Phone battery life in various places.

[randomness]

One of the things I noticed about my phone was its wildly varying battery life when I traveled. In Boston and most of the Northeast Corridor with T-Mobile, and in Quebec and the Maritimes with Rogers Wireless, my phone needs a charge every few days or so if I don't use it, because it does use some power just to let the network know it exists.

But in Vietnam with MobiFone, I had to charge the thing just about every night. It was annoying. Conversely, in Beijing with China Mobile, I barely had to charge it once a week.

This does speak to the relative power and density of the various installed networks. Or so I'm given to understand. I guess the Vietnamese can't afford more and higher-powered towers, and the Chinese must have towers blanketing the place. You really can get full signal just about anywhere; up on the mountain in Fragrant Hills park, down underground in the subway.

I mentioned this to alexinbeijing, and he talked about how in China you just don't get to object to cell towers the way you do in the States, and that people don't seem to care as much in any case. He gave a very amusing imitation of a Californian objecting to a tower going in nearby, delivered in a whining voice. He's from SF, and it was spot-on.

Comments

[obra.livejournal.com]

Note also that different phones have different power consumption levels when connecting to different bands.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

True. I don't know which bands MobiFone and China Mobile were using.

A couple of minutes with Google, though...

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

...and now I know that GSMWorld.com says that China Mobile operates on 900 and MobiFone on 900 and 1800.

Vietnam Mobile Telecom doesn't give enough information to tell me whether Hanoi is covered by 900, 1800 or both, unfortunately. China Mobile gives a coverage map, but Vietnam Mobile doesn't.

(China Mobile entry: http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/net_cnct.shtml
MobiFone entry: http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/net_vnvm.shtml)

[harajuku-blue-b.livejournal.com]

does voltage matter?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It could, but if it does, it shouldn't make a difference between Vietnam and China, because they're both 220V.

[harajuku-blue-b.livejournal.com]

I thought they have variations
http://www.adoptvietnam.org/travel/electronicsplugs.htm