# Searching for Signal intervals



## dhaliwal925 (Jun 7, 2011)

This is just a general question for anyone who understands this better than me..

My friend and I were at the gym and were discussing how the CDMA phones tend to use more power when they are searching for signal. From my understanding this is due to the way CDMA functions, it boosts the power to your antenna on the phone rather than the tower boosting the signal, like for GSM phones (or something like that).

Anyhow we got to thinking..usually signal drops in buildings where you are stationary, often for long periods of time. Our examples work, mall, movie theaters, one of our other friends house, etc. Would there be any way to implement some sort code that could tell the phone that it is not moving, ie via gps or wifi, and that it should increase the interval at which it searches for signal (I don't even know if it functions like this) or even turn the 3g and 4g off. Resulting in the phone boosting less power to the antenna and saving battery life when you are in an area with little or no signal.

Is this something that is already utilized? Are we just ill informed nerds? Or is this an idea that can be implemented by one of our smart devs?


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

> Would there be any way to implement some sort code that could tell the phone that it is not moving, ie via gps or wifi


Using gps is going to be an even bigger battery drain than not, most likely.



> My friend and I were at the gym and were discussing how the CDMA phones tend to use more power when they are searching for signal.


Yeah. Though power for the signal can go up and down for other reasons. If one phone's signal power is too high on a channel in comparison to other users, it gets lowered in order not to interfere with other users. Think of it as like some jerk in a public area talking way louder than everyone else and someone comes up to him and taps him on the shoulder to quiet down. In cases like that, the tower is saying "hey, your coming in too loud, settle down." Too many users on a channel can also cause problems as well at least for data throughput as every user has the same access to throughput on the channel in CDMA. It's a little different on LTE where it combines the good parts of GSM and CDMA as far as how things work, but overall, it transmits more like CDMA does than competing GSM standards did on 3G.



> it should increase the interval at which it searches for signal (I don't even know if it functions like this) or even turn the 3g and 4g of


Nearly everything is handled within the radio software, which is a blackbox other than what is seen through the Radio Interface Layer. Most likely changing update interval time is as well, especially for Qualcomm chipsets where they like to keep things inside the radio software more than they should. If that's true on the S3, then it's unlikely you can change it. Even if you did change it, having it constantly update can also be a battery drain. It may negate any effect you would think it could have. Signal at least on something like the Gnexus already updates pretty often (at least every 15-20 seconds). I would gather the S3 is similar.



> or even turn the 3g and 4g off


Turning 3g or 4g on/off can be done in the Android OS manually or automated by some event.


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## dhaliwal925 (Jun 7, 2011)

Thanks Yarly..makes sense.

Would an app like Tasker be able to read the state of the cell signal and execute a task based on the strength one specifies?


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

dhaliwal925 said:


> Thanks Yarly..makes sense.
> 
> Would an app like Tasker be able to read the state of the cell signal and execute a task based on the strength one specifies?


I'm not aware of how that app works or what it has in it, but the API for Android has the ability to listen for changes on various signal info metrics reported through the RIL and report when it changes as well. I would gather there are some apps out there that take advantage of that info to do certain things like you mentioned. If you find one, report back please. I just like to know for the sake of information.


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