Pinephone seems tobe using 4G data instead of Wifi data

[grump_fiddle_reinstall]

I am outside of the "Glorious EU Data Roaming Area" for the first time since getting my PinePhone

On arriving at my destination I turned off Aeroplane Mode on my PinePhone and connected to the local Wifi network. I did not turn off the cellular connection.

This morning after watching a few videos last night I discovered that my PinePhone appears to have chomped its way through 400 MB of cellular data that is not included in my monthly subscription instead of using data via the Wifi connection.


Has anyone experienced anything similar?

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PS I have now disabled Mobile Network in Settings

[mikehenson]

Same functionality here. I now turn off the mobile data before downloading updates.

Device: PinePhonePro (Daily driver)
OS: DanctNIX Arch with Phosh

[grump_fiddle_reinstall]

Same functionality here. I now turn off the mobile data before downloading updates.

Device: PinePhonePro (Daily driver)
OS: DanctNIX Arch with Phosh

Interesting.

A couple of days later the company I have my plan with sent out an SMS saying that they had had some sort of problem with partners in foreign countries. The credited me with all of the excess data used when I was on holiday.

So I am not sure now if the problems my provider had were the primary cause of the excessive use of cellular data or if it is something to do with PinePhones in general that the cellular connection gets prioritised in certain situations. 

I will keep my eye on it next time I am out of the EU roaming area.

[zetabeta]

i have only used pinephone and pro in home network. but in my experience mobile data toggle works as intended. mobile data toggle is different than mobile network toggle. i use data toggle even in home network areas.

some specific devices, not pinephone, mobile data toggle does not function in full. in reality, mobile data is left on in a background and operating system's firewall prevent data in and out. this may lead to unexpected behavior, like charges. luckily these devices are rare.

[puffchumpy]

Most Linux installs default to IPv6 if available over IPv4 connections. The mobile data connections could be dual stack while the WIFI is just IPv4. The result is IPv6 connections and data are made over mobile instead of IPv4 on Wifi.

No all internet services support IPv6 which leads to mixed results. Debian Repos, Google, Facebook and I guess some streaming services support IPv6. This is a why Mobian and Debian updates will seem to use mobile data while other usages do not.

[zetabeta]

Most Linux installs default to IPv6 if available over IPv4 connections. The mobile data connections could be dual stack while the WIFI is just IPv4. The result is IPv6 connections and data are made over mobile instead of IPv4 on Wifi.

No all internet services support IPv6 which leads to mixed results. Debian Repos, Google, Facebook and I guess some streaming services support IPv6. This is a why Mobian and Debian updates will seem to use mobile data while other usages do not.

that's the case if you do not toggle mobile data switch.

but you could toggle mobile data switch and i recommend to. i do it even in home network.

some devices, like some android, some kaios devices, leave mobile data on even if toggle is off. these devices just firewall mobile data in a way that mobile data is active. hell of nightmare for some cases like roaming. i even heard that iphones have been partially guilty for this.

maybe i test this in pinephone, but i don't think i come to a different conclusion.

[puffchumpy]

The reasons for using a firewall and keeping model data on might be MMS content download. Unless some type of calling over wifi is active, MMS content generally needs to be downloaded via the data connection from the Mobile service server. If mobile data is turned off on a pinephone then MMS content will not be retrieved. Turning on mobile data to down the content and then turning off is probably best while roaming. I wonder if this could be fixed by having the modem firmware download MMS content and provide it to the chat application, SpaceBar or Purple.

The modem stack is using data for 4G voice calls since VoLTE seems to be more like VOIP. 3G voice calls seem to work differently, even if it's really just data in the end. Phones that have an integrated CPU/Modem chip stack might need the firewall rules to enable the VoLTE data calls while limiting the other data usage. The PinePhone modem seems to provide some separation between modem and main OS, so 4G VoLTE calls work without mobile data active.

I would turn off mobile data if I was in a costly mobile data location. I've tried some firewall rules that would be applied based on DBUS networking events, but I didn't get it work as desired yet.