Ubuntu Wiki

Intrepid brought some changes to auto/manual connects, has been perceived optimal. Tries to find the fastest connection, but too inflexible.
- Don't autoconnect to wifi to save power
- don't autoconnect to 3G for pay-by-the-byte

Upstream thinks the current solution is perfect, so we need some convincing use cases

- more power to the user by allowing them to e. g. disable ethernet manually
- multiple connections at the same time aren't generally considered useful
- automatic switching to "better" connections sometimes breaks things, when the new network isn't actually functional -> could test connectivity first
- give the user a switch to select default connection in case several are connected

- default route should be the indicator of connectivity, building more layers on top of it won't get it more precise, just failing differently

- wish: configure one-active-at-a-time, like in 0.6
- very few mainstream conditions where people want more than one connection
- difference between explicit choice or implicit switch wrt. automatically switching back
- different preferences: always fastest, always cheapest, always keep the current one, maximize battery life
- needs fine-grained policies for wifis (per ESSID), not just one policy for all wifis
- policy based on location -> use preferred network for every location
- multi-connection is surprising: indicates that it switches network, user isn't aware that the previous 3G is still active (UI issue?)
- global switch: multiple connections / single connection
- individual connection config: auto connect / auto disconnect (if network with higher priority becomes available)

- policy: auto-connect to known wifis, but not auto-connecting to 3G
  - ordering of all network connections
  - auto-connect
  - auto-switch to better one
  - global switch for multiple/single
  
- open question: how to handle auto-connected connections when a higher prio interface becomes available