Afrihost airmobile (legacy sim) battery draining

d.casper.b

d.casper.b

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Hi there.
Mid last year I noticed my phone battery draining extremely fast. It took me a few months blaming a phone update and then eventually managed to pull logs from the phone and finally noticed something related to APN that was causing phone to be awake. Then I found an article on the issue. Did testing and could confirm it was network related issue draining my battery. Afrigirl fixed the issue and all was fine.

Anyway, I noticed from the 4th of March 2026 that my phone's battery has been draining again. So I started testing to see if it was the same issue as last time. I kept the SIM active, and after 7.5 hours the phone drained from 100% to 79%. 21% down with no usage. Then I disabled the SIM, and it has now been 8 hours and the phone has drained 4% in 8 hours with 2 minutes SOT.

Can this be fixed again?
 
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I'm also using the Afrihost APN and have noticed that my phone has been eating my battery the past 2 or 3 days - hope this is the reason and gets fixed
 
Interesting, I'll have to keep an eye on my battery as my number just ported to AH contract yesterday. Haven't noticed any more battery drain this morning than when I was with Vodacom.
 
Check your IP while using phone data, can you ping it from another device?

If yes, ask Afrigirl to remove your Sim from the public IP group.
 
Sir Peel-a-Lot said:
@d.casper.b

You seen this? Particularly the last paragraph.

mybroadband.co.za

Surprising reason Air Mobile eats smartphone batteries for breakfast — and how Afrihost fixed it

We tested the battery consumption of smartphones connected to Afrihost’s Air Mobile network following complaints from subscribers. Here’s how Afrihost fixed the issue.
mybroadband.co.za mybroadband.co.za
Click to expand...
Yes, I read this article a while back when I first was diagnosing my battery drain. Only found it after I already discovered afrihost was my issue.
 
d.casper.b said:
Hi there.
Mid last year I noticed my phone battery draining extremely fast. It took me a few months blaming a phone update and then eventually managed to pull logs from the phone and finally noticed something related to APN that was causing phone to be awake. Then I found an article on the issue. Did testing and could confirm it was network related issue draining my battery. Afrigirl fixed the issue and all was fine.

Anyway, I noticed from the 4th of March 2026 that my phone's battery has been draining again. So I started testing to see if it was the same issue as last time. I kept the SIM active, and after 7.5 hours the phone drained from 100% to 79%. 21% down with no usage. Then I disabled the SIM, and it has now been 8 hours and the phone has drained 4% in 8 hours with 2 minutes SOT.

Can this be fixed again?
Click to expand...
@Afrigirl ping if she missed the thread by any chance
 
Afrihost are well aware of the issue and have since rectified the problem (I'm talking generally here, not meaning the current drain has been addressed).
I'm not saying everyone is now suddenly having this issue, but I definitely am, and I have experience with it. I brought it to their attention in the past where I informed them and Afrigirl immediately knew what to do when I mentioned my battery was draining.

But what prompted the issue for me the first time around? There was a time when I could not connect with my MTN SIM (using afrihost APN). So I contacted Afrihost and they did a lot of changes (and I think this was one of the changes they did). Eventually I had to call MTN to "reset my 5G" - according to them. After MTN "reset my 5G", my connection was working and I forgot all about it, but I had no idea that what Afrihost changed was causing battery drain. So I fully understand why I experienced the issue the first time around.

...But I do not understand why my battery is draining around 2.7% an hour while idle yet again.. and then 0.5%/h when I disable the MTN/Afrihost SIM. Clearly something has changed.


Although, it definitely looks like others have noticed the same with battery drain and time frames all line up.
 
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d.casper.b said:
But I do not understand why my battery is draining around 2.7% an hour while idle yet again.. and then 0.5%/h when I disable the MTN/Afrihost SIM. Clearly something has changed.
Click to expand...
Others feel free to educate me, but 2 or 3% battery drain seems perfectly normal for a modern smartphone considering the information requests it's pulling in the background when idle... and when you disable the SIM I assume you mean airplane mode, then this again makes sense that the load on the battery is reduced due to an inactive network.
 
Sir Peel-a-Lot said:
Others feel free to educate me, but 2 or 3% battery drain seems perfectly normal for a modern smartphone considering the information requests it's pulling in the background when idle... and when you disable the SIM I assume you mean airplane mode, then this again makes sense that the load on the battery is reduced due to an inactive network.
Click to expand...
No, it is not normal for an idle phone. At 2.5% /h you'd go to sleep and wake up 8 hours later with 20% less battery. This is not normal. Normally I'd only lose 2-3% the entire night, not every hour. I run AccuBattery on my phone, and my average battery usage while screen is off tends to be below 1% /h.
I immediately noticed the issue was back for me when I came home from work with 35% battery and I did not use my phone at all. Normally I'd get back with 70-80% if I didn't use my phone. This is from 4am - 6pm.

I've already turned off the sim / apn and battery drain is normal, I tried turning it on earlier to see if it was fixed / addressed yet, but battery immediately draining fast again - so it is off now until they do something. The last time I had this issue, it was just me, that is why I'm not sure if it is now just myself or others also since some others users have noticed the same. I think this is only with the legacy airmobile (prepaid MTN SIM) since i don't notice the same with my non-legacy airmobile SIM (in the same phone).

But no one fixing the issue.
This issue was "documented" here, so it's possible they changed something again recently and now it affects me/other users.
 
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d.casper.b said:
No, it is not normal for an idle phone. At 2.5% /h you'd go to sleep and wake up 8 hours later with 20% less battery. This is not normal. Normally I'd only lose 2-3% the entire night, not every hour. I run AccuBattery on my phone, and my average battery usage while screen is off tends to be below 1% /h.
I immediately noticed the issue was back for me when I came home from work with 35% battery and I did not use my phone at all. Normally I'd get back with 70-80% if I didn't use my phone. This is from 4am - 6pm.

I've already turned off the sim / apn and battery drain is normal, I tried turning it on earlier to see if it was fixed / addressed yet, but battery immediately draining fast again - so it is off now until they do something. The last time I had this issue, it was just me, that is why I'm not sure if it is now just myself or others also since some others users have noticed the same. I think this is only with the legacy airmobile (prepaid MTN SIM) since i don't notice the same with my non-legacy airmobile SIM (in the same phone).

But no one fixing the issue.
This issue was "documented" here, so it's possible they changed something again recently and now it affects me/other users.
Click to expand...
Also on the legacy APN and I noticed the same abnormal battery drain the last few days.
 
d.casper.b said:
No, it is not normal for an idle phone. At 2.5% /h you'd go to sleep and wake up 8 hours later with 20% less battery. This is not normal. Normally I'd only lose 2-3% the entire night, not every hour. I run AccuBattery on my phone, and my average battery usage while screen is off tends to be below 1% /h.
I immediately noticed the issue was back for me when I came home from work with 35% battery and I did not use my phone at all. Normally I'd get back with 70-80% if I didn't use my phone. This is from 4am - 6pm.

I've already turned off the sim / apn and battery drain is normal, I tried turning it on earlier to see if it was fixed / addressed yet, but battery immediately draining fast again - so it is off now until they do something. The last time I had this issue, it was just me, that is why I'm not sure if it is now just myself or others also since some others users have noticed the same. I think this is only with the legacy airmobile (prepaid MTN SIM) since i don't notice the same with my non-legacy airmobile SIM (in the same phone).

But no one fixing the issue.
This issue was "documented" here, so it's possible they changed something again recently and now it affects me/other users.
Click to expand...
Everything online points to 0.5% - 4% battery drain while idle being totally normal for modern smartphones. I mean at the end of the day it's really not much of an issue, just charge the phone when needed.
 
Sir Peel-a-Lot said:
Everything online points to 0.5% - 4% battery drain while idle being totally normal for modern smartphones. I mean at the end of the day it's really not much of an issue, just charge the phone when needed.
Click to expand...
Yes and no.
Every additional/unnecessary charge brings you closer to having to replace either the battery or the phone. Probably fine if you're on contract and upgrade every 2 years.
But for me on prepaid I keep a phone 4-5 years before buying a new one cash on Black Friday.
 
d.casper.b said:
Hi there.
Mid last year I noticed my phone battery draining extremely fast. It took me a few months blaming a phone update and then eventually managed to pull logs from the phone and finally noticed something related to APN that was causing phone to be awake. Then I found an article on the issue. Did testing and could confirm it was network related issue draining my battery. Afrigirl fixed the issue and all was fine.

Anyway, I noticed from the 4th of March 2026 that my phone's battery has been draining again. So I started testing to see if it was the same issue as last time. I kept the SIM active, and after 7.5 hours the phone drained from 100% to 79%. 21% down with no usage. Then I disabled the SIM, and it has now been 8 hours and the phone has drained 4% in 8 hours with 2 minutes SOT.

Can this be fixed again?
Click to expand...
Hi,
I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing battery drain on your device, especially when using the Afrihost Legacy APN. I’ve checked your connection and can see that you are currently on a public IP, so this should not normally cause battery drain. However, you can try rebooting your device to obtain a new IP address.

Regarding your SIM not working in June 2025, this was not related to the APN. It was due to a development issue when the usernames for Legacy packages were changed. This caused some clients to fail authentication and prevented sessions from being initiated on the RADIUS server. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Please monitor the connection and let me know if you continue to experience the same issue.
 
To anyone experiencing the same issue, please feel free to send me a PM so I can check and confirm the IP address you are currently assigned.
 
Hmm, also noticed the battery drains in the past few days and started by checking apps, and software updates, rebooting shenanigans.

BTW how do you confirm if you are on the afrihost network? I'm using the legacy APN "afrihost" for MTN prepaid SIM.

Does this still provide an accurate view?

You are not on the Afrihost Data Network

support.afrihost.com support.afrihost.com

It says I'm not on Afrihosts network 🤷‍♂️
 
Afrigirl said:
Hi,
I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing battery drain on your device, especially when using the Afrihost Legacy APN. I’ve checked your connection and can see that you are currently on a public IP, so this should not normally cause battery drain. However, you can try rebooting your device to obtain a new IP address.

Regarding your SIM not working in June 2025, this was not related to the APN. It was due to a development issue when the usernames for Legacy packages were changed. This caused some clients to fail authentication and prevented sessions from being initiated on the RADIUS server. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Please monitor the connection and let me know if you continue to experience the same issue.
Click to expand...
Thank you

I have restarted my phone and turned on the legacy APN again, so I'll see if it made any difference. If it's still not working, I will have to buy data on my "non-legacy" number and use that one in the meantime.
 
omg.... Came across this thread randomly and its been driving me nuts! My phone was on idle 2 nights ago and i lost like 20% battery over night (wifi was disabled so no apps running) and i am on a legacy Airmobile SIM too
 
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