Voda or 3 for 3G broadband

BendiBus

Now that I hate NTL and am without broadband for the next few weeks I'm going to try out 3G data.

Any recommendations as to the best provider? I really like the look of Vodafones dinky little 3G USB modem. Very Apple-esque.

DaBreno

Im using Vodafone 3G at the mo, no complaints but Im in a Broadband free area. IS NTL really that bad? 3G is slower.
The USB modem is grand, a nesessity if you have Dell as the Datacard wont work with em. One thing I found is that there are currently no wireless routers for the Modem, only the datacard.
Tis pricey at €50 a month.

rebel.ranter

O2 will have a 3.6M service in the next few months, looks very good.

mobby

DaBreno wrote:

Im using Vodafone 3G at the mo, no complaints but Im in a Broadband free area. IS NTL really that bad? 3G is slower.
The USB modem is grand, a nesessity if you have Dell as the Datacard wont work with em. One thing I found is that there are currently no wireless routers for the Modem, only the datacard.
Tis pricey at €50 a month.

I have a Dell D600 Laptop and works fine with the Datacard no install issues at all.

Blaster99

BendiBus wrote:

for the next few weeks I'm going to try out 3G data.

Min 12 month contract.

DaBreno

mobby wrote:

I have a Dell D600 Laptop and works fine with the Datacard no install issues at all.

Ok. I was told for more than person(including the voa shop) they wouldnt work with the Dell Inspiron laptops or Media center PC's.

rebel.ranter wrote:

O2 will have a 3.6M service in the next few months, looks very good.

Cool ! Got a link for this?

BendiBus

Blaster99 wrote:

Min 12 month contract.

Sorry, just a badly constructed sentence. I know about the 12 month contract.

6digitnumber

I have vodafone 3g and i'm dead pleased with it. I'm living in Cork city and I'm getting 1.2Mb/s and a good quality of service. It is pricey at 50 quid, and the 5gig cap is a bit mangy, but I dont have a phone line and I didnt have LOS for digiweb so this works for me. The speeds and cap should increase later on in the year though, if o2 introduce 3.6 I'm sure vodafone will follow suit.

optiplexgx270

Depends on the Dell laptop model. The newer Inspiron ones do not have pcimia slots any more hense the usb mdem. I have built in on my dell latitude d820 which is cool no datacard or aerial (Just a sim under the battery). There IS a wireless router for the Voda datacard on the voda site: http://www.vodafone.ie/sme/mailonthemove/laptopconnectivity/3grouter/index.jsp

wirelessdude

media centre edition has some issues for both the data cards and usb modems...work for voda and use both on an ongoing basis....both give same level of coverage but for pure ease of use the usb modem wins handsdown....another network upgrade early next year will push the speed up to 3.6mb....any questions pm me

optiplexgx270

I know you say PM but would you have a time frame?

wirelessdude

i'm here at the moment

optiplexgx270

I mean for the network upgrade to 3.6

BTW OP id go with Voda not 3

DaBreno

wirelessdude wrote:

another network upgrade early next year will push the speed up to 3.6mb....any questions pm me

Can you tell us if this will be rolled out across the whole country? Or do individual 3G masts need to be modified for an upgrade like this?

wirelessdude

3.6 upgrade is due sometime in the spring as far as i know...would expect it to be in place before the consumer launch...think it is just a software upgrade and will have min 70% population coverage..currently stands at 59%

vibe666

sometime in the next three months 3 are going to be rolling out their mobile broadband service to all the countries they cover (inc. Ireland). from what I've read it's already on trial in the UK and will be rolled out over the 1st quarter of 2007 across their whole euro-zone.

this will mean you will have a fixed cost for mobile calls and data along with skype and streaming media from your home pc etc. and no more paying per mb used.

The X-Series from 3 will be priced like fixed line broadband. It will offer use of mobile internet services free at the time of use, for a flat fee. The X-Series from 3 will be available in the UK from the 1st December 2006 and in 3’s other markets around the world in early 2007. Each 3 company will provide further details as they launch X-Series in their markets.

you can read the full press release here: http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/Nov2006/3926.htm

three ireland already have info on the x-series on the website too, here: http://xseries.three.com/

i know it's no good if you're looking for access today, but it's something very much worth factoring in if you are going to sign up for a 12 month contract with someone.

cold_filter

DaBreno wrote:

Ok. I was told for more than person(including the voa shop) they wouldnt work with the Dell Inspiron laptops or Media center PC's.



QUOTE]


Thats not the case the card will work any laptop that has a PCIMIA slot though most newer ones have the express card slot and i dont think voda will be bringing out an adapater.
Vodafone will be launching a 3.6 service before march 07

uncle_sam_ie

DaBreno wrote:

Ok. I was told for more than person(including the voa shop) they wouldnt work with the Dell Inspiron laptops or Media center PC's.



Cool ! Got a link for this?

The Vodafone sales people don't have a clue. I was told by them that the data card wouldn't work on a Mac. They said it would only work on a Dell running XP. Which is completely wrong. I've got it running fine on both my Macs running OS X threw a Linksys router.

Sam Vimes

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

The Vodafone sales people don't have a clue. I was told by them that the data card wouldn't work on a Mac. They said it would only work on a Dell running XP. Which is completely wrong. I've got it running fine on both my Macs running OS X threw a Linksys router.

i could maybe understand them saying just xp but only a dell???

having said that, i phoned 3 asking about their one and the agent had never heard of it. at least voda told their staff it exists

DaBreno

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

The Vodafone sales people don't have a clue. I was told by them that the data card wouldn't work on a Mac. They said it would only work on a Dell running XP. Which is completely wrong. I've got it running fine on both my Macs running OS X threw a Linksys router.

Maybe they meant the card wouldnt plug directly in a Mac? The datacard should work with any device provided its pluged into a router and your pc/laptop can pick up the wireless lan.
(Btw how much did you pay for the Linksys router? I cant seem to find em cheap anywhere).

Glad to hear the rollout is just software. It may be the end of time before Eircom ever get around to upgrading our telephone exchange and I was afraid that 3G masts in remote areas would suffer the same fate.

emaherx

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

The Vodafone sales people don't have a clue. I was told by them that the data card wouldn't work on a Mac. They said it would only work on a Dell running XP. Which is completely wrong. I've got it running fine on both my Macs running OS X threw a Linksys router.

Technically its not running on your Mac its running on your router, any web enabled networked device can use it through the router.

But to say it will only work on a Dell is silly and its not even limited to XP.
I have mine working in the PCMCIA port of my Linux laptop running Fedora Core 6 (Took a bit of tinkering to get working). I would imagine you can get OS X to use it also.

uncle_sam_ie

Commander Vimes wrote:

i could maybe understand them saying just xp but only a dell???

having said that, i phoned 3 asking about their one and the agent had never heard of it. at least voda told their staff it exists

Dells, that one threw me as well. You think they'd want to train their staff a little better. At least send them a memo. Staff that are well informed=€€€€€€€€ but, apparently management just doesn't get that one.

uncle_sam_ie

emaherx wrote:

Technically its not running on your Mac its running on your router, any web enabled networked device can use it through the router.

But to say it will only work on a Dell is silly and its not even limited to XP.
I have mine working in the PCMCIA port of my Linux laptop running Fedora Core 6 (Took a bit of tinkering to get working). I would imagine you can get OS X to use it also.

Sorry, I should of said "work with"

Cabaal

emaherx wrote:

Technically its not running on your Mac its running on your router, any web enabled networked device can use it through the router.

^
he's right you know, unless you can actually get it working with your mac by connecting it directly to your mac then Vodafone sales are still 100% correct

uncle_sam_ie

Cabaal wrote:

^
he's right you know, unless you can actually get it working with your mac by connecting it directly to your mac then Vodafone sales are still 100% correct

The only reason it won't work with newer laptops is because they come with the new Express card slots and not the PCMCIA slot. The card should work on the older Powerbooks that can take the card. The box that the card comes in even say's it will work with OS X. So the sales staff are not 100% correct. I never said I had a new Macbook Pro. I just said it was an Apple laptop. They flat out said it wouldn't work on a Mac. Only a Dell running XP.

ronano

I presume you need a vodaphone bill pay to avail of 3g broadband,what's the cheapest contract to get ? i only want it for the broadband

Sponge Bob

data is a contract on its own and you can keep your phone ready to go.

to get the subsidy on the card you must sign a 12 month contract

Voda looks like the best bet (by far) for me , I would avoid O2 and 3 with 2gb and 3gb caps respectively and an excess charge of about €1000 per Gb thereafter.

Voda also (probably) have the best coverage although 3 have improved recently . O2 is pretty far behind them

pm.

when its eventually available throughout ireland will it be good for gaming???

DaBreno

Depends on the cap I suppose. Ive also found that the connection quality varies with the weather. At the moment the wind is howling and the Signal quality is lower than usual. It wouldnt do if you got cut off at the wrong time...

Having delt with different versions of their 3G PC datacards I have developed a hatred for vodafones mobile data division. bear in mind this doesn't apply to their USB thing as I havn't tried it yet, but where I work we have had loads of them. From the nokia pure GSM, to early gprs only to the brand new 3.5G ones.

* The software (mobile connect) is terrible, frequently requires reinstalls and often refuses to connect. Usually a reinstall is the only solution. Sometimes, just for fun the reinstall or upgrade with refuse to work requiring digging in the registry to manually remove it. I've little faith in their software people to actually provide reliable software. Oh and the card itself frequently isn't recognised by the laptops.

* At times, whatever ingenious way their 3g network is setup, private ip address get routed on to the 3G network. This frequently causes problems with VPN software as generally lans use these address ranges.

* The cards are used by sales people who roam in other countries. The cards sometimes fail to roam in other countries and sometimes the roaming network will bar the card because it has an incorrect firmware version. Update firmware problem solved right? Wrong! At one time vodafone listed different firmware versions required in order to roam in a different countrys. :mad:

* Pings will be in the 200ms range so forget gaming.

* Get a 3g phone and check if you have 3G coverage where you live because its within a more limited distance of the mast.

Based on their datacard track record my advice is avoid like the plague.

optiplexgx270

pm. wrote:

when its eventually available throughout ireland will it be good for gaming???

Oh dear god no. The pings are VERY high. I've never tried to play online with it but with pings of 200-300 why would I when my home bb is 20-40?

pm.

optiplexgx270 wrote:

Oh dear god no. The pings are VERY high. I've never tried to play online with it but with pings of 200-300 why would I when my home bb is 20-40?

ok, but there a lot of people who cant get bb into there home and this may well be the only solution for years.

optiplexgx270

I know what you mean exactly, but for those that think that playing online games with a 3G card will work well may think again.

vibe666

ronoc wrote:

Having delt with different versions of their 3G PC datacards I have developed a hatred for vodafones mobile data division. bear in mind this doesn't apply to their USB thing as I havn't tried it yet, but where I work we have had loads of them. From the nokia pure GSM, to early gprs only to the brand new 3.5G ones.

<snip>

Based on their datacard track record my advice is avoid like the plague.

ditto.

i look after a lot of vpn users in ireland and the uk and the vodafone datacards can be a nightmare.

I'm still optimistic that 3's x-series will be better, just hoping it lives up to at least some of the hype.

optiplexgx270

Cant speak for the datacard but the built in on my dell laptop with the dell true mobility S/W hasnt had issues with cisco/sonicwall yet .

JTMan

vibe666 wrote:

sometime in the next three months 3 are going to be rolling out their mobile broadband service to all the countries they cover (inc. Ireland). from what I've read it's already on trial in the UK and will be rolled out over the 1st quarter of 2007 across their whole euro-zone.

HSDA with 3 launched last week and now covers Dublin and much of the country. 85% will be covered by February.

http://www.three.ie/ihandsets/datacards.html contains all the details. Their store staff seemed well versed.

Is anyone using the HSDA cards from 3 yet ???

daelight

Fungus wrote:

Is anyone using the HSDA cards from 3 yet ???

I'm due the card on Wednesday. Down here in the s(h)tix of Tralee.. Carphone Warehouse hadn't heard of the thing so ordered it through the ol' telephone. Broadband isn't available where I am and this could be the ticket.

I'm very wary though... made sure I got the 14 day money back in case it just doesn't cut the mud....

aare

Oh the wild rumors...here are the facts known to me:

1. Vodaphone and 3 network launched HSDPA in parts of Dublin and some other areas on the Monday before Christmas, but even a large proportion of Voda's support staff were blissfully unaware of this until at least 24 hours later.
2. The Vodaphone Mobile connect card also works seamlessly in a Latitude C640, I think some later Inspirons are actually shipping with built in 3g (which means another kind of internal mini PCMCIA may be available, best to check the Vodaphone site). Dundrum was actually using a Dell laptop to demonstrate last time I checked
3. The Mobile Connect card is supported on Win 2000, XP and OsX. There are suggestions all over google that it can be made to work on some versions of Linux, and all over Vodaphone that it is "not supported" on Win 98, which often means that there is probably a way to persuade it to work but they will not tell you what that is. If anybody has persuaded it to work on OS 9 I would really, REALLY love to hear how.
4. Minimum contract may be 18 months, not 12 with voda, that was certainly the only contract they offered me, though, at end of contract I think one would be due a card upgrade, and is it realistically likely that HSDPA will exceed 10mbps in next 18 months (except in my, still GPRS, dreams)?
5. Data limit on Voda was declared at one stage to be 5gb, there are now rumors that it has been rescinded altogether for legal reasons, data limit on 3 is 3gb
6. Voda is asynchronimous and upload is significantly slower than download

I can understand where the wild rumors come from, when I bought my card (before USB modem was out) three different shops told me that card did not work with every laptop, but they had no idea how or why.

Staff in Vodaphone shops do not necessarily understand computers and do not seem to have been very well briefed on the Data cards.

BUT

I am delighted with my card that sits in a PCI adapter card in my PC most of the time, when it isn't coming for "walkies" in my Latitude 640c.

I will be ecstatic if I ever find a way to get it to run on my vintage Mac Powerbook (with Bronze Keyboard and OS9.6). All information appreciated

I have had trouble getting it to run over an ethernet network, but it may just be settings, because I haven't tried very hard, and if anyone can tell me if/how the card can be run in a ZyXel ZyWall 10w (an item I freely admit I do not even begin to understand, but I can't kick the feeling it is ZyXel equivalent of the Lynksys router) they will have a grateful acolyte for life.

Ravenholm

Fungus wrote:

HSDA with 3 launched last week and now covers Dublin and much of the country. 85% will be covered by February.

http://www.three.ie/ihandsets/datacards.html contains all the details. Their store staff seemed well versed.

Is anyone using the HSDA cards from 3 yet ???

I've been testing them in work for a few weeks now. Very frustrating to use as the signal strength and speed fluctuates, making for an annoying experience. Frequently the signal jumps from 3G broadband to GPRS broadband and then back again within the space of a few seconds. When observing the connection speed stats in the Vodafone dashboard the upload and download speeds frequently drop to 0 bps and stay there. Sometimes you need to disconnect then reconnect to "wake" up the connection.

On average it isn't much faster than the normal 3G Vodafone cards as you rarely get up to the theoretical max speed. Sometimes it seems that a dialup connection over a phone gives a less annoying internet session.

Please note that I was using this in the City Centre. I would expect to get a good stable signal here. Like all of Vodafones new data products they work well until the contention ratio is increased when the product becomes widespread.

Buyer beware!

aare

MAYBE it's because I am a dinosaur who's baptism of cellnets came in the days of Eircell when mobile phones were large grey, cost £2000+ and their most effective "built in security feature" was the option of bashing muggers over the head with them...

But...

Seems to me that there can be more to mobile phone signals than just "being there"? If I recall correctly, masked concrete can be a serious problem, even blocking signals entirely, and system overload, simply because too many people were using too many phones in one area, only ever really "bit deep" (and early) in the city centre in Dublin.

Though I am in the wilds here I seem to be just the GPRS side of the same fence you are sitting on, in the sense that my card can recognise 3g but not aquire it (it's purely too far away I think). When the wind shifts and there is a window of "almost 3g" it would drive a saint to drink. I have a "GPRS only" profile against just this eventuality.

I have had clear 087 (in the front of the house) since 1990, and, though the signal strength has improved immeasurably since (I can gossip effectively in back now) I find the signal strengths for the data card uncannily similar. But then I am lucky, I live in an house of windows.

You may find that an external aerial on window may solve a lot of problems. I got an F718 from here http://www.g-com.co.uk they are super people to deal with too, who went to incredible trouble to get the right adapter for my Voda card (I think the Huawei E620 voda and E630 3 have the same socket).

However it was not enough to pick up 3g 10 miles away (or tell me next week's lotto numbers).

The system overload problem is for 3 to sort out. I understand that the 3g networks are set to prioritise voice and music downloads.

Neither network will get the picture that their network isn't handling the strain of data transfer well in significant areas like Dublin City Center if people do not tell them...

So keep complaining. Remember, these datacards could be the future of broadband, so every time you complain you are doing the a favor.

daelight

Oh dear, great start with this crowd already...

I was told I would get the datacard Wednesday but by 3pm with no call from the courier this led me to call 3. At least no crazy-maze of push-this-that-and-the other to get to talk to someone. The customer service person told me it was at 'pick in progress' 2 days so far to put a box in the post?? :rolleyes:

When I asked when I sould expect delivery, after a sigh of 'I havn't the foggiest' she told me 'end of the week'

I shouldn't have believed the salesperson I know but there you go. As the numpties in the mobile phone shops here don't have the product I've had to go this route. We'll see what happens Friday, I know you must be gripped to your seats

matthiku

aare wrote:

(...)

You may find that an external aerial on window may solve a lot of problems. I got an F718 from here http://www.g-com.co.uk they are super people to deal with too, who went to incredible trouble to get the right adapter for my Voda card (I think the Huawei E620 voda and E630 3 have the same socket).

However it was not enough to pick up 3g 10 miles away (...)

I've got the the 3 datacard (Huawei E620) right before Christmas, but unfortunately, only have GPRS with ~ 238 kBps in my area (Spancilhill, Co. Clare) at the moment. Calling 3 and they told me that there are no dates for improvement in this area as of now.
So I was thinking of getting an external antenna myself and came across this one:
http://www.specialistantennas.co.uk/antennas/GSM/SMP-918-9.aspx.
I have asked the folks there for a quote yesterday, but haven't got any answer yet.

So far, the datacard resides in an old IBM Thinkpad A21m and I can share the Internet connection on my LAN to other computers in the house.

I only found out after the purchase of the card that my Dell laptop has only this new Express card slot.... Who on earth thought that PCMCIA is not longer state of the art?

Btw, I can get a proper 3.1 MB connection in Ennis as well as in Shannon.

I ordered my datacard on the internet, but had problems because my credit card is not from an Irish bank - they need this to check your credit worthiness. But I got that sorted and the datacard delivered on the next day! Also, so far, their customer service is very helpful and even called me back. However, the shops who deal with 3 seem to be not well informed of mobile internet with 3 as of yet.

Matthy

t¬m¬j

I ordered via phone from 3 at 5.00pm on Wednesday and the datacard was delivered at 11.00am today (friday). Three had the same excellent delivery service when i changed mobiles also.

The 3G video mobile is spot on, I hope to have fun this evening with the datacard...but i will be using the card with a Dell, inspiron, even though i don't think PC type etc is of any relevance as long as the OS and hardware are working together.

The 3 sales person advised me to wait until the end of February as they expect an 85% POPULATION roll out, but to trial the system for 14 days. I thought that was pretty sound...

I hope to replace 1mb my fixed line broadband as i am sick of paying eircom line rental...what a stupid charge...anyway this broadband has never obtained speeds greater than 200k

stay tuned....will the next post be via the 3G datacard?;)

Blaster99

matthiku wrote:

only have GPRS with ~ 238 kBps in my area (Spancilhill, Co. Clare) at the moment. ... So I was thinking of getting an external antenna myself

If you're getting 238kbps, then you already have 3G coverage. An aerial is unlikely to do anything dramatic for you. They have most likely not upgraded your local mast to HSDPA yet.

godskitchen

Blaster99 wrote:

If you're getting 238kbps, then you already have 3G coverage. An aerial is unlikely to do anything dramatic for you. They have most likely not upgraded your local mast to HSDPA yet.

238kbps is what windows says you connect at, its GPRS, when you connect to 3G it says the speed is 1.8Mb

I cant believe Three will keep the cap for long..........

matthiku

godskitchen wrote:

238kbps is what windows says you connect at, its GPRS,

That's correct. My actual "Received Top" speed as displayed in the "3 Datacard" status dialogbox is ~ 54 kbps, and my actual download speed for files is max. 5.5 KB/s (as opposed to 160 KB/s as Urban Weigl reports here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055030500

when you connect to 3G it says the speed is 1.8Mb

Actually, when I connect to 3G (like when I'm closer to Ennis), it says 3.6 MB! Which is actually what 3 promises as maximum speed you can get.

I cant believe Three will keep the cap for long..........

Are you saying they might increase it? I hope so as well.

matthiku

Blaster99 wrote:

If you're getting 238kbps, then you already have 3G coverage.

as "godskitchen" said below, that's (unfortunately) only what Windows says. I have only GPRS/EDGE via Voda at the moment.

An aerial is unlikely to do anything dramatic for you. They have most likely not upgraded your local mast to HSDPA yet.

3 promised to upgrade more areas to 3G within the next few months. If that doesn't happen, I will try to bridge the gap of roughly 1km which I'm outside the current 3G cover with a directional aerial.

I used my laptop in the car today to test the covered area while driveing out from Ennis towards Spancilhill, and about 1km away from our house, 3G was gone (I changed the profile to ONLY use 3G network) - so with that aerial I hope to get it up to my house. But perhaps I'm too optimistic...

Tubbritt

Hello.

If your only 1km outside, you might consider trying one of these for the small amount they cost.

http://www.g-com.co.uk/default.asp?ID=3

A 3dB gain on the signal MIGHT be enough to get you that last mile and 1 bar of 3G. A single bar is all I have and it’s extremely stable. It’s all you would need.

Kind regards.
James.

matthiku

So I will find out!

Thanks for the tipp.