{"id":266125,"date":"2018-07-01T17:51:17","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T15:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=266125"},"modified":"2018-07-01T17:51:17","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T15:51:17","slug":"telkom-lte-draining-smartphone-batteries-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/266125-telkom-lte-draining-smartphone-batteries-reports.html","title":{"rendered":"Telkom LTE draining smartphone batteries &#8211; Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many MyBroadband users have been <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/960317-Battery-Life-Telkom-LTE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>complaining<\/strong><\/a> of reduced smartphone battery life after enabling 4G\/LTE on Telkom Mobile.<\/p>\n<p>When smartphone owners generally complain about battery life, the most common causes are background processes, high display brightness settings, or other user-controlled options.<\/p>\n<p>However, LTE modems draw a fair amount of power and can eat into your battery &#8211; no matter which mobile network you are connected to.<\/p>\n<p>While LTE technology does allow for faster download speeds compared to preceding technologies, this improvement often comes at a price &#8211; more battery power usage.<\/p>\n<p>Users have stated their battery drain is higher when connected to Telkom LTE, however, in comparison to other networks.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Complaints<\/h3>\n<p>Complaints from Telkom Mobile users about the battery drainage issue included the following.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;About 2-3 weeks ago my iPhone&#8217;s battery life just suddenly became terrible, would go from full to empty after a few hours. On a whim I turned off LTE, and it&#8217;s been perfect on 3G ever since. If I turn LTE back on, then the battery starts draining immediately again.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Same experience for me, much better battery life on 3G. Even when I&#8217;m connected to Wi-Fi most of the day.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I have the same on my Galaxy S8. I forced roaming to MTN and the battery is much better.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I ported to [Telkom Mobile] a few weeks ago and noticed exact the same thing.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">User scenario test<\/h3>\n<p>Following the reports, MyBroadband conducted a &#8220;user scenario&#8221; test, using a SIM from Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Cell C, and four Nokia 5 smartphones.<\/p>\n<p>A SIM was inserted in each Nokia 5, with the devices all running the same version of Android. The Nokia 5 phones were purchased at the same time, and have experienced almost identical usage since first being turned on.<\/p>\n<p>The same Google account was also used across all the test devices, and all settings &#8211; such as screen brightness and Data Saver &#8211; were checked prior to testing to ensure consistency.<\/p>\n<p>The Nokia 5 test bench was then placed in a house located in the Centurion area.<\/p>\n<p>The MyBroadband Speed Test app was used to test the download speeds of the respective networks, and to measure their signal strengths on the devices.<\/p>\n<p>As the strength of the signal to a smartphone can affect the power usage of its LTE modem, the networks needed to have similar strengths to ensure a fair testing environment.<\/p>\n<p>The speed tests also provided an indication of the connection quality, and all networks produced LTE speeds.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mybb_table\">\n<div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" style=\"width: 100%;\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"7\">\n<thead>\n<tr style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<th style=\"text-align: center;\" colspan=\"4\">Speed Test<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"30%\"><strong>Network<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"20%\"><strong>Download<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"20%\"><strong>Upload<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"20%\"><strong>Signal Strength<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Telkom<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>67.52Mbps<\/td>\n<td>28.81Mbps<\/td>\n<td>-73dBm<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>MTN<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>41.09Mbps<\/td>\n<td>4.18Mbps<\/td>\n<td>-77dBm<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Vodacom<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>36.81Mbps<\/td>\n<td>4.48Mbps<\/td>\n<td>-82dBm<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Cell C<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>31.03Mbps<\/td>\n<td>9.19Mbps<\/td>\n<td>-70dBm<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The MyBroadband Speed Test app states that -140dBm is considered a &#8220;weak&#8221; signal, while -44dBm is considered &#8220;strong&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Following the speed tests, the Nokia 5 phones were all charged to 100% and then left idle &#8211; with Wi-Fi and mobile data connectivity on.<\/p>\n<p>A data manager app was also left open on the devices to ensure no abnormal usage was taking place during the test.<\/p>\n<p>After leaving the phones for 11 hours in the same location, with the same set-up, the following battery results were observed.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mybb_table\">\n<div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" style=\"width: 100%;\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"7\">\n<thead>\n<tr style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<th style=\"text-align: center;\" colspan=\"2\">Battery Drainage Test<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"30%\"><strong>Nokia 5<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"20%\"><strong>Battery Level<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Telkom<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>54%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>MTN<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>84%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Vodacom<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>84%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Cell C<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>80%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">LTE data usage test<\/h3>\n<p>Once the battery levels were documented, Wi-Fi connectivity was turned off on the Nokia 5 phones.<\/p>\n<p>Using their LTE mobile data connections, all devices were then set to play the same video at the same resolution in the YouTube app.<\/p>\n<p>After the video had played for 30 minutes, the phones were left to sit idle again for another 30 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The battery levels of the devices were then checked.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mybb_table\">\n<div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" style=\"width: 100%;\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"7\">\n<thead>\n<tr style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<th style=\"text-align: center;\" colspan=\"2\">Battery Drainage Test &#8211; Round 2<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"30%\"><strong>Nokia 5<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"20%\"><strong>Battery Level<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Telkom<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>37%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>MTN<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>71%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Vodacom<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>71%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Cell C<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>66%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Telkom investigating<\/h3>\n<p>Telkom told MyBroadband it was investigating the reported issue, and would provide feedback once its investigation was complete.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/telecoms\/265763-faster-telkom-lte-speeds-following-end-of-night-surfer-deal-users.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Faster Telkom LTE speeds following end of Night Surfer deal \u2013 Users<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many MyBroadband users have complained of reduced smartphone battery life after enabling 4G\/LTE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":129916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[355,35,42,109,41],"class_list":["post-266125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266503,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266125\/revisions\/266503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}