fight.

it's called security

if your virus infected PC makes comcast slow in your area no one cares. a virus infected cell phone that takes towers down is a bigger risk

 

[oliversl]

Its nice that this kind of improvements can be delivered via iOS updates. It should help en many parts of the world. Any reports?

 

[utwarreng]

Thumbs up for the technology being integrated into the iPhone software. Thumbs down for AT&T not having it.

 

[alent1234]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

When is hspa+ coming out?

to long island, never

blame the local hippies and your local government

 

[Daveoc64]

Cool.

Ermm... anyone know if O2-UK use Nokia Siemens' network equipment ...?

They do. Ref: http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com...livers-superior-smartphone-experience-in-lond

Well Googled sir, well Googled.

Looks like this is just London though, not nationwide - perhaps this is only implemented in extremely high demand areas..

It should be noted that O2 - like any other carrier, has a LOT of different sites built in different areas of the country. Many of those will contain equipment from a variety of manufacturers. Some of it will also be older.

They are unlikely to upgrade existing equipment as it would cost them too much.

Some vendor's network equipment allowed EDGE to be implemented with a software update. In places where that was the case, O2 rolled it out pretty quickly. Elsewhere (i.e. most of the network), GPRS is still all that you get.