Vodafone 3G Broadband

mcaul

paulm1 wrote:

Hi Mcaul & Vogel ........... today Mar 2nd actually had HSDPA signal from Vodafone in Kildoon was getting 1.8Mbs consistently for about 2 hours. Actually managed to download 1.3 gigs of stuff. Now that was from about 4:30 to 6:30 until you guys or someone esle came online!!! I didn't realise there were so many people in our area looking for BB. Is 3 as good as it sounds ? I have had vodafone tech support on to me every day for the last week asking how the service has been going. To be honest I thought is was a lot better till tonight but it sounds like they are trying ot something !!....... As one of the guys earlier it was working perfect till about November then bang!.

Once VF switch on their high speed system and you get a signal, then it is 50/50 as to who you get the service from. I used 3 in Martins Carpark on Thursday morning to check out speeds for someopne else down there and whilst I only had one bar on the screen, it still gave a speedtest rating of just over 1mb. - Check your speed on www.speedtest.ie as the speed stated by VF or 3 is rarely achieved.

As to 3 customer service - yep its bad but starting to improve. (not datacard friendly) They have a dedicated datacard line in the UK and I posted the phone number a while ago - I'll dig is back up and post again.

Shane O' Malley

Anyone know if the Vodafone Modem will work with Vista.

I think the install routine will not, but if anyone has a workaround.

IE Is it the install routine or do the drivers not work with Vista.

Cheers

Shane

emaherx

Shane O' Malley wrote:

Anyone know if the Vodafone Modem will work with Vista.

I think the install routine will not, but if anyone has a workaround.

IE Is it the install routine or do the drivers not work with Vista.

Cheers

Shane

There is a workaround if you google it

also there is new vodafone connect software released (but I haven't tried it)

Myxomatosis

Bloody Vodafone so ****ing slow in sending this modem out to me. I signed and sent the contract back this day last week. Like, i'd expected that today would be the latest day it would arrive but no.

As for it's a 50/50 choice if vodafone reach 3's speeds...surely the fact that both are 40 euro a month, but one offer 3gigs cap, and the other a 5gig cap would make that percentage at least 40/60?

watty

The enforced nanny things in Vista don't really make it safer and are a pain.

Shane O' Malley

Bit of a broad statement there.

No doubt that a vista limited (Novice)user is much safer than with xp. Especially when it was so hard to run many applications in limited user mode in xp that most people operated with administrator accounts.

In addition, the quality of the drivers working with Vista is much higher so crashes are far fewer.

watty

I've set up entire offices in User Mode in XP.

The nags will force users to turn off the nanny bot and they will click on OK anyway after the popups.

Driver Signing actually has little to do with quality. There will be no shortage of drivers, expecially kernel mode Graphics that Crash Vista. It will be obvious to all in a few months that it perhaps outdoes Millemium Edition for idiocy.

Myxomatosis

Well it finally came in the post, I plug it in, it installs, and then nothing. No network. So I ring Vodafone, and it turns out they sent the wrong sim card out...

So then 15 mins after the phone call I can finally connect up, only on GPRS, says its connected at 236.8kbps apposed to 31.5kbps on dial up. So I think to myself, oh, thats decent enough. Divide 236.8 by 8 and i should get 29.6 kilobytes per sec. But no, despite it being connected at 236.8kbps my average download speed is about 5KB. 1.5KB faster than my dial up download speed...whoop...well worth 40 euro a month.

So anyway. Unless 3g speeds appear here by next Friday, its going back to the shop, but until then, I'm going to try and rape it for all it can offer. Albeit very little.

Myxomatosis

Oh and I did a network search with the modem and it shows that Voda, O2, and Meteor are all on GPRS here, but I can get 3g signals from "IRE 05". Which I'm asuming is Three.

But the fact that I'd have to buy a card reader for they're HSDPA modem, and the whole 3gigs limit thing, way to little, is putting me off . I'll wait and see what 02 have to offer in terms of HSDPA, if they ever get around to actually upgrading and offering it.

godskitchen

Myxomatosis wrote:

Oh and I did a network search with the modem and it shows that Voda, O2, and Meteor are all on GPRS here, but I can get 3g signals from "IRE 05". Which I'm asuming is Three.

But the fact that I'd have to buy a card reader for they're HSDPA modem, and the whole 3gigs limit thing, way to little, is putting me off . I'll wait and see what 02 have to offer in terms of HSDPA, if they ever get around to actually upgrading and offering it.

I dont know what the IRE 05 would be, i have never come across it, with my vodafone it just says network unknown for Three.................

Have you moved about the place, its worth going out and about, how far away is your nearest Voda 3G mast? if you dont know then go to their web site and find out. I know of people getting signal 12Kms away.

oh and i have just realised you are must be using a desktop PC.

And i am at a complete loss to your last point.........i just cant understand how anyone would stay on dial up if they have 3G coverage.......or do you download more than 3000Mb a month on your dial up account? if so then stick with it, and good luck to ya! if not then why not use a service that while is limited to 3000Mb/Month, it loads web pages instantly and if you do need to download large files you can do it quickly..............

This is like explaining the benefits of broadband to someone who says "ah sure arnt we fine as we are" to me there is only one choice here.

culabula

IRL 05 is 3 Irl. Sometimes you get 272-05 (I think) too. Just depends on the antiquity of the handset (same as the way my beloved 6210s still say 'Eircell').

Myxomatosis

godskitchen wrote:

And i am at a complete loss to your last point.........i just cant understand how anyone would stay on dial up if they have 3G coverage.......or do you download more than 3000Mb a month on your dial up account? if so then stick with it, and good luck to ya! if not then why not use a service that while is limited to 3000Mb/Month, it loads web pages instantly and if you do need to download large files you can do it quickly..............

This is like explaining the benefits of broadband to someone who says "ah sure arnt we fine as we are" to me there is only one choice here.

The problem is that with a 3gig limit, thats roughly 100mbs per day, once you go over it, your ****ed because its nearly 50cent a meg out of bundle. With 5 people in my family, 3gig's would be very hard to adhere to.

If you ever actually monitor your bandwidth, that is download + upload, you'll see that it gets used up very quickly.

And the job of monitoring what members of my family are doing and how much bandwidth they're using will fall to me and I just couldn't be bothered constantly telling them to "stop using up the ****ing bandwidth downloading those **** songs"

And one last thing, there's a little matter of paying 40 euro a month and being tied to a 12 month contract. At the moment we pay 20 euro for 60 hours of off peak dialup. Whats the point in paying an extra 20, plus the hardware, plus the commitment of 12 months, for a service that, despite the huge speed difference, is not really any better. Whats the point in having broadband if all you can do is look at webpages? Downloading one 700mb movie would totally **** up your monthly usage and you'd be constantly looking at the bandwidth usage. And that just one bloody movie.

I'd much rather struggle along with dialup and wait and hope for some better offer to come along.

Dirk_Swords

I can't connect with the Vodafone USB Modem to the Windows Live Messenger!
Internet browsing works well!

Anybody could help me with this?

Dirk

wirelessdude

Dirk_Swords wrote:

I can't connect with the Vodafone USB Modem to the Windows Live Messenger!
Internet browsing works well!

Anybody could help me with this?

Dirk

have you tried calling 1850 287 000 to see if they can help...don't think they will be tho seeing as you can access websites

godskitchen

Dirk_Swords wrote:

I can't connect with the Vodafone USB Modem to the Windows Live Messenger!
Internet browsing works well!

Anybody could help me with this?

Dirk

I had this problem too, never did get it sorted, went back to MSN 7.5 and it works ok...............still disconnects at busy times, i think its to do with packet loss..................its fine on GPRS.

Supercell

I just got one of these modems and am pleasantly surprised have to say.

I live in an area that likely never ever to have any kind of broadband over phone line and the only wireless broadband provider is blocked by trees here.

However have great Vodafone and O2 signal strength (no 3 unfortunately on the local mast here) so Vodafone was the only option for always on connectivity.

The install was painless on the XP computer and connected fine at 53.3K (only gprs signal here....would be nice if a mobile 3g provider put something on the mast..).

Connection is slower than dialup sometimes and others far better. Its not a signal issue and I really really doubt its a cell load in my area.

Overall, for always on connectivity its a winner here, I can keep my website updated without worrying about time online etc like with dialup.

Have 14 days trial, but so far so good, if continues to be reliable will be telling eircom to disconnect the land line as have no need for it any more as they obviously have zero intention of introducing broadband here and I refuse to pay ever increasing land line rental cost for shoddy service (the local exchange is about 2km away from me and likely never ever to be broadband enabled) .

dlofnep

Longfield wrote:

I live in an area that likely never ever to have any kind of broadband over phone line and the only wireless broadband provider is blocked by trees here.

JNive

nice graphic.

also may i ask what sites are in your area, pm your approximate area and local O2 site IDs, which you can get from www.siteviewer.ie and i will see if your masts are or will be EDGE/3G/HSDPA

Supercell

JNive wrote:

nice graphic.

also may i ask what sites are in your area, pm your approximate area and local O2 site IDs, which you can get from www.siteviewer.ie and i will see if your masts are or will be EDGE/3G/HSDPA

Thanks JNive,

I'm in Annamoe, Wicklow. The mast is not far from here at all, is in the fields just above me.

Looking at the link above, its details are :-

ID: 7578
XCoord: 315610.0
YCoord: 199342.0
Operator: O2

dlofnep - I'd like to take one of those to the trees, but don't think the estate manager here would appreciate that at all

Nuttzz

has anyone tried this with vista? the voda site says it doesnt but could this just be voda covering their ass?

rover2200

can you use voadafone broadband on xbox live

biologikal

JNive wrote: »

nice graphic.

also may i ask what sites are in your area, pm your approximate area and local O2 site IDs, which you can get from www.siteviewer.ie and i will see if your masts are or will be EDGE/3G/HSDPA

Nice link there that shows the masts in ones area. I noticed a 3 mast less than a km from my house, does that mean the mobile broadband from 3 would be decent enough? I was trialling the O2 mobile broadband and was getting decent enough service, but the nearest O2 mast seems to be 3 or 4 times further away. Or is the correlation between distance from a mast and service much more obscure than that?

smellslikeshoes

biologikal wrote: »

Nice link there that shows the masts in ones area. I noticed a 3 mast less than a km from my house, does that mean the mobile broadband from 3 would be decent enough? I was trialling the O2 mobile broadband and was getting decent enough service, but the nearest O2 mast seems to be 3 or 4 times further away. Or is the correlation between distance from a mast and service much more obscure than that?

I personally wouldn't go with 3 even if they had a mast as close as my kitchen. The mega thread on three problems is at 3750+ posts, Nobody should even be considering getting 3 in my opinion.

DILLIGAF

is it possible to use my n80 as a 3gmodem using my sim card thats on the braodband contract? anyone know how do go about this?

culabula

DILLIGAF wrote: »

is it possible to use my n80 as a 3gmodem using my sim card thats on the braodband contract? anyone know how do go about this?

Mac or PC?

DILLIGAF

PC! I seem to get a much better more stable streaming connection on my phone, I'd assume this would carry onto the pc too!

culabula

DILLIGAF wrote: »

PC! I seem to get a much better more stable streaming connection on my phone, I'd assume this would carry onto the pc too!

You have my every sympathy :-)

Really, you just need to configure a Bluetooth conection and pair your phone with your PC. The default dial-up number is *99# and you also need to put in the APN which another Vodafone user on the forums can supply you with. and you're off.

roadruner

I think I hit a new record low
"

Hold on i was wrong