Nokia C3 eating load because of packet data - solution

We got a Nokia C3-00 as a loyalty phone from SUN. It's a great phone for the price, looking like a baby brother of my E71 which remains as one of my favorite phones.

However, since this phone was on a fixed load plan, my partner who is using the phone was horrified that her load was being eaten up for unknown reasons. The reason became clear when I checked out the logs. The phone had been connected to packet data, doing so on its own.

So the first thing we did was call Nokia to ask about the settings. It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I had a hard time navigating the menus and it was then I silently thanked the powers that be, for the usability of android.

After talking to Nokia Care, and setting the various permissions relative to the access point, etc, we were confident that the phone would no longer connect automatically,  So it was to our surprise that the phone continued to eat its load! Thankfully this was not a postpaid line otherwise, I was sure it would rack up thousands of pesos worth of data usage.

The next thing I asked her to do was to call SUN and while the customer support painstakingly went through the settings, the conclusion was that the Nokia people had provided what they deemed to be the proper solution. Hence they were left scratching their heads, while we were also scratching ours.

Despite a huge backlog of work, I could not accept that ME, a tech blogger at that, could not find a solution to this problem.

So I proceeded to attack the problem. Now to the best of my knowledge, I knew that the best way to prevent data charges was through the access point. Some judicious surfing provided me with what appeared to be the answer. I found this on the NOKIA Canada website and so far it seems to be working. The phone is able to access the internet through the WLAN and it has not attempted to connect to packet yet.

My other move was supposed to be creating a dummy APN to ensure that the phone does not attempt to connect behind my back while the WLAN network is unavailable. However, it seems that because the phone is locked to SUN, the settings for the default APN are unavailable to me.

In the meantime, those having the same problems with data usage might want to try the NOKIA solution below:

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How can i use always WLAN connection on my Nokia C3-00 phone for Internet instead of GPRS?

 Select Menu > Settings > Connectivity > WLAN > Available WLANs > Check the WLAN name you wish to connect.

Select Menu > Settings > Configuration >Personal settings  > Add new > Access Point > Write the name of the WLAN access point you check before.
Select Menu > Settings and Configuration > Preferred access point — View the saved access points and choose the preferred WLAN access point.

Menu > Settings > Connectivity > WLAN > Internet Connection :Ask first
you are asked for the connection method every time you open an application that requires an Internet connection such as Browser or Mail.

 *************************************

Cyanogen Mod 7.1.0 RC 1 is here!

Good news for Cyanogen Mod 7 users. The CM7 7.1.0 RC1 is available already. Early reports indicate that it is a very well received version.

If you have ROM Manager installed, it will be available as one of the options under the Cyanogen option.

I installed this last night on my Desire and Desire Z (no I wasn’t overeager, just stumbling all over myself). 

I just wiped the Dalvik cache, not the data and everything is running fine.

You can view the official changelog here:

https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android_vendor_cyanogen/blob/gingerbread/CHANGELOG.mkdn

I’ll post my subjective changelog at a later time, but in the meantime here’s one of the best parts about it: you get the 2.3.4 software so that alone is pretty awesome.

By the way, the whole process took less than 20 minutes and it’s pretty much straightforward.

Here is the link to the main Cyanogen Mod site:

http://www.cyanogenmod.com/

And the link to the 7.1.0 is here:

http://www.cyanogenmod.com/blog/cyanogenmod-7-1-0-rc1

Have fun!

Sidetracked by the Samsung Galaxy 2 and HTC Sensation

SAMSUNG GALAXY S II

 



 

HTC SENSATION

 



 
Forgive me for the delay in posting the buyers guide. I was sidetracked this week by the announcement by two telecom companies about the Samsung Galaxy 2 and the HTC Sensation. I have been waiting for these two phones and now that they are here, I am faced with the unpleasant task of selecting one….for now ;)

A few details:

Globe Telecom announced that it was taking pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy 2. Thankfully, it is available to early birds at a much lower price point, the MySuperSurf 2499 or MySuperPlan 2499. The new MySuperSurf plan looks tailor made for my needs and the price point is fair.
Interested readers can view the Globe page here: 

http://site.globe.com.ph/galaxy_s2?sid=TgQs1MuxpRYAACgdhfYAAAGde


Smart Communications, not wanting to be left behind, also announced the availability of the HTC Sensation for pre-order. The details on the page are a bit skimpy but the price point is a bit higher than the Galaxy 2 which most reviewers consider to be the better machine, though by a small margin. 

The pre-order page states the availability of the HTC Sensation under the Unli Data Plan 3000 which is not as a good a deal as the Globe one. It might be a matter of suppliers because the Sony Xperia Arc is available from Smart under the consumable plan 2500 which should have been par for the HTC Sensation.

Anyway, readers who want to preorder the HTC Sensation OR the HTC Wildfire S can go here: http://smart.com.ph/htc1/


 It's great to see that the telecom companies are getting more into the high end units. However, the plans are starting to get too blown up in proportion and the plans hitting 2500 to 4000 pesos are a bit too much. In my experience, P999 seems to be the sweet spot and 1,500 and 2,500 are acceptable for plans like Sun Cellular's Elite Plans

http://suncellular.com.ph/post_plan_elite.php

Sun Cellular just has to rethink the pricing of the triple unlimited because they appear a bit overpriced as far as the landline service is concerned. The units also have to be rethought because the Sun Elite 2,500 offers the Galaxy Tab as a free phone, but when you consider that the Galaxy 2 is also available at the 2.500 price point from Globe then that is a nearly 10,000 peso difference staring them in the face...


Globe's MySuperSurf is "almost" a really great deal. If they include Super Duo in the deal, it could threaten the dominance of Sun as the value leader.


Competition is always good for the consumer and with the cellular wars starting to heat up again, it looks like the next few months will be good ones for the new phone buyers. 


So the buyers guide is coming next.

Advice For Upgraders From The School Of Hard Knocks : The Desire Z Experience

Being a go-getter is normally a good thing, but one must always keep the saying “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. This applies most specially to gadget junkies who are stumbling all over themselves to unwrap and power on their latest acquisition. In fact, being one of these junkies, I have nothing but the highest admiration for those people who are able to control themselves in order to painstakingly film the unpacking of their newest gadget. 

Such excitement tends accompany the upgrade of the software as well. Because of the internet, upgrading a device requires little more than clicking a link, installing software, downloading the updates and you have the newest software onboard.

The updates are always a good thing right?

Well for a lot of people, it is. But for many others, it can lead them to a harrowing experience like one that I just had. So here’s my story:

When my Desire Z was new, my first impulse was to update it and lucky for me, one was available right off. This is usually the case when you buy a new device because the equipment on the market is usually a few months old and there is likely to be some sort of update in the wings. 

So I updated my DZ and the problem was that it was not so much that there were niggling things in the phone that were bothering me. It's more of I tend to go over the tech sites and forums every day and of course I would be passing some Desire Z specific forums like this: 

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=916431

So I would read about some problems which other people have encountered and even if it was not a problem I was likely to encounter, once I was able to re-create the problem is my machine, it left me hungry for an update to my own device.

So embarrassing as it may be to admit it, I would generally check for updates most of my devices at least three times a week and as usual, once it's released I would be one of the first to apply them to my devices.

http://www.htc.com/sea

The good news is that being able to do so gives me something to write about on this blog. Regular readers will notice that one of the things I usually make it a point to post here have to do with upgrades and updates which I just happened to run into. That's actually a half-truth because I go searching for those updates 

Anyway that was the good news.

The bad news is that if you have such a propensity to update like I do, it would be fine if your intention is to stay with the factory updates. Meaning if it's not an official HTC, Samsung or other manufacturers update then you're not applying it to your phone. However like for my original Desire, there have been conflicting reports about the upgrade to gingerbread and while I was able to update to Froyo already, I've spent the better part of several months waiting for Gingerbread to appear while watching Desire HD owners getting their upgrades. 

Moreover the statements of HTC about the Desire (the Bravo) have not been reassuring regarding the GB release. They are referring to the problem of low memory on the Desire which might lead to the abandoning of the update altogether. So this is what led me to upgrade my Desire to the Cyanogen mod rom which was an eye-opener and has given my Desire an new lease on life. 

However, while the original Desire already had some form of protection against the third party rom installations via the S-ON protection, it was a fairly easy thing to hack. The Desire Z was a totally different story because looking at the wiki on XDA, one would notice that the last two updates where what really sealed the fate for most Desire Z owners that time. 

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=916431

There was one update around December which introduced several patches which provided a higher form of protection against third-party roms and exploits. But some bypass was created by the wizards at XDA, however the 2011 update was such that it made it extremely difficult to bypass the protection in order to root and S-OFF the phone. 

Consequently, anyone who would have taken the time to read the XDA forums about Desire Z would've seen this a warning about not updating to that particular OTA update and saved themselves from unnecessary woe. Of course given my excitement, I did not bother to wait for any feedback from the forum at all and proceeded to apply the update as soon as I saw the notification on the site and on my favorite mobile phone site:

http://www.gsmarena.com/

Little did I know that I was putting my DZ in what would be the equivalent of a maximum security prison. So it was updated to the 1.84 software and to make things worse, the CID on my device was one of those that could not be readily downgraded or S-OFFed.

At that point it looked like I was probably destined to stay with the stock HTC rom for the life my DZ. I was able to take such a fate lightly for the next couple of months but when I went to Cyanogen Mod CM7 and observed my HTC desire getting much better battery life than the Desire Z I began to feel this uncontrollable urge to change my rom. At this point my Desire Z was running 2.2.1 while my original Desire was running 2.3.3 so you can imagine how difficult it was for a compulsive upgrader like myself to be in such a situation.

So there that's when my three-day saga began where I had to alternate between working and researching for the solution to downgrade my Desire Z in order to get root,  after which I was going to upgrade to the latest rom which incorporated the 2.3.3 update.

I went through no less than six gold card creation and countless sessions using ADB trying to push different software to get temporary root in order to get my Desire Z to recognize a lower rom version as the upgrade version. 

However each attempt only ended up in my DZ ignoring the zip file on the SD card which was supposed to provide the update. No amount of tinkering with the files in the SD card could make it recognize the image file. At this point it was now keeping me up at night because I just don't understand why the downgrade wasn't working.

Finally I ran into this tool for Desire Z on the XDA forum which offered to downgrade, S-off, root and change to super CID all in one sweep. Basically all the things I wanted to do to my phone without having to go through ADB!! 

Moreover, the feedback about the tool was most promising but the only problem that confronted me was overwhelming. I must be able to downgrade my software before I could use the tool.

Here is the link to the AMT tool:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1097977

Somehow, in the middle of burning midnight oil, I was able to figure out a solution that utilized AMT and an original factory Asian ROM which I found on XDA too. These two provided the key for me to be able to downgrade my DZ easily.

The procedure went like this:

I used AMT to alter something on the DZ to make it believe that the current rom was a much lower one, a 1.08 to enable me to flash an upgrade which was actually a downgrade to the 1.40 something version. This was the one which would allow AMT to work its magic. So since it was my third day of tinkering with the DZ, I decided to go for broke and said to myself well if it's going to get bricked then so be it. Because I wasn't going to leave this thing hanging over my head much longer. So I fired up AMT, set it up and proceeded to upgrade/downgrade my rom. Thankfully and to my amazement, it was able to go through without a hitch.

It's hard to describe the elation that overcame me when this happened. Finally I was able to proceed and root my device, install an engineering H-boot and remove the S-ON, making it S off. In retrospect, it was an extremely lucky break for me that I was able to find that particular piece of software as well as the rom for the Asian version of my phone. 

The hard earned lesson here is to wait for feedback about updates before applying them to your device. Yes it's exciting to flash all the new updates that's true,  but undergoing 3 days of aggravation trying to look for a solution to undo my hasty upgrade that effectively locked in my phone is certainly not an enjoyable experience. 

So wait for the feedback from reputable forums like XDA and read before doing any updates to your machine. 

For my part, my purpose in this whole exercise was to be able to upgrade my phone which I was able to do. But I had to go through no less than four different roms. 

I ended up with Cyanogen mod 7.03 which is in an AOSP and the story about how I went from wanting to stay with a Sense enabled rom to dispensing with it altogether and going AOSP is one for another day. I'll be posting that story after I am able to put the continuation of my buyers guide to smart phones.

In the meantime gadget junkies, I know it's hard but try to wait it out for at least one week after update is released before flashing the machine. 

That way you will be able to get the feedback from early upgraders and not have to go through their difficulties.