O2 Mainly Ups, but some Downs

Our man in Havana

Thanks for that. Can you use the modem at all outside of the republic?

rebel.ranter

It goes back to a per Mb charge, look at the roaming section of website e.g. Spain:

http://www.o2online.ie/wps/wcm/connect/O2/Home/Personal/Services/Travelling+Abroad/Tariff+Information/Spain/

I'd leave it at home!

Our man in Havana

At those prices too right! €8.16 per mb, sweet jesus! :eek:

Mint Sauce

even after my troubleed week with o2, still cant fault them, usally on HSDPA when using in my usual location, currently away for weekend and is usally on EDGE most of the time, as not in 3G area, and this is the great part, still get faster speeds on o2 EDGE, than i got with THREE on HSDPA

<thumbs up o2>

richardw001

I wonder can you port those little usb modems from Voda and three to O2 - i.e. can you get them sim unlocked the same way as with phones ?

Burr

Seeing as I kicked off this thread, I thought I would give a follow up.

The day after I noticed one of the the occasional drops in speed, everything is back to normal. 1 to 2 mb off peak, dropping to as low as half a meg at the worst (with an odd bad 2 minutes)

GPRS has improved dramatically since my original post. I have also had the oppurtunity to use edge in rural east Galway last weekend, and I was really impressed..Pings obviously a bit slow, but steady 200kb+ at all times. If I had edge at my location over the years, I would never have had to bitch about lack of broadband. These kinds of speed are just grand for browsing etc. Downloaded MP3s etc and not a bother...

In my experience Overall O2 is a good chunk better than Vodafone, albit paying a few quid more. By the way a neighbour is on 3 currently and is pretty happy with it. I have tried it a few peak times, and found speeds similar to O2 edge. He is delighted with it at the money, as he had Vodafone at 30 Euro for GPRS only....so has reduced his cost and tirpled + his speed.

Again another thumbs up for O2..

richardw001

Burr wrote: »

Seeing as I kicked off this thread, I thought I would give a follow up.

The day after I noticed one of the the occasional drops in speed, everything is back to normal. 1 to 2 mb off peak, dropping to as low as half a meg at the worst (with an odd bad 2 minutes)

GPRS has improved dramatically since my original post. I have also had the oppurtunity to use edge in rural east Galway last weekend, and I was really impressed..Pings obviously a bit slow, but steady 200kb+ at all times. If I had edge at my location over the years, I would never have had to bitch about lack of broadband. These kinds of speed are just grand for browsing etc. Downloaded MP3s etc and not a bother...

In my experience Overall O2 is a good chunk better than Vodafone, albit paying a few quid more. By the way a neighbour is on 3 currently and is pretty happy with it. I have tried it a few peak times, and found speeds similar to O2 edge. He is delighted with it at the money, as he had Vodafone at 30 Euro for GPRS only....so has reduced his cost and tirpled + his speed.

Again another thumbs up for O2..

Been using the o2 modem for the past few - days - getting 3-4 bars of EDGE coverage - peculiar though as the data rate appears to be very bursty - i.e. I see max data rate 56ish kbps up 250ish kbps down - however - the rates using the irish isp test show it as 14kbps up 100kbps up - it was alot worse when I was using the internet apn rather than the wap one - that said its better than the vodaphone gprs connection - can I ask what your settings are - to get 200 kbps ?

Our man in Havana

I regularly get excess of 220 kbps using the out of the box settings on EDGE.

jor el

richardw001 wrote: »

I wonder can you port those little usb modems from Voda and three to O2 - i.e. can you get them sim unlocked the same way as with phones ?

Seems like it is possible, but they don't make it easy. Don't know how helpful 3 or Vodafone Ireland will be in getting you the unlock code and software.

richardw001

- and thats using the irish isp speed test - or something similar - ?
I think you might be right then - in terms of the basestation config (- as you said previously) - everyone else seems to be consistently getting 200 kpbs except for me.

Have you tried using a vpn over it ?

Burr

I would like to refresh my review posted last year. Since Christmas, performance of O2 HSDPA at peak times has degraded to the point that it is now generally significantly slower than my dial up speed. Below represent 9.30 to 10PM tonight. Note the uploads are significantly faster than the downloads !.

Down Up
37.8 146 kbs
42.0 256 kbs
16 87 kbs
59.3 165 kbs
39 timed out
37.2 61 kbs

Typical average peak pings are 175ms with 1-2% lost packets, mostly ranging 120 to 350 ms.

Off peak speeds are still a very respectable 1Mb I only phoned helpdesk last week (mails were ignored), and the customer service response was good, with an immediate admission that there was some kind of problem. I was also offered an 50% discount for three months. This makes me very worried !. A ticket has been opened, and base station is to be "examined". I would prefer to pay full, and have a good service. My neighbours Vodafone and even Three are currently significantly better.

This review is highly subjective, only reflecting one user, and one base station....I will keep you updated.

Burr wrote: »

I just want to share my experiences of O2 E220 3G/HSDPA broadband .

I am connected in a rural area, near to a DSL enabled town, and have generally had a very positive experience with O2 performance.

Away from peak times, I generally have typical download speeds of of 1.2 to 2.2 MB. Between 6PM and 11.30PM my typical download speeds are 800kB to 1.3MB. These are short term speeds, up to 10 seconds, reducing to about 50% after 10 seconds. Pings range 120 to 350 (HEANET)

Every now and then though, I have really poor speeds particularily at peak times. - This lasts for a few days typically, followed by a dramatic improvement.

I have seen Edge appear here last week in Co. Kilkenny, but disappear again. Edge was displayed, but only GPRS speeds were available. So as yet I have no experienced edge.

GPRS performance is very poor, not even close to 50+kb, and is a lot slower that 25k-ish landline.

Signal strength is not to important, with 2 bars being as good as is required. 1 bar will allow 1MB with ease (If you want greater rsignal resolution, google for "E620 tool" which works excellently). Keep in mind that the bars are not in realtime- probably refreshed every 15 seconds ?

In my experience, customer service does not answer or acknowledge emails at all.

I have had loaners of vodafone and 3 at this location. O2 is significantly better than Vodafone, and cannot be compared at all with 3s poor performance. Having said that, I have two friends reporting significant improvements on 3 in the last few days. Vodafone GPRS is also poor.

Never any problems accessing any sites.

I currently am encountering problems with O2 for two days now, with peak time speeds between 200 and 350 kB. Have any other O2 customers had any issues on 22nd-23rd October ?

Just before I sign off, I have run speedtest.ie at 11.50 to 11.55 PM. Results below.

down Up
990 269
753 156
1370 95

Thanks
Burr