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Why is 3's national broadband so crap ?

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  • 01-07-2014 3:25pm
    #1
    Cork_chick_94
    Closed Accounts Posts: 285 ✭✭


    3 got 200 million? from the government to provide broadband but i cant even watch a youtube video with it. Should 3 be required to refund the exchequer ?


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    #2
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,697 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Because UMTS was never the correct technology for this service. State's fault for accepting the tender.


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    #3
    BunkMoreland
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 820 ✭✭✭BunkMoreland


    Depends on where you are.

    Force your device to ONLY connect to the fastest type of signal it can receive (whether 3g or 4g). This will prevent it from falling back to slower signals, and help you find the position of the best "fastest" signal.


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    #4
    munchkin_utd
    Registered Users Posts: 7,834 ✭✭✭munchkin_utd


    BunkMoreland wrote: »
    Depends on where you are.

    Force your device to ONLY connect to the fastest type of signal it can receive (whether 3g or 4g). This will prevent it from falling back to slower signals, and help you find the position of the best "fastest" signal.
    +1
    it can be very fast if you have a proper connection.

    Also, using a stick in the laptop is not a proper connection to start with, so if you have that then reconsider and get a proper wireless router.
    And, put this router in the highest part of the house/ facing where the transmitter is to ensure best reception. If you need a repeater to get wifi off the router in other corners of the house then so be it, but getting that initial connection to the 3 transmitter is the important factor.

    A friend of mine has the rural broadband by 3 and its quicker than the DSL available to my parents down the road but only when the router is in the optimal position, otherwise the signal is (kind of obviously) worse


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    #5
    Oldtree
    Registered Users Posts: 8,104 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    This is what I did to improve things:

    Ring them up and find out the direction to the nearest poles. In my case 1 out the back direction and 1 out the front direction.

    I have an ordinary USB extension cable (3m) from the pc to a back window and hang the dongle inside the window. This gives very good speeds there esp during the day.

    The front is a different matter as the pole in that direction is further away. For this I use an active USB cable (5m) from the laptop to the window, with a 1m ordinary USB cable on the window end, which allows me to put the dongle outside of the top of the window without damaging the active cable and the dongle in a ziplock to protect it from the weather. This gives me fairly good speeds there, BUT as other uses use the pole later in the day and the evening the speeds drop (man on phone said as much too) but I can usually watch a youtube video to give an indication of speeds.

    I have yet to run the active cable to the back of the house from the laptop to see if it improves evening speeds, but will try that soon.

    It would be pointless to try wireless on the speeds I get, and the router was much slower then the above solution for me.


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    #6
    BunkMoreland
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 820 ✭✭✭BunkMoreland


    I can't post links or images...

    But I have 3 Broadband pro with the Aircard / Netgear AC762S (small wireless router)
    On speedtest I'm getting:
    Ping: 30ms
    Download: 18.79Mb/s
    Upload: 2.18Mb/s

    Here's my signal info:
    Network: 3
    Active Network: 4G
    Signal Strength: 40%
    RSRP: -107dBm
    RSRQ: -5dB

    Initially it would only connect to 3G, and the speeds were only 1-2Mb/s. In the aircard settings I set "Network Technology" to "LTE ALL" (4G only). This forced it to find any kind of 4G signal and hey presto I'm getting close to 20Mb/s.

    For a 3G device there should be a setting only for "WCDMA ALL" or "WCDMA Only"


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    #7
    Oldtree
    Registered Users Posts: 8,104 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    These are the speeds I am getting from the front window this morning:

    313447.png

    In the dongle window there is no 4g network to connect to. There are however other networks (not 3) listed, but would there not be a charges to link to those?

    313448.png


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    #8
    dubhthach
    Registered Users Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    BunkMoreland wrote: »
    I can't post links or images...

    But I have 3 Broadband pro with the Aircard / Netgear AC762S (small wireless router)
    On speedtest I'm getting:
    Ping: 30ms
    Download: 18.79Mb/s
    Upload: 2.18Mb/s

    Here's my signal info:
    Network: 3
    Active Network: 4G
    Signal Strength: 40%
    RSRP: -107dBm
    RSRQ: -5dB

    Initially it would only connect to 3G, and the speeds were only 1-2Mb/s. In the aircard settings I set "Network Technology" to "LTE ALL" (4G only). This forced it to find any kind of 4G signal and hey presto I'm getting close to 20Mb/s.

    For a 3G device there should be a setting only for "WCDMA ALL" or "WCDMA Only"

    LTE rollout is basically forcing the telco's to make sure that every basestation has a fibre connection to core network. Technically speaking though LTE isn't 4G but that's a quibble (LTE Advanced will meet criteria for 4G ;) )


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