3G modem - can't ichat?

Kebab

Hey

Got a mac and the 3G broadband last Saturday. Trying all week to set up ichat with my sister but no joy. We've come to the conclusion it's probably the broadband speed as opposed to the computer itself. We did manage to get an ivisit going the other night but the delay when speaking is really bad...

am getting totally hacked off with the whole thing - any other websites can be accessed fine it's just the video link ups that seem the problem.

I assume we can take it back and get our money back as I've read on a few places that there's a 14 day money back guarantee, although I don't remember seeing anything about that in the box with it. We don't have a phone line so am I right in thinking NTL broadband is our only other option?? And is it faster than the increasingly useless 3G?!!

K

watty

I doubt the upstream will support video too often unless its a very low resolution MPEG4.

Kebab

Hi Watty

sorry, you mean that the broadband i have isn't strong enough to allow for ichat? What do I do?? Is NTL or Smart Telecom any better do you know??

K

Urban Weigl

iChat video conferencing uses the h.264 codec. It's very efficient and means you only need 100kbps of upstream for pretty good picture and audio quality. Unfortunately, 3 are currently shaping the upstream speed to 56kbps. This means that it won't work.

Works great on Vodafone, though, as they let you have the full 384kbps.

watty

You can create a custom WMA stream of video and audio with 176 x128 video that works over 28k upstream.

Find an old MAC video chat app that is designed for dialup.

YOu only get the full 384 on Vodaphone (if this is true) for one person on a sector. Have 10 people trying to iChat or upload or whatever and you are back to less than dialup speed.

Urban Weigl

watty, according to speedtest.ie my upload speed on Vodafone is usually about 350kbps, so I must be getting the full 384kbps. Both download and upload speeds always blow away eircom's 1 meg DSL. That is also reflected if I upload files to an FTP server.

My contract was up so I cancelled yesterday though. Am now a 3 customer. Even old release 99 UMTS supports symmetrical 384/384kbps. Depends on the implementation though, some base stations only supported 384/64kbps. HSDPA is always at least 1.8/384 as far as I know before contention and other factors kick in.

Urban Weigl

To the thread starter, try Skype video conferencing. Perhaps that will work, with reduced video quality of course. I will give it a shot on 3 when I get a chance to try it.

watty

I can confirm that Skype with video does work on 33k dialup.

I suspect 3 & O2 are limiting upload below 128K. I never saw more than 70K up on 02.

I wonder does the higher 3.6Mbps download with twice as many users (24 rather than 12) limit the upload slower?