3 AYCE SIM Setup

Johnboy1951

Hi,

I have a D-Link 921 that was used for Rural Wifi ... lucky bugger now has eir fibre!

I have a 3 AYCE SIM which I tried in the D-Link just before the 28 days expired on the data part of the SIM.

I initially got a connection speed of about 20Mb/s but shortly afterwards this dropped to 1Mb/s or thereabouts.

Also, I *think* it used some of the €20 credit for phone calls (cannot be absolutely certain no calls were made).

I apparently did not set this up correctly .... else 3 'did the dirty'.
Maybe I need to set something in the account?

Could some kind person give me a list of things to check/set up before I buy another €20 top up for this SIM?

The D-Link has an auto setting to find the correct network based on SIM inserted, and indeed does lock onto the 3 4G signal. (Only about 60% so if I am to use it permanently I expect to need to get an aerial like this
http://www.dipol.ie/cellular-systems/gsm-3g-lte-antennas/lte/lte-mimo-antenna-atk-log-lte-800-2170mhz-5m-cable-sma-plug.html

My first venture into Midband, so fairly lost at the moment.

Thanks in advance for any info.

my3cents

60% is fine and I'm sure you mean it locks onto a three signal not Eir?

Really there is nothing to configure. If you can create a profile and save it then you can try either the 3ireland.ie APN or the 3internet APN

Even if you have the wrong APN with a three SIM you will connect to three so an APN idonthaveaclue.me will work and you will default to the 3ireland.ie APN

3ireland.ie is the phone APN and puts you on a 10.x.x.x internal network

3internet is the broadband APN and gives you a public IP address

You can use either interchangeably and speed is much the same on both.

Johnboy1951

my3cents wrote: »

60% is fine and I'm sure you mean it locks onto a three signal not Eir?

Really there is nothing to configure. If you can create a profile and save it then you can try either the 3ireland.ie APN or the 3internet APN

Even if you have the wrong APN with a three SIM you will connect to three so an APN idonthaveaclue.me will work and you will default to the 3ireland.ie APN

3ireland.ie is the phone APN and puts you on a 10.x.x.x internal network

3internet is the broadband APN and gives you a public IP address

You can use either interchangeably and speed is much the same on both.

Sorry for confusion ...... post edited to show 3 not eir

What you describe is what happened when I inserted the SIM into the D-Link. It automatically set it up for 3.

So if I did not need to do anything else, what happened?
Why did I initially get a 20Mb/s connection and it then drop to 1Mb/s and also use my credit?
To me that means something is not right.
But I have no clue what.

Would the SIM need some set up in a phone first?
Would it need Data Roaming set?

my3cents

The problem is three They are the most oversubscribed and unreliable network and speed drops off drastically for many users at peak times.

Its unlikely to be anything to do with you making calls or not or previous use or not in a phone. Data roaming off.

For €20 its still a good deal

Johnboy1951

my3cents wrote: »

The problem is three They are the most oversubscribed and unreliable network and speed drops off drastically for many users at peak times.

Its unlikely to be anything to do with you making calls or not or previous use or not in a phone. Data roaming off.

For €20 its still a good deal

Not if it does not work! and 1Mb/s down is NOT working

my3cents

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Not if it does not work! and 1Mb/s down is NOT working

At peak times that wouldn't be unusual. Expecting good speeds all the time from a mobile network is expecting a bit too much but unlimited for €20 even at slow speeds is the best deal you can get. If you want better you have to pay more.

Changing APN may help.

Johnboy1951

my3cents wrote: »

At peak times that wouldn't be unusual. Expecting good speeds all the time from a mobile network is expecting a bit too much but unlimited for €20 even at slow speeds is the best deal you can get. If you want better you have to pay more.

Changing APN may help.

Obviously I did not make myself clear.

After the initial few minutes of ~ 20Mb/s (varied from 15.5 up to ~25Mb/s) it dropped to 1 to 2 Mb/s and never, ever again rose above that.

my3cents

That could just as easily be a problem with three. I have an issue where one APN will stop working for days then suddenly work again. Prior to that every couple of weeks I'd get anything between a day and a week of numbingly slow speeds. It shouldn't be like that but thats the way it is.

Can you check if you are using 3G or 4G?

In your case if you think their may be an issue with your SIM then just get a new SIM and top that up by €20.

Johnboy1951

my3cents wrote: »

That could just as easily be a problem with three. I have an issue where one APN will stop working for days then suddenly work again. Prior to that every couple of weeks I'd get anything between a day and a week of numbingly slow speeds. It shouldn't be like that but thats the way it is.

Can you check if you are using 3G or 4G?

In your case if you think their may be an issue with your SIM then just get a new SIM and top that up by €20.

The 4G light was showing on the D-Link and indicated on the admin web-page.

If the service is as bad as you indicate using the AYCE SIM then it is not for me ...... but most others seem to get a much better service.

Jakey Rolling

I have been trialling a Huawei B593-22 router with €20 PAYG SIM.

Haven't found any difference by changing APN, other than changing between Public vs. private IP Address.

I'm about 7km from the nearest mast, clear line-of-sight.
Only 2 bars on the router, but can get 20Mbps from time to time.
Most of the time, signal drops to around 3-4Mbps (see attached 24hour graph of logged speedtest data*)

It appears to be more stable when forced on to 3G, tops out at 12Mbps but drops are not so marked.
I'm in the process of logging 24 hours data for 3G now.

I'd say my limiting factor is distance from the mast, Three probably back off throughput for distant clients to avoid wasting time on retransmissions on weak signals so 20Mbps is as good as I'll get. The drops to 3-4Mbps are more likely due to contention though.


* forced Speedtest to use Vodafone Dublin server, however seems it may be throttling. Going to run these test again with Airwire Galway server which consistently reports 2x the d/l speed

Johnboy1951

Thanks Jakey Rolling, which does prove to me that there is something wrong with the set up I used.

A friend borrowed the D-Link and used his own 3 SIM from his local mast and had very similar results that I got.
He put the SIM into his phone, tethered the phone and got 16Mb/s down.

That would appear to put the problem squarely in the set up or operation of the D-Link, in my case.

Maybe it is not setting things correctly when it does it automatically, so details of a manual set up for 3 AYCE on a D-Link would be appreciated if anyone can help.

Thanks.

Jakey Rolling

Be careful about taking these Speedtest results as gospel though.

Amongst other things, it seems to depend on which server the Speedtest selects to test with.
I'm finding Airwire Galway faster than Vodafone Dublin server, even though my ISP's exit point is in Dublin.

Also, there is prioritisation of YouTube and perhaps Netflix streams, whereas the data dump (presumably FTP) used by Speedtest may be throttled.

Right-click on any YouTube video while its playing and select "Stats for Nerds"to see what the actual D/L speed is for that particular stream.
You may be surprised that YouTube streaming is faster than the Speedtest results would indicate.

Johnboy1951

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

Be careful about taking these Speedtest results as gospel though.

Amongst other things, it seems to depend on which server the Speedtest selects to test with.
I'm finding Airwire Galway faster than Vodafone Dublin server, even though my ISP's exit point is in Dublin.

Also, there is prioritisation of YouTube and perhaps Netflix streams, whereas the data dump (presumably FTP) used by Speedtest may be throttled.

Right-click on any YouTube video while its playing and select "Stats for Nerds"to see what the actual D/L speed is for that particular stream.
You may be surprised that YouTube streaming is faster than the Speedtest results would indicate.

Web pages barely load, so you can be sure there is no hope whatsoever that a youtube video could be viewed ..... not at about 1Mb/s speed!


No one got any information about the settings in the D-Link?

adm

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Web pages barely load, so you can be sure there is no hope whatsoever that a youtube video could be viewed ..... not at about 1Mb/s speed!


No one got any information about the settings in the D-Link?

Ah but they actively do traffic shaping - to prioritise some sites including youtube. I quit them because I was getting speedtest < 1 Mb in the evening (ok during the day) but youtube vids were playing at over 10mb - I checked via 'stats for nerds' as described above.

smuggler.ie

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

So if I did not need to do anything else, what happened?
Why did I initially get a 20Mb/s connection and it then drop to 1Mb/s and also use my credit?
To me that means something is not right.
But I have no clue what.

Would the SIM need some set up in a phone first?
Would it need Data Roaming set?

Can't give step-by-step guide(never had this device), this video might give idea, all you need is APN changed to Three as per posts above. NO preparation on the phone needed
These steps i would go for:
1. Confirm you not out of "unlimited data" term
2. Does web page(any) load at all.
3. Eliminate/disconnect any other devices possibly eating bandwidth(phones, tablets, TV's, etc.). Only connect PC/laptop you perform testing.
4. Has router been moved since had 20Mbps measured, did signal strength changed?
5. Remove SIM, reset router to factory defaults and try over again.
6. Observe "Service type" while running speed test - does it change from 4G to anything else. testmy.net allow you to set testing size manually up to 200 MB for extended run. Same time observer network activity in Task manager. Tests should be done over Ethernet connection, not WiFi.
7. Test with different SIM if possible.


Edited: After all it could be nothing wrong with your device, SIM or settings. It well could just be "Welcome to Three network 4G reality"

Johnboy1951

adm wrote: »

Ah but they actively do traffic shaping - to prioritise some sites including youtube. I quit them because I was getting speedtest < 1 Mb in the evening (ok during the day) but youtube vids were playing at over 10mb - I checked via 'stats for nerds' as described above.

What a bummer!

givecredit

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Hi,

I have a D-Link 921 that was used for Rural Wifi ... lucky bugger now has eir fibre!

I have a 3 AYCE SIM which I tried in the D-Link just before the 28 days expired on the data part of the SIM.

I initially got a connection speed of about 20Mb/s but shortly afterwards this dropped to 1Mb/s or thereabouts.

Also, I *think* it used some of the €20 credit for phone calls (cannot be absolutely certain no calls were made).

I apparently did not set this up correctly .... else 3 'did the dirty'.
Maybe I need to set something in the account?

Could some kind person give me a list of things to check/set up before I buy another €20 top up for this SIM?

The D-Link has an auto setting to find the correct network based on SIM inserted, and indeed does lock onto the 3 4G signal. (Only about 60% so if I am to use it permanently I expect to need to get an aerial like this
http://www.dipol.ie/cellular-systems/gsm-3g-lte-antennas/lte/lte-mimo-antenna-atk-log-lte-800-2170mhz-5m-cable-sma-plug.html

My first venture into Midband, so fairly lost at the moment.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Have a read of this blogg for advice on setting up your lte. Sounds like something wrong with your settings in router.

https://editorsean.com/articles/large-4g-plans-home-broadband-ireland/

Johnboy1951

givecredit wrote: »

Have a read of this blogg for advice on setting up your lte. Sounds like something wrong with your settings in router.

https://editorsean.com/articles/large-4g-plans-home-broadband-ireland/

Thanks will do ....... yes it does behave as if I have some setting wrong, so hopefully this blog is what I was looking for.

Johnboy1951

So the explanation is traffic shaping with youtube as an exception?

That blog implies, just about all downloading (except youtube) is severely limited at times.

In those circumstances I cannot see how this AYCE could work for general use.

Maybe I am misunderstanding things because quite a lot of people have reported satisfactory service using such a SIM.

nagel

dlink setup

login

setup
manual internet setup

3/4g internet setup

I have mine set to manual

set to 3 or 4g whatever suits

set telecom to other

everything else to default except apn

set to (3ireland.ie private ip adr
or 3internet public ip

save

Johnboy1951

Thanks nagel, all those settings look familiar, so no problem there.

It does seem to be coming down to traffic shaping reducing the d/load speed to 1Mb/s.

my3cents

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Thanks nagel, all those settings look familiar, so no problem there.

It does seem to be coming down to traffic shaping reducing the d/load speed to 1Mb/s.

I know this is a dumb question but sometimes they have to be asked, are you sure its nothing to do with the wireless connection/settings on the device or you computer?

editorsean

Three's traffic shaping covers other several other CDNs, such as CloudFlare.

Here are two download links to try:
https://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/v2.8/windows/gimp-2.8.22-setup.exe
https://www.fosshub.com/GIMP.html/gimp-2.8.22-setup.exe

This is the same 85.4MB GIMP package (open source photo editor), one hosted on HEAnet and the second hosted with a CloudFlare CDN.

Here's the network traffic graph from my end when I try downloading the two one after the other (about 10:30am here). The right image is a Speed test using the Galway server, run after the test downloads. Most of the Irish Ookla servers give around the same speed on my end.

Johnboy1951

my3cents wrote: »

I know this is a dumb question but sometimes they have to be asked, are you sure its nothing to do with the wireless connection/settings on the device or you computer?

I was trying to determine if the settings on the D-Link were correct or needed tweaking ..... that was the purpose of this thread.
Nagle has posted the settings above and they are the same as used in the D-Link.
So, unless there are other settings not mentioned the D-Link settings are correct.
I am certain there is nothing amiss with the PC which was wired to the D-Link.

Johnboy1951

@editorsean

If you use several speedtest sites ...... ookla etc ....... in a short space of time, does the speedtest result dramatically drop from say 16Mb/s to 1Mb/s?
Will pages to Boards still load in fast/reasonable time?

One thing I am unclear about ...... on purchase of an AYCE SIM, does the SIM need to be put into a phone first and some setting enabled, or directly into the router?

Does it matter?

Thanks.

editorsean

I haven't noticed anything like that to date, even after a large download such as the Windows Fall Creators Update.

As a quick example, I ran several different speed tests across different websites one after the other, starting with the Ookla test (left image) and finally rerunning the test with the same Ookla server (right image).



The following are screenshots from the other tests run in-between the above two, starting with TestMy linear (single thread, London) and multi-thread (London):


DSL Reports - Default 4G test (3 threads):


Google M-Lab - Test you get when you Google "Speed Test". It's a single thread.


Fast.com - Netflix's speed test. It's a multi-thread test like Ookla:


Generally the speed on my end gradually drops between 4pm and 8pm and starts picking up again around midnight, regardless of my usage. It mainly affects individual downloads and streaming off non-prioritised services such as Vimeo and the BBC. With general web browsing, I don't notice much of a difference with page loading performance in the evening.

I wonder if your router is intermittently switching to a more congested mast. I don't think a prepay phone SIM needs to be used in a phone first with its first use after purchase.

Johnboy1951

@editorsean

Thanks for that extra info.

Maybe I will try buying another SIM to test again, although I am not at all sure it will do much good.

The D-Link was originally provided by Rural Wifi which also used a 3 SIM, so it should be properly compatible.

Yet a friend who tried it had the same results as me (different SIM; different mast)

my3cents

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

@editorsean

Thanks for that extra info.

Maybe I will try buying another SIM to test again, although I am not at all sure it will do much good.

The D-Link was originally provided by Rural Wifi which also used a 3 SIM, so it should be properly compatible.

Yet a friend who tried it had the same results as me (different SIM; different mast)

Think you also need to try another router.

givecredit

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

One thing I am unclear about ...... on purchase of an AYCE SIM, does the SIM need to be put into a phone first and some setting enabled, or directly into the router?

Does it matter?

Thanks.

I've set up 3 of these. All 3 I have activated in phone first. No setting enabled, Just receive text from 3.ie

Johnboy1951

givecredit wrote: »

I've set up 3 of these. All 3 I have activated in phone first. No setting enabled, Just receive text from 3.ie

Thanks for that confirmation.

Johnboy1951

my3cents wrote: »

Think you also need to try another router.

I would if I had one