Connect to Internet on demand & disconnect automatically, particularly for GPRS?
 

Hello,

is it somehow possible that internet connections are only established on demand? -> i.e. when email sync starts or the browser launches.
After the task completes, the connection should be automatically closed again.
On my Symbian phone this was the default setting and I liked it.
I do no want to manually connect/disconnect all the time nor a permanent connection.

Thanks,
#9370

Re: internet connection on demand
 

I'd like that too. To be precise i'd like a staged connection, meaning i'm always connected to 2g network for im/mail, if i open an app which needs more bandwidth (browser, netradio, etc...) it first looks for known wifi and if none available connects via 3g. After i close the app it should automaticall switch back to 2g.
That's kinda how i do it now manually to get the most out of the battery and am still online most of the time, but that's kinda invonvenient.

Re: internet connection on demand
 

This used to be the way things worked in Diablo, auto-connect then disconnect after some period of inactivity.

I'd also like this to be a possibility on Fremantle, however I think the designers' idea is that it should always be connected, not sure if we'll be able to do much to change their minds (other than install and use our own program/daemon to monitor network activity and perform the disconnection for us)

Re: internet connection on demand
 

Well at least make it so that if an application you are going to use wants to access the internet, it comes up with 'Establish internet connection' just like S60v5 does.

It is annoying to have to go to connection each time, open the connection and then open the application.

Re: internet connection on demand
 

You can find out when an application starts and stops, by listening to NameOwnerChanged signal on dbus, so it is really easy to use dbus-scripts to start a specific connection when an application starts, and disconnect from network when the application stops. Adding reference counting is less trivial, but not too hard.

For applications that keep running but need to connect only once in a while (such as mail) it is harder, probably needing some ip tricks - have a default route to some dummy interface when not connected, and initiate a real connection when something uses this interface, for example.

Re: internet connection on demand
 

I was in some application (zoutube? evernote mobile?) and when I tried to use it it said that I had to be on the Internet. I knew that, but I am in my house and my WiFi is always on, my setting is Always Connect to WiFi.

So to fix it I opened up a browser or something and it then figured out I was on the Internet and let me run the application!

Re: internet connection on demand
 

There are at least two bugs open to bring back disconnect-on-inactivity. Go vote for one !

Re: internet connection on demand
 

I wonder what would be considered inactivity? It seems like better control is needed over the packet network connection for sure.

But I have IM, RSS, email, weather, sip all wanting to access the internet, and so triggering "activity".

None of these require 3g most of the time. The ideal management tool would allow you to define the networks that each application could run on.

Wifi only, wifi+gsm, wifi+3g. This doesn't seem likely to happen so I would settle for a manual switch between packer data off, packet data gsm only, and packet data 3g (from an icon on the desktop or via status).

Can this be changed from the command line - perhaps via dbus?

Re: internet connection on demand
 

do you have a link for the bugs?

Thanks,
#9370

Re: internet connection on demand
 

Just set the "always ask" in the Internet connection settings and I'll ask you when you start and application that needs to be connected. You'll still need to manually disconnect.