Detect network connection type on Android

Question

How do you detect the network connection type on Android?

Is it through ConnectivityManager.getActiveNetworkInfo().getType(), and is the answer limited to Wifi and mobile?

Answer 1

If the problem is to find whether the phone's network is connected and fast enough to meet your demands you have to handle all the network types returned by getSubType().

It took me an hour or two to research and write this class to do just exactly that, and I thought I would share it with others that might find it useful.

Here is a Gist of the class, so you can fork it and edited it.

package com.emil.android.util;

import android.content.Context;
import android.net.ConnectivityManager;
import android.net.NetworkInfo;
import android.telephony.TelephonyManager;

/**
 * Check device's network connectivity and speed 
 * @author emil http://stackoverflow.com/users/220710/emil
 *
 */
public class Connectivity {

    /**
     * Get the network info
     * @param context
     * @return
     */
    public static NetworkInfo getNetworkInfo(Context context){
        ConnectivityManager cm = (ConnectivityManager) context.getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
        return cm.getActiveNetworkInfo();
    }

    /**
     * Check if there is any connectivity
     * @param context
     * @return
     */
    public static boolean isConnected(Context context){
        NetworkInfo info = Connectivity.getNetworkInfo(context);
        return (info != null && info.isConnected());
    }

    /**
     * Check if there is any connectivity to a Wifi network
     * @param context
     * @return
     */
    public static boolean isConnectedWifi(Context context){
        NetworkInfo info = Connectivity.getNetworkInfo(context);
        return (info != null && info.isConnected() && info.getType() == ConnectivityManager.TYPE_WIFI);
    }

    /**
     * Check if there is any connectivity to a mobile network
     * @param context
     * @return
     */
    public static boolean isConnectedMobile(Context context){
        NetworkInfo info = Connectivity.getNetworkInfo(context);
        return (info != null && info.isConnected() && info.getType() == ConnectivityManager.TYPE_MOBILE);
    }

    /**
     * Check if there is fast connectivity
     * @param context
     * @return
     */
    public static boolean isConnectedFast(Context context){
        NetworkInfo info = Connectivity.getNetworkInfo(context);
        return (info != null && info.isConnected() && Connectivity.isConnectionFast(info.getType(),info.getSubtype()));
    }

    /**
     * Check if the connection is fast
     * @param type
     * @param subType
     * @return
     */
    public static boolean isConnectionFast(int type, int subType){
        if(type==ConnectivityManager.TYPE_WIFI){
            return true;
        }else if(type==ConnectivityManager.TYPE_MOBILE){
            switch(subType){
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_1xRTT:
                return false; // ~ 50-100 kbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_CDMA:
                return false; // ~ 14-64 kbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EDGE:
                return false; // ~ 50-100 kbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EVDO_0:
                return true; // ~ 400-1000 kbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EVDO_A:
                return true; // ~ 600-1400 kbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_GPRS:
                return false; // ~ 100 kbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSDPA:
                return true; // ~ 2-14 Mbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSPA:
                return true; // ~ 700-1700 kbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSUPA:
                return true; // ~ 1-23 Mbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_UMTS:
                return true; // ~ 400-7000 kbps
            /*
             * Above API level 7, make sure to set android:targetSdkVersion 
             * to appropriate level to use these
             */
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EHRPD: // API level 11 
                return true; // ~ 1-2 Mbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EVDO_B: // API level 9
                return true; // ~ 5 Mbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSPAP: // API level 13
                return true; // ~ 10-20 Mbps
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_IDEN: // API level 8
                return false; // ~25 kbps 
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_LTE: // API level 11
                return true; // ~ 10+ Mbps
            // Unknown
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_UNKNOWN:
            default:
                return false;
            }
        }else{
            return false;
        }
    }

}

Also make sure to add this permission to you AndroidManifest.xml

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

Sources for network speeds include wikipedia & http://3gstore.com/page/78_what_is_evdo_mobile_broadband.html

Answer 2

To get a more precise (and user friendly) information about connection type. You can use this code (derived from a @hide method in TelephonyManager.java).

This method returns a String describing the current connection type.
i.e. one of : "WIFI" , "2G" , "3G" , "4G" , "5G" , "-" (not connected) or "?" (unknown)

Remark: This code requires API 25+, but you can easily support older versions by using int instead of const. (See comments in code).

public static String getNetworkClass(Context context) {
    ConnectivityManager cm = (ConnectivityManager) context.getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);      
    NetworkInfo info = cm.getActiveNetworkInfo();
    if (info == null || !info.isConnected())
        return "-"; // not connected
    if (info.getType() == ConnectivityManager.TYPE_WIFI)
        return "WIFI";
    if (info.getType() == ConnectivityManager.TYPE_MOBILE) {
        int networkType = info.getSubtype();
        switch (networkType) {
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_GPRS:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EDGE:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_CDMA:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_1xRTT:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_IDEN:     // api< 8: replace by 11
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_GSM:      // api<25: replace by 16
                return "2G";
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_UMTS:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EVDO_0:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EVDO_A:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSDPA:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSUPA:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSPA:
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EVDO_B:   // api< 9: replace by 12
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_EHRPD:    // api<11: replace by 14
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_HSPAP:    // api<13: replace by 15
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_TD_SCDMA: // api<25: replace by 17
                return "3G";
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_LTE:      // api<11: replace by 13
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_IWLAN:    // api<25: replace by 18
            case 19: // LTE_CA
                return "4G";
            case TelephonyManager.NETWORK_TYPE_NR:       // api<29: replace by 20
                return "5G";
            default:
                return "?";
         }
    }
    return "?";
}