Would this drain my battery quickly?

[Zork Champion]

I just got the AT&T microcell due to 0-1 bars of reception in parts of my house. I noticed that quite frequently, my phone is cycling between HSDPA and UMTS. Would this cause the battery to drain quickly?

 

[hodan]

Absolutely. Cell radios use a GIANT portion of your battery. I always got worse battery life on Sprint with my Evo and then 3d because it was constantly cycling between 2g, 3g, and wimax.

 

[ajua]

Changing between different connections will consume energy. This applies to low signal as well, as even with a stable connection the battery will drain faster with 1 bar than with 4 or 5 bars.