E50, Email Retrieval, and Packet Data Connections

D

dollarman

New member
I recently purchased an E50 and am using it on TMobile USA with TMobileWeb. I configured it to connect to an IMAP4 account and automatically retrieve new message headers every 30 minutes. I noticed that the E with the solid arrow lines beneath it are visible under the signal strength indicators all the time. Does that mean that the phone is constantly transmitting? With a retrieval interval of 30 minutes or less, I see this behavior. If I select the every two hours interval, the symbols disappear after the first check. Interestingly, with an interval of 30 minutes or less selected, the phone indicates new messages in as little as 12 seconds from the time they were sent.

Thanks.
 
The arrows mean that a GPRS (if EDGE an 'E' will appear above them) session is connected, but not necessarily traffic is flowing. To see traffic launch the Connection Manager, which shows you the bytes sent/received. In theory you can have multiple connections, but with my E50/T-Mo I've only ever seen one.

My guess is that there's a GPRS timeout internal to the firmware (30mins?); the app is not actually releasing the session, just choosing not to use it. If it gets to be greater than 30mins, then the phone automatically disconnects the session as it doesn't think any app is using it anymore.

I bet the 12 second thing is like "well I'll check email every 10 seconds if there's a connection already there, what the heck I'll use it". If one isn't there, then it just gives up without trying unless it's the timeout period set.
 
I did as you suggested and used the Connection Manager app to monitor things. I saw the connection status as "Conn. (inactive)". Since I have access to the email server, I monitored the phone's IMAP connection on that side. After the first authentication and check, the connection on the server side shows an "idling" status. I think that explains the almost instantaneous notification. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
 
That makes complete sense -- the phone is sending the server the IDLE command (part of the IMAPv4 protocol). The IDLE command means that rather than the client checking for new mail with the server, the server sends new mail notifications down the pipe automatically; it's a clever way of reducing load on both ends of the conversation.

Lemme see if I can dig something up....
http://email.about.com/od/emailbehindthescenes/g/imap_idle.htm

So, now we know that s60v3 supports IDLE, eh?
 
Back
Top