Hello Bernard,

Actually in both places I was more or less in one place. During the day time I am in the office in Westlands and in the evenings at home.
Germany: During the day was at the office, evening at the hotel/around town
South Africa: During the day in the office, in the evening at the hotel

In all places 3G coverage was quite good, getting the full 5 bars at all times.

Now, the study was very unscientific in the least, but the great disparity in battery life points to some other problem other than the phone. On Safaricom's network, the battery hardly lasts a day, on the other networks 3-4 days. That does raise some eyebrows. At one point in time my colleague was tempted to buy a new battery till we did this test and discovered that the problem wasn't exactly the battery.

Regards,

======================
Andrew Wafula Wapakala
Web: www.wertsoft.com
MSN: a_wafula@hotmail.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/awafula
Blog: http://thewert.blogspot.com/
==========================================================================
If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for you... you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford
"Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People"


On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 4:01 PM, Bernard Mwagiru <bmwagiru@gmail.com> wrote:
@Andrew,

This is an interesting observation, though with several dependencies....

Poor coverage or an area with no dominance results in multiple handovers and increased power since greater power is required to reach the site peripheries. Also while in SA or Germany were you in one place or kept moving around similar to the way  in Nairobi? This has an impact. 

Power in UMTS is very important as a phone transmitting at high power interferes with the surrounding mobiles. Power control messages are actually sent about 500 times per second to make sure no interference occurs. But the actual action as to whether to increase or not is based on whether the messages received are a certain number of consecutive increase or decrease power messages.
 
Interference reduces the capacity of a site....and this is the real bargain for Operators is...and a nightmare for optimization engineers...

 ./bernard


On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 11:21 AM, 


Andrew Wafula <awafula@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,

I have actually done non-scientific tests using 3G and found that the power control algorithms on Safaricom's 3G network are either not working or the feature isn't enabled. I did this test with a friend. We used a 3G phone heavily on the Safaricom network and used the same phone on Vodacom SA and also Vodafone Germany networks doing the sane amount of data and surfing while on 3G. It was unscientific so don't expect graphs and data rates and all.
However, we discovered that the battery only lasted 1 day on Safaricom but between 3 and 4 days on the other networks. So we figured that the power control algorithms were not optimised. In the end, I downloaded some software and run it on a Nokia N97 to check the power consumption levels while on 3G and the app shows it is quite high.
So, as much as 3G drains a lot of battery power, in Safaricom's case, it is even worse because the power control algorithms are not implemented/optimized well on their 3G equipment.

Regards,

======================
Andrew Wafula Wapakala
Web: www.wertsoft.com
MSN: a_wafula@hotmail.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/awafula
Blog: http://thewert.blogspot.com/
==========================================================================
If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for you... you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford
"Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People"



On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Eliud Ngugi <elkingsparxxes@gmail.com> wrote:
I have the Vodafone 845 and its also a battery drainer, have to charge
it everyday. turning off background data service extends the battery a
bit.

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 11:01 AM, Allan <allayy@gmail.com> wrote:
> So is this fact or fiction...or some of those things competition churns from
> the rumor mill?
>
>
>
>
> Dont drink and type :-)
>
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 10:56 AM, Dennis Kioko <dmbuvi@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> heavy usage  = 3G/Wifi+Gmail+Twitter+FB+Google Talk+Music player
>> even when you disable this when you are not using them, its pretty much a
>> drainer
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