Patent ID: 8781479

Claim:
A hardware computer-readable storage media having instructions stored thereon that when executed by a mobile device cause the mobile device to perform acts, the acts comprising: displaying, on the mobile device, a user-interface identifying multiple network selection criteria including at least a data communication cost criterion and a battery power criterion; receiving, by the mobile device, user inputs identifying less than all of the multiple network selection criteria displayed via the user-interface, the user inputs identifying the data communication cost criterion and the battery power criterion; while a Wi-Fi module of the mobile device is powered off to save battery power of the mobile device, obtaining location information relating to the mobile device; accessing a datastore to check for network information for an individual Wi-Fi network that is associated with the location information; in a first instance when the battery power of the mobile device has not fallen below a predetermined value, ranking the data communication cost criterion relatively higher than the battery power criterion and performing a first evaluation of the individual Wi-Fi network based upon at least the data communication cost criterion being ranked higher than the battery power criterion; and in a second instance when the battery power of the mobile device has fallen below the predetermined value, ranking the battery power criterion relatively higher than the data communication cost criterion and performing a second evaluation of the individual Wi-Fi network based upon at least the battery power criterion being ranked higher than the data communication cost criterion; and in the first instance and the second instance, automatically selecting the individual Wi-Fi network or a different network for data communication for the mobile device based upon the first evaluation and the second evaluation, respectively.