Turning off data roaming if abroad

[OBones]

Hello all,

Is there a way with Tasker to detect in which country the current cell
is located and if it is not in a given country, then turn off data
roaming.
Ok, most of you will say that I should turn it off permanently because
it'll only turn on if I'm actually abroad, but that's ignoring the
current situation in France:
A new operator has started operating in late January and while his
network is not fully deployed he has a roaming agreement with a
competitor. This means that users of this new operator must turn on
data roaming if they want 3G data when they are not in a zone covered
by the new operator.
This seems a bit crazy to go to this new operator, but hey, it is at
least 50% cheaper to use that new coming guy so about 60% of French
users are going to migrate to him.

But until that new operator has deployed a network covering the whole
of France (by 2015), I would like to be able to turn off data roaming
if the current cell is not in France.
Or, alternatively, I would like to turn off data roaming if the
current cell belongs neither to the new operator nor to the competitor
that has the agreement.

Is this at all possible with Tasker?
If yes, how?

[nanobrain]

Look at this thread:

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/tasker/t3nwRtYhUI0/discussion

[Matt R]

Hmmm ... I don't think there's any way Tasker can "force" the provider selection.  Maybe with some outside script that Tasker could run, but I can't think of any built-in function that can do that.  I think the best Tasker could do would be to alert you (vibrate/ring/popup/etc.) when the provider changes to something other than your Swiss provider.  Then you could manually fix it.  Tasker should even be able to launch the correct settings page for you so it would be relatively easy to unlock the phone, toggle the provider, and turn the phone back off. 

 

Matt

[Tiago]

Cheers for your feedback. Quite disappointed with that though as I find this immensly annoying and haven't found a solution for it leading to some ridiculous bills for roaming just to get a call at home. If anyone else has ideas I'm willing on having other ideas, but thanks a lot Matt for your input.

[Matt R]

Alternatively, if you're most concerned about it costing you money, you could have the phone go into airplane mode when the provider changes to one you don't want to use (when %TNET ~ BadProviderName). Then maybe after 10 minutes or something turn airplane mode off and recheck the provider.

Matt

[Oon-Ee Ng]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 1:56 AM, Matt R <matthew.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Alternatively, if you're most concerned about it costing you money, you could have the phone go into airplane mode when the provider changes to one you don't want to use (when %TNET ~ BadProviderName). Then maybe after 10 minutes or something turn airplane mode off and recheck the provider.
>
> Matt

Sounds like that would be a battery killer while overseas though.
Basically a 10+sec (I assume that's the minimum time taken to
associate with a provider, depends on network I guess) wake-up every
10 minutes =)

[Tiago]

Yeah I could see that as being an issue. Was really hoping tasker would be able to sort that out. Thanks for the advice though

[Matt R]

Not sure I understand.  By overseas, do you mean a place where you plan to be roaming?  Then you would just disable this profile, wouldn't you?  I thought this was a fix for a specific location (near Tiago's home), so attaching this to a location profile would mean it wouldn't activate elsewhere.  And with the phone in airplane mode for 10 minutes (or however many minutes desired), it seems like that would offset any battery use by waking up for 10 seconds.

 

Matt

[Tiago]

Yes you are right, would only be at home, which is where I have the problem. Could have the condition to be linked with my personal WiFi at home which is always on when I'm both home and awake. It isn't ideal (ie it doesn't prevent roaming for calls which is awkwardly lacking on android in the first place) but I decent work around.

Tiago

[Matt R]

If it was in airplane mode, that would prevent roaming phone calls.  That would prevent all phone calls!  But, it also means you could miss phone calls while in airplane mode.

 

Matt

[nanobrain]

Not sure if this will help, but under Wireless and Networks > Mobile Networks> Network Operators (might be different on your device, this is on an SGS III) can't you just select your Swiss operator manually? I think the default is to select the provider automatically, thus the roaming.

[Rarry]

Good point, and also my phone there's a setting under 'roaming' for 'National roaming only' which should have the same effect?

[Tiago]

I have a Nexus one, and I can stop data roaming but there is no way to set it to stick it to one provider, if not that would be my default and could probably be able to do it on tasker if that was an option. That option only works for data roaming unfortunately.

[Tiago]

It just occurred to me that there might be an app which would be able to do that but can't find one that makes the phone stick to one operator. If so I could have tasker turn that function on in that app once I was back at home. Any ideas on an app that would enable this. Find it amazing android (at least my nexus one) doesn't have the option of not changing providers. Esp that with my network I would not be worried about missing calls as I get an SMS informing me of missed calls.

[Coeos]

very old thread but in case someone still runs into this issue today: You can force Android to stay on a network (at least on my version) by doing a network scan and then selecting your preferred network. It won't connect to another provider unless you manually choose another provider, or you select "choose automatically" again. The downside is that is that when you lose your signal, doing a new search takes around a minute. I've therefore stayed on automatic selection and programmed it so that tasker does a new search (toggle airplane mode) whenever I'm roaming and I'm in a place (like work/home...) where I know I can get my preferred provider. Happy to hear if someone found a better solution.