No service=horrible battery drain

[Raydee35]

I was at a banquet today and my phone was 100% charged before I left the house. We were in the basement of the restaurant and everyone noticed that we had no cell signal and very spotty 3g or 4g. In two hours my battery went from 100% charged to 45% charged before I finally put the phone in airplane mode and the drain stopped. Is that normal and if so is there a way to fix that so it doesn't happen again?

[Miller6386]

Yeah that is rather normal... Especially if you have a lot of things trying to update all the time.... You can get an app like tasker and set it to shut everything down when the service drops and only check again for service every "X" number of minutes.......

[bsweetness]

Agreed. It's completely normal. When there's weak to no signal, the phone will work hard to try to find a signal, which will drain the battery much faster than normal. And as Miller6386 noted, any apps that are trying to update will add insult to injury as far as the battery drain goes.