I understand that one of the Google's ulterior motives with Android is to promote a mobile experience where the user is always connected to the Internet and the G1 is pretty much built around that "always on" networking paradigm - including the special flat-rate data plans from T-Mobile.
On the other hand, data services are not universally cheap yet everywhere in the world and it would be nice to give the user more control over the mobile data usage. Both current commercial Android phones (HTC G1/Dream and G2/Magic) have two types of radio for data usage:
In the implementation on the G1, Android gives precedence to the Wifi connection if enabled and available when the phone is active - i.e. when the screen is on. Once the screen goes off, the wifi interface is shut down after a few seconds until the screen is turned on again. There is an obscure option in the expert wifi settings (Wi-Fi Settings->(menu key) Advanced-> Wi-Fi sleep policy) to change that default behavior.
If background synchronization for gmail, calendar and contacts is enabled, the phone will periodically (about every 5min according to NetMeter) partially wake up and go online on the cellular data network - even if it is sitting in the middle of a well covered Wi-fi network.
While it is possible to administratively turn off the Wifi radio, it is currently NOT possible to turn off the cellular data connection, while leaving the Wifi interface running. The only option is the "airline mode", which disables all radio interfaces - including the ability to make or receive phone calls.
What seems to be missing is a configuration switch to turn off cellular data only, leaving on the phone service, SMS and the Wifi interface. There is an option to disable data when roaming, where the biggest cost might occur - but I would prefer not to be roaming at all and use a local, maybe pre-paid SIM card instead. (My home operator, who gets paid $1.50 per minute in roaming charges on every phone-call, would probably disagree.) So what I do when traveling is to use a prepaid SIM card for phone calls and administratively deprovision the data service capabilities (by calling the operator to have it disabled) and/or by making sure there are no APN settings configured for this operator. This way I can leave background synchronization and Wifi enabled and still receive email updates while in Wifi coverage - even though this synchronization only happens when I turn on the phone's screen.
Hoever sometimes it would be nice to be able to splurge and pay the 50c per kbps for doing a quick search or lookup of something on the Internet, even using a prepaid or otherwise expensive data plan - but without the phone taking advantage of the oportunity to sync all my email or download an new OTA update - completely drainging my prepaid card before I can stop it.
What I would like is an additional setting - a "submarine mode", where the celluar data interface is only used in an extremely minimal and controlled way - like the radio transmitter on submarine, trying not to be located. While in this mode, the use of the cellular data service should be reliably cut off, but phone service and Wifi should continue to work. In addition, I should be allowed to very temporarily bring up the cellular data interface and grant access only to the current foreground application (e.g. using IPtables with UID matching) - ideally with a data usage counter right in the notification bar, so I can see what is going on.
I don't know enough about how cellular data services work to know if something like this would be easily implemented, but I doubt that a feature to allow users to pinch pennies on phone usage would be very high on any operators priority list right now and as long as operators drive the requirements with cellphone manufacturers, it is their priorities which are being implemented.
On the other hand, data services are not universally cheap yet everywhere in the world and it would be nice to give the user more control over the mobile data usage. Both current commercial Android phones (HTC G1/Dream and G2/Magic) have two types of radio for data usage:
- GPRS/EDGE/3G cellular data connection
- IEEE 802.11 WiFi wireless LAN interface
In the implementation on the G1, Android gives precedence to the Wifi connection if enabled and available when the phone is active - i.e. when the screen is on. Once the screen goes off, the wifi interface is shut down after a few seconds until the screen is turned on again. There is an obscure option in the expert wifi settings (Wi-Fi Settings->(menu key) Advanced-> Wi-Fi sleep policy) to change that default behavior.
If background synchronization for gmail, calendar and contacts is enabled, the phone will periodically (about every 5min according to NetMeter) partially wake up and go online on the cellular data network - even if it is sitting in the middle of a well covered Wi-fi network.
While it is possible to administratively turn off the Wifi radio, it is currently NOT possible to turn off the cellular data connection, while leaving the Wifi interface running. The only option is the "airline mode", which disables all radio interfaces - including the ability to make or receive phone calls.
What seems to be missing is a configuration switch to turn off cellular data only, leaving on the phone service, SMS and the Wifi interface. There is an option to disable data when roaming, where the biggest cost might occur - but I would prefer not to be roaming at all and use a local, maybe pre-paid SIM card instead. (My home operator, who gets paid $1.50 per minute in roaming charges on every phone-call, would probably disagree.) So what I do when traveling is to use a prepaid SIM card for phone calls and administratively deprovision the data service capabilities (by calling the operator to have it disabled) and/or by making sure there are no APN settings configured for this operator. This way I can leave background synchronization and Wifi enabled and still receive email updates while in Wifi coverage - even though this synchronization only happens when I turn on the phone's screen.
Hoever sometimes it would be nice to be able to splurge and pay the 50c per kbps for doing a quick search or lookup of something on the Internet, even using a prepaid or otherwise expensive data plan - but without the phone taking advantage of the oportunity to sync all my email or download an new OTA update - completely drainging my prepaid card before I can stop it.
What I would like is an additional setting - a "submarine mode", where the celluar data interface is only used in an extremely minimal and controlled way - like the radio transmitter on submarine, trying not to be located. While in this mode, the use of the cellular data service should be reliably cut off, but phone service and Wifi should continue to work. In addition, I should be allowed to very temporarily bring up the cellular data interface and grant access only to the current foreground application (e.g. using IPtables with UID matching) - ideally with a data usage counter right in the notification bar, so I can see what is going on.
I don't know enough about how cellular data services work to know if something like this would be easily implemented, but I doubt that a feature to allow users to pinch pennies on phone usage would be very high on any operators priority list right now and as long as operators drive the requirements with cellphone manufacturers, it is their priorities which are being implemented.