One of my 2 SIM cards drains battery of my smartphone. Why and How?

thecoder

thecoder

I've a cheap smartphone (with Android 9 OS) that can hold 2 SIMs. It's for my needs very practical as one can disable/enable and also chose which SIM to use for voice, SMS, data etc. The SIM cards are from different providers here over in f'upd Germany: o2/Telefonica and Telekom; both SIMs are prepaid ones.

If I activate just the o2 SIM then the battery holds about 4 days. If I activate the Telekom SIM then within 3 or so hours the whole battery gets drained and the smartphone shuts off b/c of no power anymore. That latter case happens when either activating just the Telekom SIM or activating both SIMs.

Anybody else has/had such a similar nightmarish experience? What's going on here? How to explain what possibly is going on with this Telekom SIM?

Is this maybe a sign for the bigbrother-surveillance-state coming onto my phone via this Telekom SIM? As said, happens only with this Telekom SIM! And the SIM is functionally OK, ie. is not defect.

Or is this maybe the latest fraud/scam in the world of the mobile providers, practiced by the provider: to force the user not to make much use of the SIM?... :-) Just guessing... :-)
 
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Hello.

It is not the SIM card. These are the networks they use and the distance to the towers. The farther away the tower, the more power it takes from your battery to connect to the farthest towers. The phone discharges faster.

There may be other factors:

1.Mobile technologies differ depending on the operator

2. Localization of networks

3. Use of non-optimized frequencies.

4.How the phone prioritizes signals. Sim 1 or Sim 2.

There is more than this list can cover, but these are th
thecoder said:
I've a cheap smartphone (with Android 9 OS) that can hold 2 SIMs. It's for my needs very practical as one can disable/enable and also chose which SIM to use for voice, SMS, data etc. The SIM cards are from different providers here over in f'upd Germany: o2/Telefonica and Telekom; both SIMs are prepaid ones.

If I activate just the o2 SIM then the battery holds about 4 days. If I activate the Telekom SIM then within 3 or so hours the whole battery gets drained and the smartphone shuts off b/c of no power anymore. That latter case happens when either activating just the Telekom SIM or activating both SIMs.

Anybody else has/had such a similar nightmarish experience? What's going on here? How to explain what possibly is going on with this Telekom SIM?

Is this maybe a sign for the bigbrother-surveillance-state coming onto my phone via this Telekom SIM? As said, happens only with this Telekom SIM! And the SIM is functionally OK, ie. is not defect.

Or is this maybe the latest fraud/scam in the world of the mobile providers, practiced by the provider: to force the user not to make much use of the SIM?... :) Just guessing... :)
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e main factors
 
@trader221, thx, but I think it's the same tower for both providers, ie. same distance, and both providers are 4G (LTE).
Can you recommend/suggest what practically to do in my case to solve this nasty problem?
It's original/default/stock OS, ie. not rooted or so.
 
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It is not the SIM card itself which draws current. Your phone will be in a handshake connection to the phone towers to regularly update your current location. It could be that both providers do this differently. And thus that one provider makes your phone transmit its current position more often, and/or at a higher power setting. Thus creating a larger battery drain. I don't think that you, the end user, can influence this.
 
HobbyTrading said:
It is not the SIM card itself which draws current. Your phone will be in a handshake connection to the phone towers to regularly update your current location. It could be that both providers do this differently. And thus that one provider makes your phone transmit its current position more often, and/or at a higher power setting. Thus creating a larger battery drain. I don't think that you, the end user, can influence this.
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Well that would be the solution then...Just turn off the GPS location services for the phone, yes?
 
Overnight said:
Well that would be the solution then...Just turn off the GPS location services for the phone, yes?
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Hmm. Location Services is already disabled! So that cannot be the reason... :-(
And: as said, it happens also if only the affected SIM is active (and the other SIM inactive).
 
Overnight said:
Well that would be the solution then...Just turn off the GPS location services for the phone, yes?
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No, I'm not referring to GPS.
The mobile phone towers are using a polling system to identify which phone numbers are within their reach. It is this system which is used in case somebody wants to call you and the phone provider needs to know via which tower the connection should be routed.
 
HobbyTrading said:
It is not the SIM card itself which draws current. Your phone will be in a handshake connection to the phone towers to regularly update your current location. It could be that both providers do this differently. And thus that one provider makes your phone transmit its current position more often, and/or at a higher power setting. Thus creating a larger battery drain. I don't think that you, the end user, can influence this.
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If this is true, that sucks. A 4-day battery life and a 3-hour battery life after charging is a huge difference if @thecoder is telling the truth. Why is there such a big difference in technology? Is it because some providers upgraded the technology and some didn't? How can you find out which providers use more power and some use less?
 
JSOP said:
If this is true, that sucks. A 4-day battery life and a 3-hour battery life after charging is a huge difference if @thecoder is telling the truth. Why is there such a big difference in technology? Is it because some providers upgraded the technology and some didn't? How can you find out which providers use more power and some use less?
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Sorry, I'm not sufficiently familiar with how they do that. I can't answer these detailed questions. But I do agree that 4 days and 3 hours is indeed a huge difference
 
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