3 To Launch 10Gb Cap HSDPA package for €20 a month today

Xcellor

As there is little alternative I seem to be snookered into accepting broadband from 3.

I am unhappy that all inbound ports are blocked as just confirmed with one of their technicians. This must be the only broadband product with blocked ports in Ireland?

Are many on this thread using 3? If so I'd encourage sending a letter of complaint concerning this. The technician told me it was to secure their network... I've waited too long for BB to suffer not only an unreliable connection but a really limited one also. The technician recommended sending a letter of complaint to their head office in the UK :mad:

philstar

Xcellor wrote:

I am unhappy that all inbound ports are blocked as just confirmed with one of their technicians. This must be the only broadband product with blocked ports in Ireland?

i have 3bb...i'm not techno savvy ..so can u tell me in laymans english what this means

Sponge Bob

Xcellor wrote:

I am unhappy that all inbound ports are blocked as just confirmed with one of their technicians. This must be the only broadband product with blocked ports in Ireland?

Clearwire have blocked ports for years and comreg does not give a phuck . Vodafone also offer private Ip addresses not publicly routable ones

Cabaal

Sponge Bob wrote:

Shame the 3g operators coverage is so bad outside the pale .

I don't believe this comment is 100% correct, when I was with Three I could get a full 3G signal in places where Vodafone, Meteor and O2 couldn't even get a standard GSM signal at all.

3G coverage on Three for me was pretty damn good, Waterford was almost always 100%, my hometown was abit iffy in places but at the same time I had gone to bog area's within Kilkenny & Tipp and I've been able to get a full signal...again other providers couldn't get anything

Coverage ain't too bad and I'm certainly not the first person to say it

Cabaal

FuzzyLogic wrote:

Will this be compatible with vista?

Check the site:
http://www.three.ie/handsets_new/datacards-drivers.htm

works with Vista 32bit, however people have reported that it does not work with Vista 64bit

Sponge Bob

glad to hear that the se is served so well Cabaal

3 coverage is pretty crap beyond the pale in the west and northwest then .

Firetrap

aaronquigley wrote:

I just asked this on another thread 12 mins before you did. I too am looking for an answer on this which doesn't require me to run some logging software

Someone posted this link on another thread. You can see your stats online. The data seems to be 24 hours out of date all the time but it sure beats ignorance

Gone West

thanks Cabaal!

leffatus

I have been using the modem for nearly two weeks ago. I knew I wouldn't reach anything near the advertised 3.6Mbps, and expected around 1Mbps, which is what I got for the first week, in several places in Dublin and Cork, and tested it in several places in between. I did reach over 2Mbps at one stage.

However in the last few days, I can rarely get more that about 30Kbps, which is worse than dialup. I used it this morning and got up to 1.4 Mbps, but at peak times, there are too many other users, making it almost unusable.

Not sure if I will return it. For me, at the moment, a mobile solution is perfect, but I want it to be usable.

Another problem that the connection sometimes can lag, and this causes my VPN connection to drop, which is really annoying, and making this option almost unusable.

For those of you thinking of getting it: if speed isn't important, and mobility and cost are, then this is worth considering. Otherwise forget about it for the moment, and see if their service gets any better.

BTW I am using this on Mac OS 10.3.9, but have tried it on a PC too (both XP and Vista) and it works fine, with some occasional problems. Mainly these have to do with putting laptops to sleep with the modem connected.

philstar

VPN connection??....whats that??

Random

philstar wrote:

VPN connection??....whats that??

A virtual private network (VPN) is a private communications network often used by companies or organizations, to communicate confidentially over a public network. VPN traffic can be carried over a public networking infrastructure (e.g. the Internet) on top of standard protocols, or over a service provider's private network with a defined Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the VPN customer and the VPN service provider. A VPN can send data (e.g., voice, data or video, or a combination of these media) across secured and encrypted private channels between two points.

Marlow

Sponge Bob wrote:

3 coverage is pretty crap beyond the pale in the west and northwest then .

Not sure. Galway City coverage is pretty good. Speeds between 1 and 1.5 mbit, rural Galway is a bit patchy, but if you get a connect, you get at least WSDPA speeds (384kbit/s). If the m**pets in Clarinbridge wouldn't be protesting against the new 3 tower to be errected in the industrial park out there, coverage might even be hell of a lot better.

Beyond that, I've head reports from a mate in RURAL Co. Carlow, that he's getting up to 3.6 mbit where he is and that's truly in the sticks south of Borris.

So far 3 seems to be doing a good job in increasing the competition.

/Martin

zugvogel

Leffatus,
That was my experience as well. The vodafone USB modem I used was next to useless (much worse than dialup). The Three data card worked well for about half the two-week trial. I decided to give the Three data card back because at the time I didn’t want to commit for 12 months to a service which looked like it would work OK for for about 50% of the time.

On saying that other people shouldn’t let my experience put you off from trying these products, as there are so many variables to the quality of service you get e.g. number of users on the cell, distance from base station, signal level/quality, weather and so on. You just can’t really tell how good or bad it will work unless you try it, and with the 2 weeks no quibble return it’s really a no brainer imo.

When I trailed the Three data card it was for the 3GByte package, but this new package is great value and even if it only works half the time its probably worth it.

Zug

Firetrap

Does the weather (as in all this torrential rain we've been having of late) affect the connection for the 3 data modem? The connection on mine has gone to pot the last few days. I can't even stream anything from YouTube now and I'm getting nothing over 100kbps. It also keeps dropping back from HSDPA to 3G :mad: I'm using it in the same location I always do.

philstar

Firetrap wrote:

Does the weather (as in all this torrential rain we've been having of late) affect the connection for the 3 data modem? The connection on mine has gone to pot the last few days. I can't even stream anything from YouTube now and I'm getting nothing over 100kbps. It also keeps dropping back from HSDPA to 3G :mad: I'm using it in the same location I always do.

yes i found that it that way too tonight, and its pissing down where i live as well

leffatus

One other problem with 3's service is that is seems to connect its UK network, and you external visible IP address is a UK one. Therefore sites such as Google will direct you to their UK site. I haven't tested this, but this probably means you probably won't be able to view any sites that require you to be in Ireland. I believe this applies to some of RTE's streaming contents. Then again you should be able to access UK only content. Again, I have not tested this.

watty

It's microwave, so badly affected by heavy rain.

Firetrap

leffatus wrote:

One other problem with 3's service is that is seems to connect its UK network, and you external visible IP address is a UK one. Therefore sites such as Google will direct you to their UK site. I haven't tested this, but this probably means you probably won't be able to view any sites that require you to be in Ireland. I believe this applies to some of RTE's streaming contents. Then again you should be able to access UK only content. Again, I have not tested this.

I haven't run into any problems with this tbh. I've listened back to stuff from Radio 1 and tested it on George Lee's Futureshock.

Let's just hope it stops raining. The speed from the modem last night when it was p*ssing rain made me think I was back in dial-up hell again.

Sponge Bob

Its way cheaper than dial up , there is no line rental and you are not limited to 150 hours a month on a dial up flatrate package . Line rental alone will be €25.50 next month and you are not guaranteed bb on that even if your exchange is enabled and you live close.

And the rain yesterday in connacht and munster was exceptionally heavy....maybe 10 days a year you get that sort of rain.

Duiske

leffatus wrote:

One other problem with 3's service is that is seems to connect its UK network, and you external visible IP address is a UK one. Therefore sites such as Google will direct you to their UK site. I haven't tested this, but this probably means you probably won't be able to view any sites that require you to be in Ireland. I believe this applies to some of RTE's streaming contents. Then again you should be able to access UK only content. Again, I have not tested this.

Came across this problem when i tried to watch the hurling on sunday last. RTE say that they need verification from 3 that my ip is originating in Ireland.

talkingclock

leffatus wrote:

However in the last few days, I can rarely get more that about 30Kbps, which is worse than dialup. I used it this morning and got up to 1.4 Mbps, but at peak times, there are too many other users, making it almost unusable.

Same here in Limerick city centre

Duiske

Marlow wrote:

Beyond that, I've head reports from a mate in RURAL Co. Carlow, that he's getting up to 3.6 mbit where he is and that's truly in the sticks south of Borris.

So far 3 seems to be doing a good job in increasing the competition.

/Martin

Im not sure how to test for exact speed, but im very happy with the service at the mo. Im about 4-5 kms south of Borris. It seems even faster than the 2mb dsl I was on in Carlow town.

Butthead

I've had the USB 3DataModem for 3 days now and the download speed has varied with the time of day not with the amount of rain we have been having.

The Huawei software reports my signal is 5 bars in strength and that I'm on the 3 HSDPA network. (I can verify this by the light blue light indicator on the device) During the morning it maxes at about 120 KB/sec and in the evening about 10KB /sec which is extremely disappointing.

I also just noticed that the package is capped at 10Gb a month which at first i guess thought was gigabyte but now realise its gigabit (dont know if other people noticed that) So that roughly equates to a maximum of 40MB downloading a day...which is not a lot really.

Psygnosis

The cap is 10 GigaBytes no way would it be gigabits

smellslikeshoes

Butthead wrote:

I also just noticed that the package is capped at 10Gb a month which at first i guess thought was gigabyte but now realise its gigabit (dont know if other people noticed that) So that roughly equates to a maximum of 40MB downloading a day...which is not a lot really.

Its 10Gigabytes a month. They seem to have wrongly labeled it as "gb" in some places but its definitely 10 Gigabytes.

mcguyver

Whats the upload speed like??

ablelocks

like others, I've seen a drastic drop in connections speeds over the last few days. For my 2 week trial period, it worked fine for me, but since then it's very slow. What is the scenario if this continues - can I break the contract with three under consumer legislation?

ablelocks

like others, I've seen a drastic drop in connections speeds over the last few days. For my 2 week trial period, it worked fine for me, but since then it's very slow. What is the scenario if this continues - can I break the contract with three under consumer legislation?

watty

Upload is 10K to 128k. 60k might be typical

Butthead

I would hope it is a typo and it is gigabyte, I guess I need to ring 3 to confim.
On their website its Gb...

About the upload and download speeds on the USB 3DataModem I've done a few bandwidth tests with speedtest.net and below are links to png's of the results... (the speeds are in kilobits)

Yesterday morning

This evening