Do you use WiFi on Diamond?

[Phocas]

Since Pandora will not work with our mobile where do you stream your music from mostly?

[DaveNagy]

I'm going to semi-hijack this thread to ask a related question....

I've only owned my Diamond for a couple days, so I'm a newb. Last night at home I was thinking, "Hmm, maybe I should use WiFi rather than EVDO when I'm home and doing bandwidth-intensive stuff." (I was downloading a podcast at the time.)

So I turned on WiFi and got connected to my home network. My phone radio was still on at that point as well. I went to the DSLReports mobile speedtest site, and got a result of 300kb/sec or so. Typical for EVDO, but very slow for Wifi. (Laptops in my house can typically pull several Mb/sec when connected wirelessly to my router/cable modem.) I then turned off the "Cellular Radio" in my phone. My results didn't seem to change much. This leads to several questions:

1. Does turning off the "Phone" radio turn off data too? That's not ideal since I'd like to be able to make and take calls while using WiFi. But maybe it doesn't work that way.
2. I also saw "Data Connection" listed in TF3D > Settings > Communications, but it was greyed out and seemed to be off already. I thought maybe that was related to a wired active-sync connection or something. Today, it's not greyed out, so maybe I misinterpreted that.
3. Is there a way to tell the phone to use the EVDO connection by default, but to automatically switch over to WiFi when available? (I typically keep WiFi turned off, but I could turn it on when near known hotspots.) Windows Help told me to go to "Manage Existing Connections", and choose "Auto Pick". Sounds great, but I don't see that option where they claim it is. (Start > Settings > Connections (tab) > Connections) I theorize that maybe I don't have more than one connection properly configured yet? Help?

[boomhower]

1. Yes and no. Turning off the phone radio will kill your EVDO connection but not your WIFI. You can turn off the phone and still use wifi. I am not sure if the phone auto-prioritzes using wifi over EVDO so you can turn off the data connection to ensure that you are actually using the wifi.

2. That is you EVDO connection. You can turn it on and off. If the phone radio is turned off you cannot turn it on.

3. See 1., I am not sure. It only takes 10 seconds to do it manually so its not a big deal to me.

Try this. Turn off your data connection but leave the phone and wifi on and run the bandwidth test again and see what you get.

[boomhower]

Since you got me curious I did an impromptu test and if both are connected it will default to the wifi connection automatically. Sounds like you have something else going on. Go ahead and test it with the data connection off and the wifi on and see what happens.

[DaveNagy]

I turned that Data Connection off and then back on again while at work this morning. Weird and scary things happened.

• Initial condition: WiFi off, Data Connection on, phone on. (WiFi will remain off during this experiment)
• I then toggled off the Data Connection.
• Then I went to the weather tab to see if it could still update itself. It could! (Note that both WiFi and Data were shut off at this point. Allegedly.)
• I then went into Opera and tried to open a page. No workie. It just sat there. Not loading.
• I then went back and toggled the Data Connection back on again. Opera was still open, so I told it to refresh that page it couldn't load previously.
• Opera threw a network error of some sort.
• I looked away from the phone for a sec, and the next time I picked it up, (30 seconds later) it was "dead". The screen wouldn't light up, the buttons wouldn't light up. It looked off, but it wouldn't turn on either. A brick.
• I pulled the battery and then replaced it. I was then able to turn on the phone and it booted normally. Opera started working again.

So, yeah. I'm not super anxious to try that again, but I will, because I love you guys. But it's almost midnight, so I'm going to try it tomorrow.

I'm kinda suspecting that it takes a while for any changes you make, (like turning something on or off) to actually take effect. So next time, I'm going to go slooooowly.

[DaveNagy]

Okay, here we go again....

WiFi off, Data on. Mobile speed test says, 219 kbit/sec. Kinda slow, but a fairly typical result. Closing the browser...

WiFi on, Data on. Good solid connection to my wireless access point. Opening Opera. Running another speed test. 1414 kbit/sec. Wow, that's a new record. Could it be that it's using the WiFi? Hard to know. Closing the browser...

WiFi on, Data off. Wait for a while. The "EV" no longer shows on the Today screen, so I think that worked. Called voicemail. That still works. Let's do another speed test: 1984 kbit/sec! Wow, that's just about has to be via WiFi.

Closing browser. WiFi off, Data off. Hmmph, "EV" has shown up again on the Today screen, even though the Communications page still shows the Data Connection as being off. Let's look again. Yep, it still says it's off. Let's try a speed test. Yep, I've definitely still got internet. 221 kbit/sec. Looks like I'm back on EVDO.

I guess the phone automatically re-establishes the EVDO when it needs to? Good idea, I guess, but the fact that the Communications screen does not reflect this worries me a bit. What will happen if I turn it on now, when it's obviously already on? Crash time? Let's find out.

Oh, will you look at that: Now it says Data Connection is turned on. I guess it just takes awhile for the page to sync up with reality.

Anywho, yes, it seems if you turn on WiFi and then turn off Data afterwards, the phone will happily use the WiFi connection.

[sfxc13]

When I am out of the country I turn wifi on and leave the phone radio and data connection off. Get to keep up to date on my email, etc. and have even made a few VoIP calls.

[DaveNagy]

Interesting. Do you make a "special" effort to find wifi hotspots? In your hotel, or perhaps at coffee shops and the like? Or does the phone just latch onto random open networks when it can? (And does the phone alert you when it gets connectivity?)

[sfxc13]

Originally Posted by DaveNagy

Interesting. Do you make a "special" effort to find wifi hotspots? In your hotel, or perhaps at coffee shops and the like? Or does the phone just latch onto random open networks when it can? (And does the phone alert you when it gets connectivity?)

Hotspots (hotel lobby and a few other spots around town.)

Having radio and data off lets you have tons of battery life though so you might be able to leave wifi on for extended periods of time.