Help 3G still being used while I'm on WIFI?

[King Stampede]

When I first got my Captivate and turned on WIFI the WIFI symbol would pop up and take the place of the 3G symbol at the top but lately I've noticed that when I turn on the WIFI both symbols remain at the top.

I have the unlimited data plan so using up data is not a problem for me. I'm just worried about battery life. Is my phone using both at the same time? Is that even possible? How do I go about fixing this?

 

[vinunleaded]

the 3G symbol means your phone is connected to a 3G tower (voice and data). It should remain on there even if you are connected to WIFI. Once you are on WIFI though, your phone will always try to draw data from WIFI no matter what. Even if you disconnect your internet from the wireless router. You will see that the phone will not draw data at all even with the 3G symbol on.

 

[King Stampede]

the 3G symbol means your phone is connected to a 3G tower (voice and data). It should remain on there even if you are connected to WIFI. Once you are on WIFI though, your phone will always try to draw data from WIFI no matter what. Even if you disconnect your internet from the wireless router. You will see that the phone will not draw data at all even with the 3G symbol on.

Oh Ok! Thank you!

 

[Andy87]

My phone is having a similar problem... With the 3G connected and icon showing on the top of my screen... everything is fine... but when I connect to wifi, the 3G icon remains and even when the wifi is connected.

The problem is in order to use wifi I have to manually disable the 3G data connection using my switchpro widget otherwise my phone still uses the 3G for data! I know the wifi is up and connected because I can ping my phones IP address on the network, but yet my data connection is slow and there is no activity on my access point.

I have the new sprint Sanyo Zio running Android 2.1. I did just update to the latest firmware version 1.008 which "Fixes issue where icons and widgets may disappear from screen when switching between IDs" so I don't understand how that could affect this.

I called sprint and they were clueless. Anybody have any suggestions for this problem.

 

[fldude99]

My 3G symbol also goes away when wifi is connected..not sure if that's the way it should be or not..

It would be nice to see what is the active data connection...on a Nokia device you can go into "active connections" and then there's no doubt

 

[ntdb]

Make sure you all have your Wi-Fi sleep policy set to "never" so that your phone will only use Wi-Fi while connected to it.

Settings->Wireless and network->Wi-Fi settings->Menu->Advanced->Wi-Fi sleep policy

 

[Cuerbo]

I think this is a bug introduced by the last update. I had the same issue before returning my phone. By the way, my iPhone4 removes 3G icon when WiFi is in use, Captivate used to do the same. I would do a speed comparison and see if what you are really using is WiFi and not your 3G connection.

 

[Infinite-t]

Make sure you all have your Wi-Fi sleep policy set to "never" so that your phone will only use Wi-Fi while connected to it.

Settings->Wireless and network->Wi-Fi settings->Menu->Advanced->Wi-Fi sleep policy

This is true, the default setting of the phone is to sleep wifi when the phone sleeps. It is good to change it to never as described above because using 3g instead of wifi uses more battery and there is no need to be using your 3g data quota while connected to wifi.

I havent been running the stock ROM for a while now. But i think it is the same, the 3g will connect briefly even while on wifi so the phone communicates with the 3g network on phone state and location, that is normal.

 

[Stillmatic]

Another good way to keep your phone from using 3G would be to use 3G toggle buttons like the ones that come with "Beautiful Widgets", "Extended Controls", "Switchpro", etc. You could turn off 3G manually and only use it when needed. This is the best way I found to stay within the unfortunate 3G quota limitation set by AT&T plans.

 

[emuneee]

The 3G icon in the notifications bar represents a connected 3G data connection. It should go away once you are connected via WiFi. The only time it should come back is when you are using GPS (and its using wireless networks for location, etc.), sending an MMS, or checking for a Android software update.

In JF6 (shipping firmware), I noticed this was true most of the time. Sometimes, the 3G data connection would remain active after a long GPS session (ie. using navigation). Using JH7 (the first update), this has occured a LOT less. AFAIK I don't remember one time where 3G was active when WiFi was except in the scenarios described above.

Hope this helps.

 

[timbuk2]

I'm not sure I'm convinced of this... I guess the only way I'll know if it's using 3G data is to check the data usage on my account when the bill comes out... doesn't seem to be available on my Online Account. While connected to my home Wi-Fi, I happen to notice that when I connected to the Market or tried to find some Aps, the 3G Icon appeared. At 200 MB I can't afford to go over!
Thanks
Tim

 

[automagrt]

Mine has started showing the 3G icon whenever I have the Market running. This is only since I got the new Market on my phone. I sure hope it's downloading thru Wi-Fi and not using 3G instead.

 

[viny2cool]

thats why i flashed custom rom and got froyo....there is a option is Froyo to stop usage of 3G

but u can still make new blank APN and select it....set it on flight mode and back to normal...it wont take 3G...

 

[fldude99]

The 3G symbol should go away when connected to wifi, but its no biggie if it stays lit. Just download something like 3G watchdog to keep an eye on data use

 

[sremick]

I'm not sure I'm convinced of this... I guess the only way I'll know if it's using 3G data is to check the data usage on my account when the bill comes out... doesn't seem to be available on my Online Account.

The free app AT&T myWireless can give you live stats on your phone.

You can also dial *3282# as if you were dialing a phone #. You'll get a free text message in return.

Both of these are mentioned in the Captivate FAQ:

Data Usage - CapFAQ

 

[reeceamark]

Mine has started showing the 3G icon whenever I have the Market running. This is only since I got the new Market on my phone. I sure hope it's downloading thru Wi-Fi and not using 3G instead.

When my wife received the updated app market on her phone, that's when we started to go over our 200mb data limit. I noticed that whenever we download an app or an app update that the little up and down arrows underneath the 3g symbol would start to flash a brighter white even though we were at home and connected to Wi-Fi!

We've got it set up so that the Wi-Fi Never shuts off, but we're still using up data. To make sure that we're not using Data when downloading apps or updates, we need to go into airplane mode to turn off the 3g, and then manually re-activate the Wi-Fi...which is a PITA.

 

[lisav018]

Has anyone found a solution to this? We're currently having this problem with the HTC Aria on AT&T. My father and I both had this phone until about 3 months ago when I upgraded to an iphone. I never had a problem with data but my father is constantly going over. He increased his data plan and he's still going over. I noticed his phone showing both the 3G and wifi symbols at the same time so I called ATT and they told me that if you're on 3G and using an app, when you go to wifi, you need to manually turn off the 3G, it won't transfer over automatically. I never had to do this with mine. It seems ridiculous.