I'm currently in an extended network area until May. I woke up at 12pm today, turned on my phone, and now I am already down to 49%. A Verizon CSR said that he thinks that the extended network is draining my battery. Thoughts or tips?
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Is the Extended Network draining my battery?
- Thread starter Jacoblee23
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During the three days I was with Verizon, I had them look at the coverage at my house and Verizon's advice to me was to switch carriers.
Well, I switched from US Cellular to Verizon, because I wanted the iPhone to compliment my iPad 2 and iPod touch. Not to mention, AT&T is a complete deadzone here. Most of the time I am operating on US Cellular towers, but thankfully I will be moving soon, and the Verizon coverage there is great.
Yes. A CDMA phone that is roaming ("extended network" as Verizon calls it) will use more power and drain the battery faster.
This is because in addition to doing its normal phone-like things on the extended network, the phone is also periodically scanning for signs of a decent signal on the home (native Verizon) network. If it can find even a weak Verizon signal, it will even try to handshake with that network a few times before giving up and staying on the extended network, until it feels its time once again to scan for a home network.
This is something baked-in to the baseband profile. Every call on the Extended Network costs Verizon extra money, because at the heart of it, you're roaming, just like old-school cellular users did back in the 80s. Verizon just isn't charging you for it outright.
Clearly, the sooner they can get your phone back on a home network tower the better (and cheaper) for them, so they program their phones to check often for home signal when roaming. Which costs energy. Which reduces battery life. And if that means they can blame the extended network for you having to charge your iPhone more often, well, so much the better for them... from their point of view, it's another disincentive to get you to avoid roaming if you can.
I'm not sure what Verizon sets for a polling interval, but it's probably on the order of every few minutes or so.
This is because in addition to doing its normal phone-like things on the extended network, the phone is also periodically scanning for signs of a decent signal on the home (native Verizon) network. If it can find even a weak Verizon signal, it will even try to handshake with that network a few times before giving up and staying on the extended network, until it feels its time once again to scan for a home network.
This is something baked-in to the baseband profile. Every call on the Extended Network costs Verizon extra money, because at the heart of it, you're roaming, just like old-school cellular users did back in the 80s. Verizon just isn't charging you for it outright.
Clearly, the sooner they can get your phone back on a home network tower the better (and cheaper) for them, so they program their phones to check often for home signal when roaming. Which costs energy. Which reduces battery life. And if that means they can blame the extended network for you having to charge your iPhone more often, well, so much the better for them... from their point of view, it's another disincentive to get you to avoid roaming if you can.
I'm not sure what Verizon sets for a polling interval, but it's probably on the order of every few minutes or so.
Yup. Google it -- happens to all devices on extended network, not just the iPhone.
You don't want it to compliment your iPad 2 and iPod touch. If you're expecting it to say something like "Nice iPad 2!" you'll be waiting for a very long time. You want it to complement the others..
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Based on my daily experience, I say 'yes'. There is one building in my university where the Verizon signal is very very weak. Whenever I stay there, my iphone shows it is in the extended network which is US cellular. And I notice that my iphone's battery drains much quickly. It drains so much quickly that I had to turn on 'Airplane mode' several times.