What exactly is APN?

[solorca]

So I downloaded juicedefender which is supposed to help extend your battery life, but it states that it only activates your APN/Wifi for two minutes every 15 to help conserve battery life. What exactly is APN though? Is it related to Wifi? I have found some stuff online, but it's very confusing about what it actually is on my Droid.

Any help is great.

 

[solorca]

Let me google that for you

Maybe you missed the part where I said that I've found things online, but I can't seem to understand the exact definition? Everything is vague or directed toward something else. Or in most cases, the definition is full of other acronyms that don't make a lot of sense.

But hey, thanks for the jackass response.

 

[R1Lover]

Your welcome..... I assumed you had some understanding on what wifi is and how it would relate to apn..... but you have made it clear you don't have a clue.... so in this case apn stands for Access Point Name.

Your choices from google were below... I though it would have been easy

APN= Asian Pacific Network
APN- Assessors Parcel Number
APN= Advanced Practice Nursing

or of course the correct answer in this case

APN= Access Point Name

 

[christim]

Not sure if this helps
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/motorola-milestone/11084-no-connection-internet.html
but this one might give you more info
NathanBlevins.Com - Rooting Your Droid

I'm guessing, but think this is the answer...someone correct me if I am wrong:

Do you have wifi at home? Do you connect your phone to it and use it? What do you connect to? You can see your network plus all your neighbors. You want to connect to your APN because you know the password (and it is the right thing to do).

The real answer to your question is this app you speak of only pings for a network every so often. If you have wifi on and none is in range it will keep looking until it either finds ones and connects....or your battery dies. Less "look around and see if it is there" = longer battery life.

 

[enduser2941]

Why do people have to respond with derogatory responses, not everyone is as savvy as others [cleaned]!

Solorca, I actually had the exact same question, so thank you for your post, however, even though some people did respond kindly, I still have questions, in my knowledge of WIFI is that while I have a WIFI router, as I understand it, this is not the same as an access point, as it is just a router. I was under the impression that an AP was something completely different. I don't have a name on my router, so what would I put in for the name of my router? My device has which is a Samsung Galaxy Note which is on the ATT network, has the APN set to ATT PTA, however, this setting is under Mobile Network Settings, and I normally have Use Packet Data unchecked because I usually don't use ATT's data network. I use my WIFI router at home to connect to the internet on my device. My assumption at this point is that since I have Use Packet Data Unchecked, and the APN set to ATT PTA, this may be why my WIFI continually turns off on it's own because it's trying to ping the APN which is on ATT's network and since I have this unchecked it can't ping the APN and therefore turning off my WIFI adapter? Does this explanation sound correct or is my logic here a little skewed?

I would really appreciate some thoughts on this as I think it would help clear things up for the OP as well as myself!

Thanks!!

Enduser2941

 

[TisMyDroid]

Enduser and solarca, I actually do feel that I am fairly tech savvy but I am not 100% sure what APN refers to. Sure I can tell you what the acronym stands for. That is easy. But purpose, limitations, where it comes from, etc... not so much.

As I understand it, but can't be certain, I think it is the identifying name of the network that your phone connects to for internet use. Prior to giving my router access a name, I could find it and connect to it by recognizing a "# Linksys." Now that I have labeled it, I recognize it as "mylastname linksys." Is that the APN? I think so but not sure.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

 

[enduser2941]

Ahhh Tis, thanks for adding to the post, as it's quite clear that the OP isn't the only person that doesn't understand fully what the APN is. I do not want to hijack the OP's post but thankfully I think my issue may be closer related to the OP's original post as I was thinking that my problem had something to do the app Easy Battery Saver which similar to juicedefender, is being used to help save battery life. I believe however, the OP's topic concludes with an understanding of the APN, where mine kind of takes it from there and would like to know why every few minutes, my wifi turns off, and I am thinking after reading through this and viewing my devices set up that it may have to do with the same thing of trying to ping the APN, it's not getting the reply from the ATT APN because my device does not connect to the ATT Data plan when I am home on my WIFI.

I would like to ask the OP solorca, would you prefer I open my own thread or are you OK with my issue being asked in your thread? I do not want to dilute your thread any further with out your approval, though I think our issues may be related and may learn of each other. Thank you in advance!

 

[tbirdpcb]

So I downloaded juicedefender which is supposed to help extend your battery life, but it states that it only activates your APN/Wifi for two minutes every 15 to help conserve battery life. What exactly is APN though? Is it related to Wifi? I have found some stuff online, but it's very confusing about what it actually is on my Droid.
TY
Any help is great.

APN stands for Access Point Name, a setting on your mobile phone that identifies an external network your phone can access for data (e.g., 3G or 4G Internet service on your phone). For example, wap.voicestream.com is an old APN for T-Mobile and isp.cingular is an APN name for AT&T data modems and netbooks. In this case your speaking of its the network your provider is using for your mobile data connection, not a wifi apn we were talking about. Juice Defender enables this every 15 min. so that you get any emails, mms, facebook notifications etc... As t your mobile connection is shutdowm by JD to conserve your battery.

Typically, your APN is auto-configured or auto-detected for your phone or tablet and you don't need to make any changes to the APN on your device to get data service on your device. Wireless carriers have different pricing for different APNs; switching from one to another can change you from one type of data plan to another, but make a mistake and it can also cause problems and additional charges on your wireless bill, so fiddling with the APN isn't advised. However, there are a few reasons people switch their APNs or modify them:

Examples:

T-Mobile's APN is epc.tmobile.com; AT&T's iPad APN is simply "broadband" (without the quotes), T-Mobile Sidekick APN is hiptop.voicestream.com

The APN settings are not correct (you get error messages like "Could not activate cellular data network. You are not subscribed to a cellular data service"). You have an unlocked phone and want to use it with a different carrier. You're on a prepaid plan and don't want to spend your minutes on mobile data. You're traveling outside of your wireless provider's service area and want to avoid data roaming
charges.