[maemo-developers] How to detect that connectivity is lost

[From: Frantisek Dufka]

Kalle Valo wrote:
> "Frantisek Dufka" <dufkaf at seznam.cz> writes:
> 
>>> What about the connection strength from ConIc StatisticsEvent [1]?
>>> Maybe he can use it after some experimentation to find the lowest
>>> acceptable level.
>> Or maybe simple shell script pinging your default gateway in regular
>> intervals could bring the connection down via dbus-send if no packet
>> got through. This should be more failproof than guessing from signal
>> strenght.
> 
> Please do not do that, it would drain the battery in no time. For
> devices like 770 and N800 data transmission has to be kept in minimum
> in order to preserve energy. These kind of issues need to be fixed in
> lower levels, where it's much more energy efficient.

What I suggested was a workaround not solution, that's true. By pinging 
in regular intervals I mean using ping to send let's say 5 or 10 packets 
(ping -c 10) and then sleep e.g. 15 seconds. I did not mean pinging 
default gateway continuously.

I'm not sure you can solve this on lower levels completely without doing 
the same i.e. sending data to check they got through and back.

If you don't do this it will be too late for some situations. When you 
actually send data that matter and find the connection is dead, you need 
to reconnect and retry, which is not ideal.

So it is compromise between battery power and comfort (i.e. high chance 
of having connection ready when you really need it).

Frantisek