Voda or 3 for 3G broadband

pm.

optiplexgx270 wrote:

Oh dear god no. The pings are VERY high. I've never tried to play online with it but with pings of 200-300 why would I when my home bb is 20-40?

ok, but there a lot of people who cant get bb into there home and this may well be the only solution for years.

optiplexgx270

I know what you mean exactly, but for those that think that playing online games with a 3G card will work well may think again.

vibe666

ronoc wrote:

Having delt with different versions of their 3G PC datacards I have developed a hatred for vodafones mobile data division. bear in mind this doesn't apply to their USB thing as I havn't tried it yet, but where I work we have had loads of them. From the nokia pure GSM, to early gprs only to the brand new 3.5G ones.

<snip>

Based on their datacard track record my advice is avoid like the plague.

ditto.

i look after a lot of vpn users in ireland and the uk and the vodafone datacards can be a nightmare.

I'm still optimistic that 3's x-series will be better, just hoping it lives up to at least some of the hype.

optiplexgx270

Cant speak for the datacard but the built in on my dell laptop with the dell true mobility S/W hasnt had issues with cisco/sonicwall yet .

JTMan

vibe666 wrote:

sometime in the next three months 3 are going to be rolling out their mobile broadband service to all the countries they cover (inc. Ireland). from what I've read it's already on trial in the UK and will be rolled out over the 1st quarter of 2007 across their whole euro-zone.

HSDA with 3 launched last week and now covers Dublin and much of the country. 85% will be covered by February.

http://www.three.ie/ihandsets/datacards.html contains all the details. Their store staff seemed well versed.

Is anyone using the HSDA cards from 3 yet ???

daelight

Fungus wrote:

Is anyone using the HSDA cards from 3 yet ???

I'm due the card on Wednesday. Down here in the s(h)tix of Tralee.. Carphone Warehouse hadn't heard of the thing so ordered it through the ol' telephone. Broadband isn't available where I am and this could be the ticket.

I'm very wary though... made sure I got the 14 day money back in case it just doesn't cut the mud....

aare

Oh the wild rumors...here are the facts known to me:

1. Vodaphone and 3 network launched HSDPA in parts of Dublin and some other areas on the Monday before Christmas, but even a large proportion of Voda's support staff were blissfully unaware of this until at least 24 hours later.
2. The Vodaphone Mobile connect card also works seamlessly in a Latitude C640, I think some later Inspirons are actually shipping with built in 3g (which means another kind of internal mini PCMCIA may be available, best to check the Vodaphone site). Dundrum was actually using a Dell laptop to demonstrate last time I checked
3. The Mobile Connect card is supported on Win 2000, XP and OsX. There are suggestions all over google that it can be made to work on some versions of Linux, and all over Vodaphone that it is "not supported" on Win 98, which often means that there is probably a way to persuade it to work but they will not tell you what that is. If anybody has persuaded it to work on OS 9 I would really, REALLY love to hear how.
4. Minimum contract may be 18 months, not 12 with voda, that was certainly the only contract they offered me, though, at end of contract I think one would be due a card upgrade, and is it realistically likely that HSDPA will exceed 10mbps in next 18 months (except in my, still GPRS, dreams)?
5. Data limit on Voda was declared at one stage to be 5gb, there are now rumors that it has been rescinded altogether for legal reasons, data limit on 3 is 3gb
6. Voda is asynchronimous and upload is significantly slower than download

I can understand where the wild rumors come from, when I bought my card (before USB modem was out) three different shops told me that card did not work with every laptop, but they had no idea how or why.

Staff in Vodaphone shops do not necessarily understand computers and do not seem to have been very well briefed on the Data cards.

BUT

I am delighted with my card that sits in a PCI adapter card in my PC most of the time, when it isn't coming for "walkies" in my Latitude 640c.

I will be ecstatic if I ever find a way to get it to run on my vintage Mac Powerbook (with Bronze Keyboard and OS9.6). All information appreciated

I have had trouble getting it to run over an ethernet network, but it may just be settings, because I haven't tried very hard, and if anyone can tell me if/how the card can be run in a ZyXel ZyWall 10w (an item I freely admit I do not even begin to understand, but I can't kick the feeling it is ZyXel equivalent of the Lynksys router) they will have a grateful acolyte for life.

Ravenholm

Fungus wrote:

HSDA with 3 launched last week and now covers Dublin and much of the country. 85% will be covered by February.

http://www.three.ie/ihandsets/datacards.html contains all the details. Their store staff seemed well versed.

Is anyone using the HSDA cards from 3 yet ???

I've been testing them in work for a few weeks now. Very frustrating to use as the signal strength and speed fluctuates, making for an annoying experience. Frequently the signal jumps from 3G broadband to GPRS broadband and then back again within the space of a few seconds. When observing the connection speed stats in the Vodafone dashboard the upload and download speeds frequently drop to 0 bps and stay there. Sometimes you need to disconnect then reconnect to "wake" up the connection.

On average it isn't much faster than the normal 3G Vodafone cards as you rarely get up to the theoretical max speed. Sometimes it seems that a dialup connection over a phone gives a less annoying internet session.

Please note that I was using this in the City Centre. I would expect to get a good stable signal here. Like all of Vodafones new data products they work well until the contention ratio is increased when the product becomes widespread.

Buyer beware!

aare

MAYBE it's because I am a dinosaur who's baptism of cellnets came in the days of Eircell when mobile phones were large grey, cost £2000+ and their most effective "built in security feature" was the option of bashing muggers over the head with them...

But...

Seems to me that there can be more to mobile phone signals than just "being there"? If I recall correctly, masked concrete can be a serious problem, even blocking signals entirely, and system overload, simply because too many people were using too many phones in one area, only ever really "bit deep" (and early) in the city centre in Dublin.

Though I am in the wilds here I seem to be just the GPRS side of the same fence you are sitting on, in the sense that my card can recognise 3g but not aquire it (it's purely too far away I think). When the wind shifts and there is a window of "almost 3g" it would drive a saint to drink. I have a "GPRS only" profile against just this eventuality.

I have had clear 087 (in the front of the house) since 1990, and, though the signal strength has improved immeasurably since (I can gossip effectively in back now) I find the signal strengths for the data card uncannily similar. But then I am lucky, I live in an house of windows.

You may find that an external aerial on window may solve a lot of problems. I got an F718 from here http://www.g-com.co.uk they are super people to deal with too, who went to incredible trouble to get the right adapter for my Voda card (I think the Huawei E620 voda and E630 3 have the same socket).

However it was not enough to pick up 3g 10 miles away (or tell me next week's lotto numbers).

The system overload problem is for 3 to sort out. I understand that the 3g networks are set to prioritise voice and music downloads.

Neither network will get the picture that their network isn't handling the strain of data transfer well in significant areas like Dublin City Center if people do not tell them...

So keep complaining. Remember, these datacards could be the future of broadband, so every time you complain you are doing the a favor.

daelight

Oh dear, great start with this crowd already...

I was told I would get the datacard Wednesday but by 3pm with no call from the courier this led me to call 3. At least no crazy-maze of push-this-that-and-the other to get to talk to someone. The customer service person told me it was at 'pick in progress' 2 days so far to put a box in the post?? :rolleyes:

When I asked when I sould expect delivery, after a sigh of 'I havn't the foggiest' she told me 'end of the week'

I shouldn't have believed the salesperson I know but there you go. As the numpties in the mobile phone shops here don't have the product I've had to go this route. We'll see what happens Friday, I know you must be gripped to your seats

matthiku

aare wrote:

(...)

You may find that an external aerial on window may solve a lot of problems. I got an F718 from here http://www.g-com.co.uk they are super people to deal with too, who went to incredible trouble to get the right adapter for my Voda card (I think the Huawei E620 voda and E630 3 have the same socket).

However it was not enough to pick up 3g 10 miles away (...)

I've got the the 3 datacard (Huawei E620) right before Christmas, but unfortunately, only have GPRS with ~ 238 kBps in my area (Spancilhill, Co. Clare) at the moment. Calling 3 and they told me that there are no dates for improvement in this area as of now.
So I was thinking of getting an external antenna myself and came across this one:
http://www.specialistantennas.co.uk/antennas/GSM/SMP-918-9.aspx.
I have asked the folks there for a quote yesterday, but haven't got any answer yet.

So far, the datacard resides in an old IBM Thinkpad A21m and I can share the Internet connection on my LAN to other computers in the house.

I only found out after the purchase of the card that my Dell laptop has only this new Express card slot.... Who on earth thought that PCMCIA is not longer state of the art?

Btw, I can get a proper 3.1 MB connection in Ennis as well as in Shannon.

I ordered my datacard on the internet, but had problems because my credit card is not from an Irish bank - they need this to check your credit worthiness. But I got that sorted and the datacard delivered on the next day! Also, so far, their customer service is very helpful and even called me back. However, the shops who deal with 3 seem to be not well informed of mobile internet with 3 as of yet.

Matthy

t¬m¬j

I ordered via phone from 3 at 5.00pm on Wednesday and the datacard was delivered at 11.00am today (friday). Three had the same excellent delivery service when i changed mobiles also.

The 3G video mobile is spot on, I hope to have fun this evening with the datacard...but i will be using the card with a Dell, inspiron, even though i don't think PC type etc is of any relevance as long as the OS and hardware are working together.

The 3 sales person advised me to wait until the end of February as they expect an 85% POPULATION roll out, but to trial the system for 14 days. I thought that was pretty sound...

I hope to replace 1mb my fixed line broadband as i am sick of paying eircom line rental...what a stupid charge...anyway this broadband has never obtained speeds greater than 200k

stay tuned....will the next post be via the 3G datacard?;)

Blaster99

matthiku wrote:

only have GPRS with ~ 238 kBps in my area (Spancilhill, Co. Clare) at the moment. ... So I was thinking of getting an external antenna myself

If you're getting 238kbps, then you already have 3G coverage. An aerial is unlikely to do anything dramatic for you. They have most likely not upgraded your local mast to HSDPA yet.

godskitchen

Blaster99 wrote:

If you're getting 238kbps, then you already have 3G coverage. An aerial is unlikely to do anything dramatic for you. They have most likely not upgraded your local mast to HSDPA yet.

238kbps is what windows says you connect at, its GPRS, when you connect to 3G it says the speed is 1.8Mb

I cant believe Three will keep the cap for long..........

matthiku

godskitchen wrote:

238kbps is what windows says you connect at, its GPRS,

That's correct. My actual "Received Top" speed as displayed in the "3 Datacard" status dialogbox is ~ 54 kbps, and my actual download speed for files is max. 5.5 KB/s (as opposed to 160 KB/s as Urban Weigl reports here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055030500

when you connect to 3G it says the speed is 1.8Mb

Actually, when I connect to 3G (like when I'm closer to Ennis), it says 3.6 MB! Which is actually what 3 promises as maximum speed you can get.

I cant believe Three will keep the cap for long..........

Are you saying they might increase it? I hope so as well.

matthiku

Blaster99 wrote:

If you're getting 238kbps, then you already have 3G coverage.

as "godskitchen" said below, that's (unfortunately) only what Windows says. I have only GPRS/EDGE via Voda at the moment.

An aerial is unlikely to do anything dramatic for you. They have most likely not upgraded your local mast to HSDPA yet.

3 promised to upgrade more areas to 3G within the next few months. If that doesn't happen, I will try to bridge the gap of roughly 1km which I'm outside the current 3G cover with a directional aerial.

I used my laptop in the car today to test the covered area while driveing out from Ennis towards Spancilhill, and about 1km away from our house, 3G was gone (I changed the profile to ONLY use 3G network) - so with that aerial I hope to get it up to my house. But perhaps I'm too optimistic...

Tubbritt

Hello.

If your only 1km outside, you might consider trying one of these for the small amount they cost.

http://www.g-com.co.uk/default.asp?ID=3

A 3dB gain on the signal MIGHT be enough to get you that last mile and 1 bar of 3G. A single bar is all I have and it’s extremely stable. It’s all you would need.

Kind regards.
James.

matthiku

So I will find out!

Thanks for the tipp.