Vodafone to introduce flat rate wireless broadband

Blaster99

Got myself one of the 3G cards today.

I started using it in Sandyford. There were lots of intermittent problems where the symptom was that I couldn't resolve domain names. Couldn't ping the DNS server and possibly no other servers either but the yoke claimed it was connected and I was receiving SMS's. This problem came and went. When it was working, the speed was fluctuating between 250 and 380kbps with 4 bar signal strength. I'm guessing this is contention in action. I also came across the 619 error and fixed it by rebooting (or it went away when I had rebooted).

I'm sitting at home now and I'm getting sort of 340-380kbps speeds with 3 bar strength. It seems more stable here.

I've tried Skype and VoIP. Both are laggy.

So far the experience has been far from smooth, that's for sure. As one would expect with a laggy connection around 380kbps, it's not exactly quick. Hopefully HSDPA will bring a better experience.

oscarBravo

Blaster99 wrote:

There were lots of intermittent problems where the symptom was that I couldn't resolve domain names. Couldn't ping the DNS server and possibly no other servers either but the yoke claimed it was connected and I was receiving SMS's. This problem came and went.

Using mine under Linux (I've never tried it in Windows and don't plan to), I watch the syslog when it's connecting. Sometimes I get allocated DNS servers with RFC1918 addresses (10.x), which don't work; sometimes I get allocated public addresses, which do. If I get RFC1918, I hang up and reconnect.

jwt

Port blocking is going to be an issue for business users who want to be able to remote onto a client.

Or wish to route SMTP onto their own mail server, enable remote desktop access etc. when using the vodafone BB as a backup bb connection.

Has anyone got a confirmation on port blocking from vodafone?


John

Urban Weigl

jwt, business users will in all likelihood wish to use a VPN anyway, which will mitigate these limitations. And it would not be very practical to run a mail server on it.

It makes at least some sense to block incoming ports, simply from the point of view of saving bandwidth. There is a lot of "background noise" on the internet that would otherwise take up capacity on the 3G network, where it is at a premium.

bealtine

Urban Weigl wrote:

jwt, business users will in all likelihood wish to use a VPN anyway, which will mitigate these limitations.

VPNs still require open incoming ports be they IPSec or L2TP or whatever.
(At least all the VPNs I know of do)
I dont see how a VPN can mitigate these "closed port" issues.

Blaster99

A client VPN is established by the client so it doesn't matter if inbound ports are blocked. It needs outbound ports. And they're currently not blocked. I wouldn't be surprised if something like 5060 (SIP) will be blocked eventhough in my experience the connection isn't good enough to carry VoIP reliably. VPN's work fine as it stands, ignoring various connection issues.

jwt

VPN typically is configured as external client coming in on a port. otherwise you would have to initiate from the server side to some ip address that you dont know.

Lot of people using Small Business Server aren't using VPN but still require open ports in particular....


25 - SMTP
80 - http
443 - https
444 - Sharepoint Intranet
4125 - remote web workspace
1723 - vpn
3389 - terminal services


In many small business (less than 20 users) running your own exchange server and using it to handle SMTP incoming mail makes a lot of sense from the point of view of SPAM, antivirus and forwarding mails to blackberries etc.


So its looking like vodafone as a reduntant bb connection is not a workable idea.

uncle_sam_ie

I'm just after speaking to the vodafone support team and they told me that the linksys router ( http://elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1121637&productID=163393 ) is not recommended and doesn't support their cards. I also check the reviews on Amazon UK and one reviewers says the Huawei E620 doesn't work http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000CDWH2E/ref=pd_rvi_gw_1/202-7174021-6827064?ie=UTF8 . So, is this true? I thought some of you had this router working with the cards.

bealtine

Blaster99 wrote:

A client VPN is established by the client so it doesn't matter if inbound ports are blocked.

That is a valid statement for simple VPNs, PPTP or SSL type ones.

Blaster99

I'm incidently seeing this problem where the connection just dies, ie I can't talk IP to anything. The "dash board" tells me I'm connected and I'm receiving SMS's, so God knows what's going on. The only way I could get it back in the land of the working was by rebooting which is a serious PITA because I have a lot of apps running that I would like to keep running.

I should probably be talking to support about this instead of moaning about it here. I wonder if it's cell/location dependent because I didn't see this at home last night and I was connected for quite a while.

Urban Weigl

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

I'm just after speaking to the vodafone support team and they told me that the linksys router ( http://elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1121637&productID=163393 ) is not recommended and doesn't support their cards. I also check the reviews on Amazon UK and one reviewers says the Huawei E620 doesn't work http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000CDWH2E/ref=pd_rvi_gw_1/202-7174021-6827064?ie=UTF8 . So, is this true? I thought some of you had this router working with the cards.

That is not true. The new Huawei cards are supported. If for some reason it is not working, you have old firmware installed on your WRT54G3G (voda/linksys co-branded router), and you need to get updated. This is a simple process (just upload the new firmware). You can get it from http://www-uk.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?childpagename=UK%2FLayout&packedargs=page%3D2%26cid%3D1129319214507%26c%3DL_Content_C1&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&SubmittedElement=Linksys%2FFormSubmit%2FProductDownloadSearch&sp_prodsku=1133203163100

uncle_sam_ie

Urban Weigl wrote:

That is not true. The new Huawei cards are supported. If for some reason it is not working, you have old firmware installed on your WRT54G3G (voda/linksys co-branded router), and you need to get updated. This is a simple process (just upload the new firmware). You can get it from http://www-uk.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?childpagename=UK%2FLayout&packedargs=page%3D2%26cid%3D1129319214507%26c%3DL_Content_C1&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&SubmittedElement=Linksys%2FFormSubmit%2FProductDownloadSearch&sp_prodsku=1133203163100

Ya,I can't understand why they said that to me. Last week I went into one of the vodafone stores and the girl there told me that the cards will only work with Dell laptops and defiantly wont work on a Mac. It's like they don't want to sell me there product or couldn't be bothered.

cgarvey

Ok, I've spent enough time cleaning up this thread already, so you can take the tech talk over to Wireless (or BB if you prefer) from here on in.