After years of complaints that Afrihost\u2019s mobile data services seemed to drain smartphone batteries faster than MTN\u2019s, the company has identified and mitigated the problem.<\/p>\n
Reports of the issue first appeared on the MyBroadband forum<\/a><\/strong> on 1 November 2018.<\/p>\n Subscribers found that using Afrihost\u2019s mobile data service doubled their smartphone\u2019s battery consumption compared to MTN.<\/p>\n Afrihost\u2019s virtual mobile network runs on MTN, and switching between the two providers to conduct such tests is relatively simple \u2014 you just change the access point name (APN) setting in your device.<\/p>\n The issue did not appear to affect all Afrihost Mobile subscribers equally, leading to speculation that it might only affect certain mobile phones when they connect over LTE.<\/p>\n However, nothing came of the complaints that Afrihost\u2019s APN seemed to be draining batteries faster over LTE on specific devices.<\/p>\n Over a year later, on 15 November 2019, another subscriber reported a similar problem.<\/p>\n Afrihost dismissed the matter despite comprehensive testing showing the issue only occurred when connecting over its APN.<\/p>\n In fairness, the issue did not appear widespread at the time.<\/p>\n More than two years passed until the next battery-related complaint appeared on 13 January 2022.<\/p>\n However, the subscriber traced the problem to a badly-behaved SIM toolkit app on their smartphone that appeared after porting from Cell C to MTN (and Afrihost\u2019s APN).<\/p>\n