We currently have a keep-alive setting with our X4 cellular gateways. It is set to 15 minutes, and typically accounts for more than 80% of the data usage with our application, limiting our ability to purchase smaller cellular plans and making our offering less competitive in the market.
I cannot find any conclusive information as to the need for the keep alive, especially considering the Connect Tank device appears not to need it.
My questions are these:
1. Is a keep-alive needed at all?
2. If so, how often?
3. Is the ramification of not having a keep-alive that the gateway would have to negotiate a new association through the network? I assume that would require more data be sent during the association? And, if that is the case, then it would seem there is a happy medium where a system that is reporting few readings/day could do without the keep-alive and reduce the overall data usage?
Thanks.