Xperia U update solves network issues; Xperias P, Go and Sola also due fixes

Sony is pushing out another Android 2.3 Gingerbread-based firmware update for its leading entry-level handset, the Xperia U, according to reports. Forum posts indicate that the new version 6.0.B.3.184 is now starting to appear on Xperia U handsets across Europe. According to XperiaBlog, that same firmware has also been certified for the Xperia P, Xperia Go and Xperia Sola, which use the same ST Ericsson NovaThor chip.

In a post on the company’s official community forum, a Sony Xperia rep indicated that the new updates had been put out to fix networking issues with these phones.

We have received isolated consumer complaints about network selection issues for the products Xperia™ U, Xperia™ P, Xperia™ sola and Xperia™ go in connection with Android 2.3.7 SW version 6.0.B.3.162, successfully resolved by re-starting the phone.

Further optimizations of the network selection procedures were made and affected consumers are recommended to upgrade their handset SW to a new Android 2.3.7 SW version to be available from early August onwards.

So hopefully this update fixes any issues that Xperia P, U, Sola and Go owners may have been experiencing. And with this bug fix out of the way, we’re sure they’ll be hoping for a swift update to ICS later this quarter.

Source: XperiaBlog, XDA, Sony community forum

O2 proactively offering users compensation for 24-hour network outage

Last week, O2 in the UK suffered some serious downtime that lasted approximately 24 hours affecting many users of their network. With O2 now back up and running tiptop, O2 is looking to clean up the mess and make good with those affected by the outage by offering some compensation. As noted on their blog and through text messages being sent out, the compensation will work out to three days of service:

• Pay Monthly customers will receive 10% off their July subscription which will be applied on their September bill, which is equivalent to 3 days back


• Pay & Go customers will receive 10% extra on their first top-up in September - (These will be applied automatically - you don't need to do anything to activate them)


• Customers will get the following message - O2: We're really sorry for the network disruption last week. As a goodwill gesture, we're taking 10% off your subscription, to be applied in Sept. And to say thanks for bearing with us, from 1 Sept we're giving you £10 to spend in any O2 shop through Priority Moments. Find out more at http://blog.o2.co.uk

It's never a good thing when your network goes down and it affects millions of users but it is a good thing to go ahead and proactively offer those affected some compensation for the downtime. It's not all that often that a company wants to give money back so, good on O2 for making it happen.

Source: O2

Sprint's LTE network starting to fire up ahead of the official July 15 launch

We already knew that the Sprint LTE network was due to fire up on July 15 in selected markets, but it seems as though it's already starting to be seen across those lucky cities. 

According to various different reports in the Android Central forums, Sprint users are starting to see LTE data in cities slated for tomorrows turn on. We've got threads stating that LTE has been turned on in San Antonio, Dallas, Atlanta, Kansas City and Houston, all the cities we were expecting to see fired up tomorrow. 

If you're seeing LTE yourselves, why not let us know down in the comments below, or head on over to the Android Central forums and join in the discussion.

More: Android Central Forums

Checking network connection and performing operation in Thread

My this post is related to checking network connection  and how to handle if network connection is not available to make our application more responsive. Later on we will learn how to perform time taking operation in separate thread if connection is present.

First of all we two permission if your are checking wifi connection then you need one extra permission

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />

If you want to check connection on click of particular button you can  call this function inside click listener of button

public void ahmadNetworkHanlder() {
   ConnectivityManager connMgr = (ConnectivityManager) 
        getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
    NetworkInfo networkInfo = connMgr.getActiveNetworkInfo();
    if (networkInfo != null && networkInfo.isConnected()) {
        // fetch data here as network is availble
    } else {
        // display error dialog to notify user ,connection is not present
    }
}

Now consider case, Network is available. Use one asynchronous task to perform network operation like downloading data

public class AhmadActivity extends Activity {
    private static final String DEBUG_TAG = "AhmadHttp";
    private EditText urlText;
    private TextView textView;
    
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);   
        urlText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.myUrl);
        textView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.myText);
    }
 // Call this method on Click of A button                                                                                                                                       public void ahmadNetworkHandler() {
        // Gets the URL from the UI's text field.
        String stringUrl = urlText.getText().toString();
        ConnectivityManager connMgr = (ConnectivityManager) 
            getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
        NetworkInfo networkInfo = connMgr.getActiveNetworkInfo();
        if (networkInfo != null && networkInfo.isConnected()) {
            new DownloadWebpageText().execute(stringUrl);
        } else {
            textView.setText("No network connection available.");
        }
    }                                                                                 /* Here we take thread to down load image etc

     private class DownloadWebpageText extends AsyncTask {
        @Override
        protected String doInBackground(String... urls) {
              
            // params comes from the execute() call: params[0] is the url.
            try {
                return downloadUrl(urls[0]);
            } catch (IOException e) {
                return "Unable to retrieve web page. URL may be invalid.";
            }
        }
        // onPostExecute displays the results of the AsyncTask.
        @Override
        protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
            textView.setText(result);
       }
    }
}

Now we almost complete our task. Just we need to create a function that will handle download from url. So here is the final function

/* we pass the url from asynchronous task */
                                                                                     private String downloadUrl(String myurl) throws IOException {
    InputStream is = null;
     int len = 500;
    try {
        URL url = new URL(myurl);
        HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        conn.setReadTimeout(10000 /* milliseconds */);
        conn.setConnectTimeout(15000 /* milliseconds */);
        conn.setRequestMethod("GET");
        conn.setDoInput(true);
        // Starts the query
        conn.connect();
        int response = conn.getResponseCode();
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "The response is: " + response);
        is = conn.getInputStream();

        // Convert the InputStream into a string See this Link
        String contentAsString = readIt(is, len);
        return contentAsString;
        
    // Makes sure that the InputStream is closed after the app is
    // finished using it.
    } finally {
        if (is != null) {
            is.close();
        } 
    }
}

So its done. Now you have string response you can do anything what your requirement tell you to do. 

converting InputStream to string

We are very much aware about InputStream. InputStream is to  read to content from file or URL. If we handle file then we used FileInputStream and while reading from a URL, we used InputStream.

InputStream is a readable source of bytes. Once you get an InputStream it's common to decode or convert it into a target data type. For example, if you were downloading image data, you might decode and display it directly Read this post to know how to convert input stream to bitmap See How to convert InputStream to bitmap. But if we want to convert InputStream to string then we need to read it line by line like given code

// Reads an InputStream and converts it to a String.
public String readIt(InputStream stream, int len) throws IOException, UnsupportedEncodingException {
    Reader reader = null;
    reader = new InputStreamReader(stream, "UTF-8");        
    char[] buffer = new char[len];
    reader.read(buffer);
    return new String(buffer);
}

Every major UK network will carry the Samsung Galaxy S III

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Following yesterday's Galaxy S III announcement in London, we some initial announcements from UK retailers and mobile networks, indicating broad availability for Samsung's new flagship phone when it arrives in late May. And today we have confirmation that the Galaxy S III will indeed ship on every major mobile network in the country, just like the HTC One S and One X before it. T-Mobile, Orange, Three, Vodafone and O2 have all done their official announcements, and many plan to stock it from May 30 (which leads us to believe that availability on the 29th may be limited to be select few stores.)

As we reported yesterday, Vodafone will exclusively offer the 32GB version in the UK for a limited time. Everyone else will get the 16GB variant.

O2 and Carphone Warehouse even have the first details of on-contract pricing. Carphone's offering the S III for free on £36-per-month plans from Vodafone and Orange, both of which offer 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB. Cheaper monthly plans are also available, if you're willing to pay an up-front fee. And for those wanting to order through O2, on-contract prices range from free to £299.99. If you want the handset without any up-front fee, you'll have to stump up £46 per month, which'll get you unlimited minutes, umlimited texts and 1GB.

SIM-free prices, it seems, will float around the £500-550 mark -- according to Clove Technology and Carphone Warehouse -- which comes close to matching the November launch price of the Galaxy Nexus. However, this price point also makes the Galaxy S III a little more expensive than its main competitor, the HTC One X.

Are you thinking about dropping some cash on a shiny new Galaxy S III when it lands on May 29? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

Source: O2, Clove Technology, Carphone Warehouse

Sprint Galaxy Nexus getting an update to fix network issues

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Well, would you look at that. The Sprint Galaxy Nexus (see our initial hands-on) is getting a software update to fix some network issues. The carrier says it should get pushed to all devices in the next day or so, at which time you'll have fixes for:

• Device not connecting to data services after activation
• Device not displaying correct network time after activation
• And an update to Google Wallet

And now's a great time to remind folks that this update, which brings the phone to Android 4.0.4, Build FD02, has absolutely nothing to do with the Verizon Galaxy Nexus languishing on Android 4.0.2. (The horror!) That's not going to stop anyone from complaining (nor does it change the fact that Nexus phones are supposed to be updated early and often), but we feel better having said it.

Source: Sprint

Rogers LTE network now live in Calgary and Halifax

Over the past few months, Rogers has been rapidly deploying LTE throughout Canada and today, they've gone ahead and announced two new regions that are LTE enabled. The cities of Halifax and Calgary are the latest additions to Rogers LTE offerings.

“We’re thrilled to offer our LTE network to even more Canadians in the east and the west,” said John Boynton, Rogers Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. “Now, Calgarians and Haligonians can enjoy the benefits of speeds on their mobile devices comparable to what they would get at home. And, they can do it on an LTE network that is Canada’s fastest and largest for a robust and reliable experience.”

Given that I personally live in Halifax, I find this to be great news but even better then the addition of LTE is the fact that Rogers will also soon be adding the HTC One X to their device lineup. This will of course build on their already existing LTE device offerings such as the HTC Raider, Samsung Galaxy S II LTE and the Samsung Galaxy Note. You can check out the full press release past the break.

Source: Rogers

Everything Everywhere Gearing Up To Launch A 4G LTE Network In The UK This Year?

Everything Everywhere Gearing Up To Launch A 4G LTE Network In The UK This Year?
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Everything Everywhere, the result of the merger with T-Mobile UK and Orange UK several years back have officially announced their plans to get 4G LTE to the masses some time this year.  As long as they can jump through all the hurdles of the regulatory side of things, that is, folks in the UK could be experiencing some faster speeds on their devices by year’s end. The carrier has already trialed LTE on their 800 MHz in rural Cornwall and they plan on trialing some more on the 1800 MHz spectrum as well.

Only time will tell if the carrier is officially able to launch 4G LTE speeds this year, especially since the UK 4G LTE spectrum auction has been experiencing some delays and legal challenges when it comes to dividing the 800 MHz and 2600 MHz bands among the four major operators.  Everything Everywhere is currently a step ahead of the game however, in that it’s currently testing LTE on its existing 1800 MHz 2G spectrum.  Three UK, O2 and Vodafone, patiently await the final outcome of the decision for the division of the 800 MHz spectrum which is also used for analog TV signals, in addition to the 2600 MHz bands.  They’re just waiting on word from Ofcom for the official approval to use the spectrum for LTE.  Using LTE on the 1800 MHz could possibly prove to be more ideal and a happy medium between the 800 MHz and 2600 MHz spectrums due to its wider range of coverage and greater signal concentration.

Again, stay tuned to TA as we continue to provide coverage on the UK 4G LTE roll-out because even though Everything Everywhere has made an official announcement, most of us know how long it can take to officially roll-out a new network.  In addition, equipment in the field will require major upgrades as well as handsets will need to be created for the new services to work with.  At this point, the only major thing that can slow the carrier down would be having to wait on Ofcom for an official decision.  Otherwise, the company could easily land itself in the spotlight as the first major carrier to bring real 4G to the UK.  In the meantime, users will have to settle for HSPA+ 21 with 42 Mbps trials underway.  Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below.

source: Everything Everywhere

» See more articles by Joe Sirianni

Categorized as Android Carriers, Android News

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Posts Related Everything Everywhere Gearing Up To Launch A 4G LTE Network In The UK This Year?:

[Quick Look] Network Monitor Mini Is A Small, Unobtrusive App That Monitors Bandwidth In Real-Time

There are many reasons why you may need to keep an eye on what's going with your bandwidth at any given moment, especially while on a cell network. Perhaps you need to monitor a download that's going on in the background, or maybe you just need to make sure that no apps are hogging data without permission. Whatever the reason, if you've been searching for an easy to way to address this issue, we've found the solution: Network Monitor Mini.

Network Monitor Mini is one of the simplest, yet most useful apps we've ever used - it displays both upload and download speeds on the screen at all times. it sounds like it could be obtrusive, but it's so minimal, you barely notice it's there (unless you look directly at it, of course).

 

See it there? It's up in the top right corner - just a small, convenient little monitor. Of course, it doesn't have to be in the top right corner - you have the option of placing it in any of the four corners. It also has four color choices, including white, green, blue, and yellow; there is even an option to change the transparency of the background.

Like I said, it's just an extremely handy app to have installed. It's small, easy to use, provides a decent amount of customization, and, best of all, it's free. Hit the widget to grab it for yourself.

View the original article here