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Afrihost APN high battery drain - EXPLAINED (not solved)
- Thread starter linuxgal
- Start date
Ghost729
Well-Known Member
Are you connected to 5GHz Wifi? I found that my phones used more power conntected to a 5GHz network than on LTE standby. On the Mi A2 Lite, it was huge! Like 0.7%/hour on a 5GHz network.
PhireSide
Honorary Master
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2006
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Redmi Note 5 Pro here. Connected to 5GHz. Even with Wifi turned off, the drain was unusually high.
AccuBattery Pro pegged screen off usage at 1.7% an hour - but today it shows 0.2% per hour so it's definitely an improvement
Ghost729
Well-Known Member
Just an update.
Switching off LTE on my S7 using the Afrihost APN reduces standby drain from 5+%/hour to around 3%/hour. Which is about the same as the MTN APN with LTE on.
Current, I am in contact with Afrihost regarding the issue and I am gathering bug reports to send to them.
Switching off LTE on my S7 using the Afrihost APN reduces standby drain from 5+%/hour to around 3%/hour. Which is about the same as the MTN APN with LTE on.
Current, I am in contact with Afrihost regarding the issue and I am gathering bug reports to send to them.
Ghost729
Well-Known Member
Update:
So I spent the last week gathering data for bug reports on my Mi A2 Lite, because Afrihost was moaning about the accuracy of Accubattery and the app itself possibly causing the battery drain.
I uninstalled Accubattery, ran the standby tests again, pulled the bug reports, to get the same results again, and sent it them, just to get this response:
And literally, all I did between tests is change SIMs/APNs and reboot the phone. Apparently, the concept of cause and effect does not exist.
@AfriMan why is Afrihost going through such denial, just to not have to deal with an issue?
So I spent the last week gathering data for bug reports on my Mi A2 Lite, because Afrihost was moaning about the accuracy of Accubattery and the app itself possibly causing the battery drain.
I uninstalled Accubattery, ran the standby tests again, pulled the bug reports, to get the same results again, and sent it them, just to get this response:
And literally, all I did between tests is change SIMs/APNs and reboot the phone. Apparently, the concept of cause and effect does not exist.
@AfriMan why is Afrihost going through such denial, just to not have to deal with an issue?
Thanks for raising this issue. To my knowledge it wouldn't be possible for the APN name itself to consume power in a different way from another APN. However, we would definitely like to look at tests and make sure we don't jump to conclusions.
Have asked one of our technical experts to have a look at this thread and see what would be the best approach here. My own experience is that I haven't noticed anything like this, but if others are testing, we can definitely look at the results.
Let's do our fact finding first. But will definitely share the info once we're satisfied.
Ghost729
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the assistance Afriman.
It was a surprise for me too to discover that the APN was causing the issue. It took me a long time figure out it was the APN.
As previously stated, I have two phones. While the Mi A2 Lite, has never been rooted, I have run custom roms on my S7 and scoured XDA for a solution to the battery drain. Trying the APN was just me grasping at straws and it paid off.
I use the Mi A2 Lite for testing for 2 reasons - the issue cannot be blamed on tampering via root access and it is not my daily driver.
If you need anything from me, just let me know.
It was a surprise for me too to discover that the APN was causing the issue. It took me a long time figure out it was the APN.
As previously stated, I have two phones. While the Mi A2 Lite, has never been rooted, I have run custom roms on my S7 and scoured XDA for a solution to the battery drain. Trying the APN was just me grasping at straws and it paid off.
I use the Mi A2 Lite for testing for 2 reasons - the issue cannot be blamed on tampering via root access and it is not my daily driver.
If you need anything from me, just let me know.
Praeses
Executive Member
/thread necro
I recently ported from CellC to MTN and immediately switched over to the Afrihost APN. My battery life has been atrocious vs CellC LTE. I'm usually at 60% battery when I get home from work. Now it's around 30%.
@AfriGuy @AfriNatic has anything ever come from this investigation?
I recently ported from CellC to MTN and immediately switched over to the Afrihost APN. My battery life has been atrocious vs CellC LTE. I'm usually at 60% battery when I get home from work. Now it's around 30%.
@AfriGuy @AfriNatic has anything ever come from this investigation?
Praeses
Executive Member
I'm using a OnePlus 6. I haven't tried it yet, but will switch over now and see how it goes.
Praeses
Executive Member
I think I've found the culprit. The "sim toolkit" which android phones install from the sim card. Since killing the process my battery drain on the afrihost APN has been fixed. Maybe other people with the same issue should give it a try?
You can also download the MTN app and switch off all the popup that come as popups from the Sim Toolik.
Also switch off callerxchange from the MTN menu in the sim toolkit to prevent it from waking up the device.
Jason-ZA
Expert Member
@AfriNatic A few months ago I came accross the issue of the increased battery drain when using the Afrihost APN.
Over night my device will lose 10-15% where as the normal MTN APN it will only lose around 5%.
I've tried the suggestions above and they dont work
(Uninstalled the sim toolkit, and also installed the MTN app and opted out of everything)
I recently switched from a Samsung A70 to a Samsung S22 Ultra, and the exacty same thing still happens, I can consistently reproduce the high battery drain by simply just changing the APN.
I think the issue is that we are being handed out a publicly routable IP instead of a CGNAT IP, which causes all the junk traffic (ICMP, bot port scans, etc) to hit our devices, keeping the LTE radio active all the time. I was able to see lot of junk traffic hit my afrihost assigned IPs in the past when I used MTN fixed LTE and set the DMZ to a mikrotik, not afrihost's fault at all, just the nature of having a public routable IP
The normal MTN APN seems like it hands out a cgnat ip which could possibly explain the difference in battery drain.
Is there any way I can somehow get a CGNAT IP instead of a public IP when using the afrihost APN?
Over night my device will lose 10-15% where as the normal MTN APN it will only lose around 5%.
I've tried the suggestions above and they dont work
(Uninstalled the sim toolkit, and also installed the MTN app and opted out of everything)I recently switched from a Samsung A70 to a Samsung S22 Ultra, and the exacty same thing still happens, I can consistently reproduce the high battery drain by simply just changing the APN.
I think the issue is that we are being handed out a publicly routable IP instead of a CGNAT IP, which causes all the junk traffic (ICMP, bot port scans, etc) to hit our devices, keeping the LTE radio active all the time. I was able to see lot of junk traffic hit my afrihost assigned IPs in the past when I used MTN fixed LTE and set the DMZ to a mikrotik, not afrihost's fault at all, just the nature of having a public routable IP
The normal MTN APN seems like it hands out a cgnat ip which could possibly explain the difference in battery drain.
Is there any way I can somehow get a CGNAT IP instead of a public IP when using the afrihost APN?
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Jason-ZA
Expert Member
@AfriNatic i noticed that even when my device connects to a WiFi network and uses WiFi calling, the public IP assigned on the lte side is still pingable from the outside until I change the APN back to mtn, so I'm pretty convinced at this point that my post above is the cause of the high battery drain while on the afrihost APN.
Would be interesting to see how much it helps having a CGNAT ip if possible.
Would be interesting to see how much it helps having a CGNAT ip if possible.
Hi,
Sorry for the late reply. I'm working through all the messages and mentions.
Do you have a public IP address currently on your mobile sim? I don't think it will do much but yet it's an android thing that even while connected to wifi the session remains open. I noticed it with my own android and account.
Jason-ZA
Expert Member
Yep, I always get a public IP handed out, and not a CGNAT one.
The reason I suspect that this is the cause of high battery usage is because of all the random IPs/bots on the internet that's pinging the IPs assigned to our phones, and port scanning, etc, which causes the LTE to always be active, using more battery power. With a CGNAT IP this wouldnt happen as your phone is not pingable/accessabile from the public internet, so the LTE interface on the device can sit idle when not being used, like what happens with the normal MTN APN.
I can literally only change the APN setting, and no other setting on the phone and the battery usage more than doubles, this is the only reason I can think of.
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That might be possible. You can dm me your number so I can put it back on the nat.