4 ms·
He should make a few trips to Africa. Some MNO base stations are powered by solar and only operate a few hours a day, sometimes a full day and sometime a parti
by BatteryMountain 5y ago
He should make a few trips to Africa.
Some MNO base stations are powered by solar and only operate a few hours a day, sometimes a full day and sometime a partial night (depending on batteries, if they have).
Not everyone has electricity, so people walk to town to charge their phones at spaza shops for a few minutes/hours. Fiber/POTS is non existent.
Outside of larger town and cities, reception is non-existent or spotty at best. You might get reception near a highway.
- pfranz 5y agoMy understanding is when a cellphone has weak service it boosts the signal to try and reach a tower. In my experience, it feels like it drains the battery incredibly fast. Are there OSes or phones that accommodate this?
- Tor3 5y agoThat's correct - if the signal is weak the battery is drained quickly. I'm not aware of any OS or phone which can mitigate that - is there any other way than to give up on the connection?
- safanycom 5y agoAn extra phone or device as a hotspot
- pfranz 5y agoIf you're battery constrained and not expecting a signal most of the day I imagine you could put the radio to sleep for 5-30m. I kinda understand a weak signal getting boosted and draining a battery, but when there's none at all? It just seems like a use case they didn't care enough to address. Since it sounds like this is the primary use case, I figured someone might have tried.
- BatteryMountain 5y agoTrue. I notice it when out camping in the mountains where there is no reception. On airplane mode the battery can easily last 2 to 3 days max but if you leave airplane mode off, it will die within 1 day.