NTT DoCoMo Asks Google To Limit Android Data Use

An anonymous reader writes "NTT DoCoMo has had enough of Android's effects on its mobile network in Japan. Following a service disruption due to Google's Android VoIP app, the company is now asking Google to look at reducing Android's data use. In particular, the amount of time allowed between control signals being sent either by official apps or 3rd party ones. Typically these occur as often as every 3 minutes, but scale that up to thousands of apps on millions of handsets and you can see the issue DoCoMo has. So, does DoCoMo need to invest more in its infrastructure, or is Android a data hog that needs reining in?"

NTT DoCoMo is the standard gold of mobile networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Having been to Japan, and several locations around the world, I can say with fair certainty that NTT DoCoMo has the best network service I have *ever* seen. It allowed me to measure what is due to the iPhone's failings, and what is due to the network operator's failings. By contrast, in New York, AT&T makes getting signal a game of hide and seek. France stands somewhere in between the depths of AT&T and glory of NTT DoCoMo.

All this to say that if NTT DoCoMo feels Android is unoptimized... than I pretty much take their word for it.

Control signals- NOT Data

[sonicmerlin]

Uh... Control signals have nothing to do with overall data consumption quantities. When you send a text message, you send the 160 or so bytes of data through control signals. The issue here is that Android doesn't control the way its apps try to contact the towers, basically hammering them if they don't respond properly. This issue is one of the reasons Android has massive standby battery drain problems, as detailed in this 300 page xda thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809 [xda-developers.com]

The galaxy nexus has its own 100+ page thread dedicated to battery drain on standby.

Re:Both

[Omnifarious]

I agree. But I would add one more thing...

Perhaps Google could come up with a standard for pushing all these control signals and keep alives through a single gateway. That way apps could piggyback on each other to reduce traffic.

I must have at least 5 different ways to asynchronously receive messages on my phone. I would love a way to combine the traffic for all of these down to something small. Especially if (and I realize I'm an extremely rare case for wanting this) I could redirect it through a web app or something running on my server at home.

It's like how almost every social website grows some form of instant messaging that's relayed through the website's servers. Why can't they all just use Jabber and be done with it?

A little less vague?

[vlm]

So I've got one of them gen-u-ine android phones. Which apps are supposedly hammering the network?

My guess is the GOOG latitude GPS plotting thingy must be updating fairly often. So in the big list of blacklisted apps, I've got one "i donno maybe guess".

This is important to me because my batteries life is very short... Enabling latitude position tracking thingy meant my battery died in about 10 hours (which is an issue for a guy who works 10 hour shift bracketed by a modest commute), so I shut it off, gaining me at least 6 more hours, making it very easy not go thru a working day without charging. I wonder if I disable "something else" if I'll magically gain yet another 6 hours... or more...

Re:NTT DoCoMo is the standard gold of mobile netwo

[interval1066]

So what? The world is heading to MORE digital data usage, not less, that's a fact. And the prices for use are going to drop, that's also a fact. Maybe NTT DoCoMo needs to up their capacity, not worry about throttling it so much. Words all providers need to take to heart.

Re:NTT DoCoMo is the standard gold of mobile netwo

[tlhIngan]

I live in NYC and rarely have any problems getting a signal on AT&T. Actually getting any data or calls to my phone over that signal, however, is a distinct challenge. ;-)

I often experience dropped calls and slow data rates while my phone happily shows "5 bars" of signal.

That's because AT&T is suffering from the same problem NTT DoCoMo is suffering from - control channel congestion. You're getting 5 bars alright, but the big problem is stuff like dialing and establishing data connections consume control channel bandwidth. Dropped calls happen because your phone's trying to switch towers and can't because it can't get a word in edgewise on the control channel.

Slow data ditto - the phone on 3G needs to establish multiple PDP data sessions to get 3G speeds, and if it can't talk to the tower because the control channel is busy, well, it suffers.

Control channel congestion (caused by all this plus texting) is why AT&T service can be horrible, despite having plenty of free channels available for data and voice. It's what took T-mobile down once (a bad IM app overloaded the control channel).

Think of it as the old-timey POTS phone days where you lifted the handset and told the operator who you wanted to talk to. And now have lots of people do the same and the operator's now overloaded trying to establish and tear down connections, leading to phone calls not going through, the operator not responding to you, etc.