Auto Disconnect Idle GPRS Connection on Windows Mobile Devices
It’s very strange that Windows Mobile Devices have a lot of tweaks abd settings that can be done by modifying registry values. Don’t know why Microsoft didn’t set up any kind of visual interface for doing that. Anyway, today I will share you a very useful trick to enable GPRS connection abort.
Windows mobile devices are used to connect to the Internet when necessary. Especially, if you are using any custom ROMs, there are lots of software that require Internet connection. For example, Weather forecast plugins and time synchronization software, automatic E-mail check and so on. Every time the connection is established, it requires your phone to use a higher frequency (GRPS or 3G connectivity, that depends on your carrier). After your software has performed data exchange, the connection remains unterminated. This means it starts draining your battery and you have to charge it again and again.
The solution is to enable automatic disconnection for all GPRS connections. It won’t affect your working software, as even ICQ keeps sending pings to the server, or some dummy packets to keep connection alive. There is a registry tweak, and let me show you where it is.
I am using Total Commander for Pocket PC to edit my device’s registry. It’s free, but you’re welcome to use any shareware solutions. Open your favorite registry editor and navigate to the following keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\ConnMgr\Planner\Settings\
SuspendResume = GPRS_bye_if_device_off
CacheTime = xxx (where xxx are seconds before auto disconnect)
The first value isn’t so easy to change with Total Commander, that’s why I would suggest you to install a CAB file that will do this for you. Here is the cab that will enable GPRS auto disconnect after 60 seconds of inactivity. Of course, you can change CacheTime parameter to any value you like. I have left it at 300 seconds.
This works perfectly on my Acer S200 and it should save battery of any WM device.