Why the iPhone 5 is Discharging Fast and Can Not Connect to Mobile Internet

My wife's iPhone 5 is almost two years old. I could say it is still in top condition and could deliver it's service the way as it was when it was new. But yesterday, it was a different story. My wife found out that she could not use the internet when at work and the battery is almost flat dead after her 12 hours duty despite being fully charged  when she started work.

Knowing her, I suspected  a user's fault rather than a hardware's fault. And here's what I found out.

Can't connect to data mobile whilst at work.

It is not unusual that there are dead spots inside a building. Initially I suspect that this is causing her internet problem.  Or she might over looked that the mobile data button is not activated.

Fortunately her mobile data and 4G network buttons are on, and  the settings are correct. So no issue with non-active data connection. Testing it from home provides positive conclusion that there's no conflict with the configuration and network's availability.  If she can not access internet from  work then  her location when she is accessing it is the culprit.

I was about to believe this but when she insisted that she can't access the internet anywhere from the hospital, I became suspicious to a non-obvious reason why she can not connect, an open wi-fi connection! At work, there are open connections but need to be authenticated  before it gives you internet access. Although the phone says it is connected, it does not log you in without the proper credentials. But even when you are not logged on,  it somehow locks your wi-fi and tricks your phone into being connected to an internet access. This means the data connection is disabled as wi-fi supersedes mobile connections when available.

The solution is simple for this, just disable the wi-fi button!

Battery discharges quickly.

The problem above is also a clue why the battery is not performing very well. The desperation on getting online might made her press buttons and activate functions that does not need to be active.

Turn off wi-fi and personal hotspot when not in use.

Obvious cause is the wi-fi being on, and investigating further, the personal hotspot button(settings>Personal hotspot) is also on! Turning them off when not in use saves battery. The personal hotspot has nothing to do with going online unless you want your device to become a gateway for other devices to access the internet. Using this could rake up mobile data bills specially when tethering is not included with your contract or you have a limited band width.

Turn off background App Refresh

Another culprit which is usually overlooked is the background app refreshing their contents. once they are connected to any internet access, either wi-fi or data.  Specially those applications that tracks the user's location like Facebook, Maps (see screenshot with arrows) and other's identified by the active location logo.  The best way to control this is to just turn the slider to the left(off).

Mind the FB videos.

By default, video feeds playback from facebook is set to automatic. It may appear harmless, but this  really drains the battery specially when your friends has too much videos to share. Automatic playing does not only shortens battery power but also your data bundle. To turn this feature off, open facebook, tap more at the bottom right corner, account settings, videos and photos, then slide smart auto-play to the left. This make the device not to play  video contents automatically.

Last Words.

These are not just the factors in having problems with mobile connectivity and short battery life. This are the problems I discovered in my wife's phone. Screen brightness could be blamed by majority of users, but for me, it is crucial to have enough clarity and I value this more than conserving the battery as it can be saved by other sensible measures.

How To Save Mobile Data

Mobile internet could be expensive, specially when you buy it on the go. It is more sensible to use it bundled with a contract or with a prepaid data to avoid going over the limit and be charged with skyrocket bill, see photo below.

This bill tells us that the mobile internet charges by the amount of data being used and not by the amount of time spent surfing the internet. Websites are also not the same in the sense of how much information or data is used just for the pages to show. Elements of a site like colour, type of fonts, font decorations, scripts and many more contribute to the data usage. The same with mobile apps. Free apps usually use more data than paid apps because of the presence of dynamic advertisements. All of these contributes to data usage!

How to reduce mobile data usage without modifying the way you surf?

The best way to beat excessive usage charges therefore without compromising your freedom to use the internet to any site you want is to have a data contract that is tailored to your need, if you are a heavy mobile internet addict. 

But if you are in an existing contract right now and experienced being overcharged with your internet activity, here are some measures to lessen the amount of data without modifying your surfing habit.

1. Reduce data whilst surfing the web.

 Usually when you click or search for anything, the data traffic goes to your internet provider before it is sent to you in a raw form. The amount of data being used is also in its original form as intended by the web developers.

The latest chrome browser has data saver that can help in reducing this amount by compressing it first before it is sent to you, resulting in substantial reduction of the amount of package that is being sent. As a result, you'll use less data and also as an effect the lighter package will load faster.

On chrome, the data saver fucntion is not turned on on default so you need to go to the tool button(1), settings(2), data saver(3), and slide it to on(3).You can save up 10 to 50%  of data or more depending on the sites that you visit.

If you have not downloaded it to your mobile, it is available for both Android and  iOS.

2. Use opera Max to save data from applications.

The chrome data saver extension is only available when you are using chrome and not when you are using downloaded apps. This is where Opera Max comes in. The same as chrome's data saver extension, Opera Max creates a virtual private network(5) to capture internet traffic whilst you are using mobile internet(6) and compresses this to it's servers before delivering it to your device. This results in reduction of data packets that is being delivered to your browser, downloaded apps, native apps and anything that uses the internet and spend data (7) . You can also manually configure video compression delivery to make it load lighter and faster(8).

Get Opera Max from play store. Unluckily, iOS is not supported.

3. Use Opera Mini for iOS

iOS fans should not feel left out, as they can also use chrome, and also there is Opera Mini browser that is also a good try to save data. It has 2 levels of data compression, the Opera Mini(9) mode, which compresses webpages to their lightest package, and Opera turbo(10) which balances between the compression and the way the website looks like as web masters intended to.The data savings(11) meter shows how much you save by it's compression algorithms.

 It is available on both android and iOS!

Cheap Mobile Internet Whilst Visiting the Philippines

Just back from our holidays in the Philippines and I admit this one is more enjoyable than the previous, specially in terms of food (how I love theVikings from SM north ) trip and other activities (swimming to the max at Ilocos). There was no problem encountered except the usual internet connection whilst on the move specially when the kids want to update their social statuses or get the latest gossip from their friends. This need to be solved to avoid unnecessary mobile data expenditures that always victimizes unsuspecting holiday makers that potentially rake up a bill of hundreds or even thousands of pounds.

How not to overspend on data tariff whilst on vacation?

This is a complex question but with a simple solution! It is complex in the sense that there are many tariffs available and if you are not familiar with MB's and GB's of data, you will not be able to choose the best tariff, specially if you use the internet everytime. If there are 4 parties to use the internet, you do not need to buy 4 SIM cards and 4 tariffs to enjoy unlimited internet. In fact you can internet power at least 4 devices with just 50PHP a day, with unlimited traffic. Here's how.

a. Buy a local sim card

If your smartphone is SIM free you can buy a local SIM card and replace it with your home SIM.

How to know your phone is SIM free? If your phone is with contract and it is not an iPhone, then it is 100% SIM free. iPhone tends to be network locked even if it is with a contract. But you can ask your operator to give you the unlock software over the air (OTA). You can request this at anytime and depending on your network's policy.

A local sim card plus a load of 500PHP under Globe network is available when you get out from the plane. Just ask at any desk and they can point you to a nearest vending machine or sales representative that sell sim from any network. I use globe network because almost all of my contacts in the Philippines are using globe network.

Most of the SIM cards available are with the old form factor (full size). This means it is not compatible with the newest iPhone variants (iPhone 5) and other mobile phones that use nano SIM card. If this is the only phone you have, you might not easily find this kind of SIM inside the airport. And if your phone takes micro SIM card, it is best to buy a SIM card cutter before you travel.

I always bring along my card cutter with me as my Samsung uses micro card. You can buy this from below.

b. Setting up the globe SIM card. 

To reload airtime to the Globe SIM card, follow the following steps

• Dial 223 and press SEND.
• Enter the Call & Text Card No. and press #.
• Enter the Call & Text Card PIN and press #.

A voice prompt will then confirm that the reload attempt is successful.

c. Set up mobile internet.

Once the airtime is available, you can activate internet settings by buying surfing allowance.

• Do this by dialing *143# then send
• Choose 3 Surf Promos>send, 6 Supersurf>send, 1 Supersurf 50>send

*Supersurf 50 is an unlimited internet tariff, tethering included, for one day for 50PHP only. If you are tethering for other devices, this is the best tariff for you.

• Choose 1 subscribe> a confirmation message will be received. The internet settings should be automatically set up at this point.
• If the internet settings is not automatically set up, dial *143# then choose 3 and send, then choose 8 Get Internet Settings and send. This will show you how to go through the settings.

• You will know that the internet settings is working if you have this icon at the top.

• If this it is not active, make sure your phone's mobile data usage is turned on. On android, swipe the top of the phone downwards and check if it is turned on.

d. Share your internet connection

Here's where the savings is. Imagine for 50PHP, roughly 69pence, you can internet enable at least 4 persons in one day without limit. This is usable when the parties using it do not stream videos. To enable this, turn on the phone's tethering service.

• On an android phone, tap tethering and portable hotspot then turn on portable WIFI hot spot. For easier access with other devices, just adjust the security to open, then save.

e. Use MAC filtering to limit connected devices

Although the connection do not have security, you can control which device to connect by choosing connection type to "only allowed devices". You can then configure which device by entering manually the name of the device and the MAC address to gain access to the portable hotspot. For me, this is easier to manage than setting and giving out passwords. To do this, follow the following.

• Tap the name of your connection(1) and configure it to allowed devices only(2).
• Then configure it (3) to open(4). This will be easier for the allowed devices to connect. 
• Add the devices to connect by tapping Allowed Devices(5), tap the + sign to add a device.
• Enter the Device Name by finding the name at about device, and the MAC address(7) can be seen by tapping status and scrolling down to the WIFI MAC address.

You can add up to 4 devices or more, depending on the usage of every connected device, you can add more and get unlimited internet for a day for the cheap price of 50PHP.

Stretch Your Data Bundle Upto 50% For Free

Here comes 4G, capable of delivering  an unbelievable 100Mbit/s speed data transfer. This is a good news to internet users as this means waiting time is a thing of the past. The information is just a tap away. How I love to try it on VOIP applications to make video calls!

However this is not all good news to all, specially to low data tariff subscribers. The reason is, the speed of the connection can easily eat up the remaining data balance and leaves you with skyrocket excess data charge!

How to avoid being overcharged?

The simplest thing not to have a shocking bill is to avoid using it. Anyway only the newest smartphones like HTC One, Galaxy 4 or 5, iPhone 5 and among others can accommodate this speed. But if you already have a compatible device, the best you can do is to buy additional  data allowance. Or just mind your usage if budget is a problem. Use android's built in data monitoring that can be set to alert you in a usage level before exceeding the allowance. 

The other way is to stretch your data up to 50% more by just downloading a program for free.

The Opera Max

Download Here

The Opera Max is only available on android devices at the moment. What it does is it monitors the apps that you use everyday. And not only
that, it also compresses webpages and multimedia traffic so that videos and photos are shrunk in size saving your data allowance up to 50%. A 10MB video can be watched as a 3MB file, saving you 70% of data. 

Get the application at play store. Just type and search Opera Max. Once installed, it is ready to save you bandwidth traffic. It will be active  by showing a key(1) sign at the top of the screen. When you are out of the wi-fi area and switch to data tariff(2), the application starts compressing the data from any application that uses the internet. The savings can be seen at the right top(3) of the screen and the applications you use that consume data are shown(4). Now you have the idea what application you need to open up only when you are in the Wi-Fi coverage. 

You can also tweak the video resolution to make it clearer  by selecting low, as the video setting is in high(5) default to save the most data. You can do this by tapping the left soft key(key to the left of the phone's home button) to access the preference!

Watch video below!

How To Do More With Mobile Internet Access

Internet access in my birthplace is a pain. There's still no land telephone line available and the only access there is is mobile internet powered by mobile networks! There is HSPDA (enhanced 3G) signal but sometimes it is intermittent. This is due to the location of our family house which is very near the hills and mountains with tall trees around the area.

My sister's experience with mobile internet using a dongle by Globe, a local mobile network, is most of the time disappointing. She explained that the signal is intermittent, it takes a lot of time to load a page and sometimes the "load", data allowance or internet time, is finished even before the webpage is shown! I tried it myself and I've waited infront of her laptop with the hope to check my emails. I gave up after 5 minutes!

My suspects for the let down were the network's signal strength, the network's data bandwidth.and the dongle's capability of detecting data signals.

I remembered my UK phone with UK sim, turned it on and my phone roamed to Globe! Configurations for internet were automatically received and installed them on my phone. Next thing I did was to buy a regular local globe network sim card and tried going into the internet. Surprisingly, the signal is good and the web pages loaded fast, at least in my phone! How about in my sister's laptop?

Luckily, my phone has a hotspot function. It's similar to internet tethering on iPhones. The advantage of hotspot function over iPhone's tethering is it can provide internet for multiple devices instead of just one.

My sister's laptop was connected into the internet for the first time without much waiting. But still, there are sites that the laptop struggled to load and showed error in loading web pages. This might be because the mobile internet allowance was not enough and that other web pages has a lot of components that drain fast the total amount of data purchased. Then I thought of ways on how to save mobile data allowance and on how to stretch the time online while using a laptop. 

1. Access wap or mobile version  of a web page. 

This makes really a difference when you are using a laptop using a mobile internet access. You can just type in the wap page address and the wap page appears faster than the normal web page. This version of a website is like a "mini" version of the full sites. It is trimmed in a way that unnecessary web page elements are not shown. This saves data allowance therefore stretching your time online.

Below are samples of web pages accessed using their wap addresses and full web versions

Yahoo log in wap version    http://mlogin.yahoo.com/

Yahoo log in full version
















Yahoo home wap version  http://wap.yahoo.com/

Yahoo home full web

Most websites has wap versions, just google wap or mobile versions of websites you usually access. You can also use the wap version of google to search.

http://wap.google.com/xhtml

2. Choose data limit over time limit.

When purchasing mobile internet using globe network, it is wiser to choose the amount of data limit rather than time limit. When you choose time limit, your internet access will then be cut off once you've reached your time without any regards of the data you have used, while in data limit, your internet will not cut off until all your data allowance is finished.

Here's how to set up using globe network's POWERSURF50. This tariff will give you 100MB of data or 5 hours surfing the net valid for 3 days.

Text POWERSURF50 to 8888. A confirmation message will be texted back to you and an instruction for you whether you like 5 hours of internet or 100MB of internet data over 3 days. Text TIME50 (time limit) if you choose 5 hours or MB50 (data limit) to get 100MB of internet valid for 3 days.

3. You can also save data by compressing or resizing your photo if you want to upload them.

4. Viewing videos and listening to streaming radio or music can drain up fast your mobile internet allowance.

5. Avoid viewing high definition images.

6. As much as possible, use mobile devices when using mobile internet specially when your data allowance is  limited.

Remember that accessing mobile internet using your laptop is much different from accessing from full broadband access. The key to enjoy it is to make your data use into minimum as much as possible.