Interested in Vodafone 3g for Internet Access

mijmu

Hi

I was hoping someone could help me with some info.

Baically I cannot get any kind of broadband except satellite where I live. So I discovered by reading the posts here that there could be an alternative Vodafone 3G.

I checked with vodafone and they told me I am about a mile outside the nearest 3G base station but GPRS shouldnt be a problem.

Just wondering what sort of download speeds could I expect to get using the 3G card in a GPRS area. They told me 40-60K. Is that kilobits or kilobytes.

Dial-up in the area is just useless. Click and wait about 5 minutes for the page to load.

Alos what is it like for logging into work over vpn.

If I was to buy the card and sign up to vodafone, Is there an antenna I can get to speed up the connection?

Thanks In Advance
Michael

jor el

That'd be 40-60kbits. Not too bad if your dial-up is piss-poor as it's fixed price. Plus if you have a laptop and go into a 3G area you'll get a faster speed. The cards are only available for PCMCIA sockets I believe so you'll pretty much need a laptop, unless you have a PCI adapter, which are very rare.

The 3G networks are being improved so you never know, it might cover you soon enough.

Zapho

more than likely kilobits. It wouldn't a whole lot faster than dialup. I've used 3G on my phone for browsing and its grand and fast on the phone, because phone webpages are tiny and have little graphics. And no, there's no antenna to speed up the connection unfortunately!
It is an option but you'll be paying through the roof for it. But have a look around. I never realised there was a company near me suppling wireless internet (I can't get anything else) until I atually drove passed the place and picked up the signal on my laptop so don't give up hope yet!

Sponge Bob

and make sure you get the right 3g card off them, it should say HSDPA/3g/GPRS on the packaging not simply 3G/GPRS , see the first post here

uncle_sam_ie

jor el wrote:

That'd be 40-60kbits. Not too bad if your dial-up is piss-poor as it's fixed price. Plus if you have a laptop and go into a 3G area you'll get a faster speed. The cards are only available for PCMCIA sockets I believe so you'll pretty much need a laptop, unless you have a PCI adapter, which are very rare.

The 3G networks are being improved so you never know, it might cover you soon enough.

You don't have to have a laptop to use the card. I've got my card working through a router. http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1121637
Also ,if you didn't want to pay for a new router you could always connect it through a 3G phone.

bk

BTW it seems that some people have even gotten the higher speed HSDPA service working outside official areas, specially if you use the router with an antenna. No guarantee but might be worth a try.

mijmu

Hi Uncle Sam

How does it work with the 3G phone.

Thanks for the info everybody

mijmu

Uncle Sam /Zapho

I see from another thread you were looking at getting an antenna to pick up 3G. Did either of you get this working. After speaking to Vodafone they told me the 3G coverage ends about 1.5 miles from my house, I am about 5 miles from the Mast. Seem to be in a good GPRS area.

If you are using an antenna can you tell what it is etc.

What sort of download speeds area you getting in 3G and GPRS.

Thanks
Michael

Prisoner6409

mijmu wrote:

Hi Uncle Sam

How does it work with the 3G phone.

Thanks for the info everybody

Basically you set up the 3G phone as a modem using a Com port. I have mine set up using Bluetooth although as it also accepts a USB connection maybe you could set it up using USB. However while my phone accepts the connection(a DUN connection) when I try to dial-up it has a problem dialling the number(via the PC). The number I am using is the Eircom pay as you go number. Anyone know is there a particular server I should be trying to connect to and what the number is.

O.K. I got it to work with my phone(using the USB cable). It set up the phone as a "Samsung CDMA modem" but I had to change the Network Mode from UMTS to GSM to get it to work which ment it was not connecting via the3G network. Maybe I am not near enough a 3G mast. However while the PC reported the connection speed as 230.4Kbps it did not seem any faster than dial-up at 45Kbps. It also seemed very expensive, over 2 Euro for about 4 mins. This may be because I am on a Pay As You Go taffif. Again it is simple enough to set up. Connect the phone via USB cable and install the USB drivers from the CD that came with your phone. After that just tick the phone's modem in you dial-up connection settings and hit "Dial". If you are near a 3G mast UMTS may work for you otherwise change it to GSM.

SachaJ

it might work to get a 3G / HSDPA router and wall mount a quality antenna outside your house, perhaps on the roof. That might boost the signal a bit.

godskitchen

Even if you cant get 3G at the mo, like me, you should still get the card, i like you was on dial up, it would take forever to load a siple web page, even with ONSPEED!

I now have the card for coming up to two months, its been qulity,

never cutting out!

no limit to how long i can spend on line!

With ONSPEED its really quite good with GRPS, i had brodband in the UK for 6 years from speeds of 512k all the way up to 10Mb before i left, and i have to say the GPRS with ONSPEED its very good! You will rediscover the internet!

If i want to download a larger file, i will take the laptop with me to town when i have to pop in to do shopping or whatever, i lock it in the boot downloading! on the 3G network

Voda will have 3G in a lot more places soon and they are also uping the speed to up to 1.8Mb still for euro50 a month, its really a very good deal!

Doctor DooM

ok people....

GPRS moves at a max of 48kbps

3g moves betwixt 128 and 384 for download, 56 for up, again in kb

There is a 2gb cap on Vodas data tariff after which it is not a flat rate, although sometimes they dont notice

It is in the terms of the contract that you are not allowed to use VOIP with the data card.

cgarvey

SDooM wrote:

There is a 2gb cap on Vodas data tariff after which it is not a flat rate, although sometimes they dont notice

Can you provide a reference for that please?

cgarvey

bk wrote:

BTW it seems that some people have even gotten the higher speed HSDPA service working outside official areas, specially if you use the router with an antenna. No guarantee but might be worth a try.

Can you elaborate on that? There are no official HSDPA areas, I thought. Vodafone have yet to launch their HSDPA service. Do you mean 3G areas, or do you mean HSDPA test areas. If it's the latter, where abouts are we talking about?

.cg

Uthred

As far as I know the unlimited data option is "unlimited" up to a 5gb cap after which they may be cutting you off. As far as I know this information isnt strictly available anywhere.

godskitchen

SDooM wrote:

There is a 2gb cap on Vodas data tariff after which it is not a flat rate, although sometimes they dont notice

Bull, as someone with the card in question, I can tell you that NO WHERE is any CAP talked about, the Vodafone people who look after the data card's told me there is a "SOFT CAP OF 5Gb" and that it was not enforced so far on anyone, again this is not written down anywhere.

As for them not noticing, its more probable to be that there is just a soft/NO cap, they know exactly just how much you download, my bill has it itemised, each time I connect and how much data was transferred. 2Gb cap = Pub talk:D

Foxwood

SDooM wrote:

There is a 2gb cap on Vodas data tariff after which it is not a flat rate, although sometimes they dont notice

http://vodafone.ie/terms/paymonthly/index.jsp#unlimiteddata
....
"The Vodafone Unlimited Data Tariff is only available to mobile data customers of Vodafone ("Customers") and allows Customers unlimited data download (subject to these terms and conditions) via their mobile phone account."
....
"If, at the absolute discretion of Vodafone, Vodafone is of the opinion, that a Customer's usage of the Vodafone Unlimited Data Tariff materially exceeds these estimated use pattern over any month, Vodafone may contact the Customer to advise that usage exceeds its fair use policy. If the excessive usage continues after receipt of a request to desist from or alter the nature of such usage, Vodafone reserves the right to charge the Customer for the excessive element of the usage at the standard rate or to suspend, at its absolute discretion, modify or restrict use of the Vodafone Unlimited Data Tariff or to withdraw access to the Vodafone Unlimited Data Tariff."
....
"Use of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is not permitted within the Unlimited Data tariff offer and Vodafone reserves the right to impose technological or other constraints on this or related types of application."
....
It's still a better deal than Satellite, for those who can make use of it. But if you're using it in an area where a lot of other people are using it, and there is noticable congestion, you can expect to get pulled up if you're using it for torrents, etc.