Strange nasty unwanted behavior of the Lucky Mobile network

[tim_zhao_tim]

Yesterday I switched to the Lucky Mobile from PM, attracted by its unlimited data offer. But as soon as I put in the LM SIM card into the phone, I found I am in for a big nasty undocumented and definitely unwanted behavior from its network. I really regretted my decision. I want to go back to PM.

My phone is Android v5 Lollipop. I do not turn the mobile data on all the time. I only turn it on when I need the data. But I found that, under LM's network, "3g" is always being displayed in the notification area, even when I turn off the mobile data, and in the bottom of the phone screen, I see a pair of "Send Data" & "Close Channel" being displayed alternatively ALL THE TIME, probably meaning some data traffic occurring in the background constantly. (I turn on "Restrict background application traffic". But still the same issue.)

Is LM sneakily stealing my data? How can it be when I specifically turn off mobile data? Can the phone manufacturer deliberately leave a back-door here and only let the carriers know it? My phone has no virus, because when I was with PM, there is no such behavior - as soon as I turn off mobile data, "3g" immediately disappears from the screen, and never sneakily comes back by itself. PM is honest in this aspect.

This sinister behavior has another problem, I think. It forces my phone to always be in the active status, never allowing my phone to enter into sleep/idle state, thus causing great damage to the battery.

Do phone manufacturers and Lucky Mobile deliberately set up this behavior, to steal my data, and to derive perverse pleasure by damaging my phone battery?

[Korth]

Google services APIs - Google Play, Google Play Protection, Google Play Services, Google Services, Google Store, Google Launcher, Google Voice, etc - are embedded and asserted (and "secured") at the highest privilege level. Above the user and OS, they ignore user-level commands, settings, and apps with utter impunity.

(Unless the user "breaks" these things by rooting or modding the firmware. Which would definitely allow the data activity/icon to be disabled.) 

[brid0nca]

---

@madhi19 wrote:

---

@brid0nca wrote:
I would be more apt to blame that on your phone. No carrier can turn on and off your data. Your phone has to do it. That is not to say all carriers behave the same way on each phone. And bluntly, Android 5 is as buggy as hell! An app I used for lucky Mobile was Glasswire, to monitor my data. It gave me a good idea what was sucking my data. Google play services is a rather parasitic app, it turns out.

---

Even with "unlimited" data you should turn off automatic update on mobile. It's better to use wifi for that at least during the real speed version of "unlimited".

---

I was not updating google play services. Upon boot up, google play services needs probably 2 megabytes or so of data to do whatever it does. With a 128 kbit cap, that take a while, longer if you trying to do something else at the same time. It is an easy enough solution, use wifi upon boot up, and when google play services does it's thing, switch back to 128kps data.

[Korth]

The two SIM cards might contain different network-set action flags. The device does periodically ping and send data packets to the network regardless whether user Data Setting is enabled or disabled - always - and the device behaves the same way regardless which SIM card or network is involved. But apparently Lucky is deliberately enabling the "3G" flag or Public is deliberately disabling it, one of them must br overriding the default bit flag setting, lol, and the people who configure all these sorts of things likely have differing ideas/guidelines/directives about exactly where to draw the line between technical minutiae and blissful consumer friendliness. A quirky cosmetic status indicator which is basically meaningless and safely ignored.

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/telephony/CarrierConfigManager

(Although I agree it's likely background apps, settings, or malware. Perhaps your phone OS retains different profiles for each SIM card and you need to go through all of your Settings from top to bottom each time you insert a new SIM card because they've all defaulted again. Common behaviour when Settings are stored on the SI.M card itself. If so then you can't blame Lucky and can't blame Public but can blame your Android.) 

[madhi19]

---

@brid0nca wrote:
I would be more apt to blame that on your phone. No carrier can turn on and off your data. Your phone has to do it. That is not to say all carriers behave the same way on each phone. And bluntly, Android 5 is as buggy as hell! An app I used for lucky Mobile was Glasswire, to monitor my data. It gave me a good idea what was sucking my data. Google play services is a rather parasitic app, it turns out.

---

Even with "unlimited" data you should turn off automatic update on mobile. It's better to use wifi for that at least during the real speed version of "unlimited".

[sheytoon]

Just get another phone to record a video and share it on YouTube.

[tim_zhao_tim]

I do not know how to catch a screen shot of my phone.

But I found a link below, and I think maybe it is related to my problem. Could people please review and comment?

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-3G-appear-on-my-phone-screen-when-Im-not-using-3G-and-the-WiFi-is-tur...

[sheytoon]

@tim_zhao_tim can you post screenshots or a video to show exactly what is happening?

[blessme4k]

Switch back to Public Mobile. This community actually responds to your questions and we are here to help you. I will personally never leave Public Mobile. It's my home network and I don't plan to leave. The support I get is awesome.

[brid0nca]

I would be more apt to blame that on your phone. No carrier can turn on and off your data. Your phone has to do it. That is not to say all carriers behave the same way on each phone. And bluntly, Android 5 is as buggy as hell! An app I used for lucky Mobile was Glasswire, to monitor my data. It gave me a good idea what was sucking my data. Google play services is a rather parasitic app, it turns out.

[tim_zhao_tim]

There was no such behaviour the day before yesterday when I was still with PM. Then it suddenly came up yesterday after I put in the LM SIM card. So I suspect it must be LM's network specific (and deliberate?) behaviour.

[frankieshi]

Since you are in LM already, why don't you stay in LM for 1 month to see what happen?

[Xian-ZhenZhen]

Have you also checked the setting of each of your apps? Any new apps that have been recently updated or downloaded? Some apps such as Instagram will turn on your phone to use the microphone .... go through each app to turn off settings which let it automatically use data such as location service and data. 

[geopublic]

@tim_zhao_tim  It could be the unlimited data option kicking in 128kbps. In any event check your usage history to see what's happening.

[tim_zhao_tim]

But why no such (unwanted) behaviour when I was with PM?

[will13am]

@tim_zhao_tim, Lucky is not being sneaky.  They cannot force your phone to consume data, no carrier can do that.  What is probably happening is some sort of sync feature that was running in the background.

[GR · Accepted solution]

@tim_zhao_tim im not sure about lucky's practice with data but if you want to come back to public mobile you just have to go buy a new Sim card and use a different email than you had on your old account and then set up a new account and port your number back in!  Don't forget a refferal code to get the 10$ or 20$ credit on your new account!