Push EMail Data Transfer

[Guest littlecharva]

Hi,

I've got an Orange SPV M600 and we've recently had our Exchange server at work upgraded so I've taken advantage and routed my email through it.

It works great, but after installing SPB's GPRS Monitor, it turns out that it's using 40Kb per hour - and that's when no emails are actually coming through.

Can this be right? Surely 40Kb is way to much data for just keeping in touch with the server over an hour?

If I had it setup over POP3 and got it to check with the server every five minutes I'd expect it to use 3-4kb per hour.

Can anyone shed any light on my plight here?

Thanks,

Anthony

[Guest Confucious]

Push email has a 'heartbeat' signal which should use 8-12Mb/ month which works out less than 20Kb/hour - but O decreased the time of the heartbeat supposedly to reduce data costs so I would expect less, not more!

But being on T-Mob data traffic doesn't bother me so I've never actually measured, maybe the 8-12Mb/month was only if you have push email on during the day.

[Guest jimbouk]

The way direct push works it should keep trying to extend the time between data pulses to confirm the devices connected state to the server and as a pulse is only 3kb and a "good" IP relationship between a server and a device should allow the heartbeat interval to stretch to 45 minutes or so, then the data trhoughput should only be 3mb per month for average users.

Even if the pulse works at every 15 minutes and you leave directpush on 24/7, your heartbeat data usage should be less than 9mb per month.

1) Who leaves there directpush on 24/7? I use mine for an average of four hours a day

2) If your data usage is a lot higher, then maybe you don't realise that you are not just pulsing but are actually syncing a lot more than you think (everytime you change a contact or appointment for example). Otherwise it may be due to your mobile network having really bad IP connectivity.

Edited July 17, 2007 by jimbouk

[Guest Confucious]

I have mine synching 16 hours a day, luckily bI'm withb T who have sensible data pricing....

[Guest jimbouk]

I am gutted actually. I am one of the few people on the planet who get OWU from O (£8 for 1gb) and only use 40mb per month with all my data usage!

Although the ease of setting up internet sharing with WM6 means I do now use the web on my laptop on trains etc a lot more these days.

[Guest Neil5459]

I use 4Smartphone, which has a 15 minute base heartbeat, and they estimate 4MB per month without actual data transfer, on a 24/7 connection.

With about 10 emails, and 4-5 calendar changes per day, my overall data is about 8-9MB per month.

[Edit- Littlecharva- are you counting kilobits or kilobytes? If kilobits, then 40 per hour equates to about 4MB per month with a 24/7 connection, which is consistent with other services]

[Guest littlecharva]

Hi,

Thanks for all the responses. I'm definitely talking kilobytes, as my bill came through the other day and I'd used 17MB - that's for having my push email setup from 7pm - 7am Mon to Fri and all day on a weekend. I was on the Orange OffPeak data tarrif.

After receiving an email that woke me up at midnight the other night, I realised that it was ridiculous to be syncing over night, so I've switched my tarrif to the £8 for 30MB one - which I had to ring up three times for, as the first two people told me it didn't exist.

After doing this, I discovered something interesting. Yesterday, my data usage was around the 40KB mark during the times it was syncing, except between 9am-3pm when it dropped to around 5KB, then back up to normal.

At first I thought this could be due to us having a patchy reception at our house, but clearly a better one at work - but I was at work until 5:30, so it can't be that.

I'm gonna monitor it over the next week and see how it goes.

Any idea where I should look to sort this out? Could it be a problem with our Exchange server, my phone, or is it more likely to be Orange?

Anthony

[Guest jimbouk]

The frequency of the data pulse is variable. It depends on network conditions. If your phone is sat on your desk, connected to GPRS then the chances are that it is holding on to an IP address and thus pulsing as infrequently as possible.

When you move around and change cells etc, although you won't be changing nodes, I reckon Orange's GPRS network is assigning you a new IP address and your device and the server lose connection and thus pulse more often to set up the connection again.

As previously discussed, its not just an incoming email, but changes you make on your device to your calendar and contacts that will also cause syncs - and thus use data.