Vodafone 3G gone to the dogs

6digitnumber

I said a lot of good things about Vodafone 3g on this site, that was before xmas when it actually worked most of the time!

Since then it's been a nightmare. I get a connection, lose it after a minute or less, disconnect then reconnect and I get another minutes worth of a connection, and then its gone again. This cycle of annoyance repeats indefinitely. When I do get a connection, I'm getting crawling speeds, dialup speed or less. It doesn't matter if I set it to GPRS or 3G, both connections are equally bad.

I made the mistake of playing online poker with this crap and i get disconnected so often than my money has disappeared by the time i get reconnected!

I live in Cork city centre. If they cant get this rubbish to work properly in a city centre then its a bad state of affairs.

niallb

I'm feeling exactly the same way tonight. (Meath)

I haven't been able to get my Vodafone connection to transfer more
than a few kb all day before locking up.
No comparison possible even to dialup speeds of 15 years ago.
Like yourself, this is happening on GPRS as well as 3G.
Back on ISDN now.

I have a bracket on the window for the best spot in the house,
so it's in exactly the same location in which it has worked well until now.
Querying the card also gives the same signal strength as always.

Hopefully they're just experimenting with giving us improved service :-)
I'd like to hear about it though!

I tried to order a 3 card today, but they don't seem to want to sell them.
(More on that at a later date if I don't hear back from them.)


NiallB

davidf1412

Same in Dublin with 5 bars 3G signal strength I seldom got above 1kbs on Sunday and a lot of the time it's 0. Right now it's reasonable with 2 bars - but it's erratic. I did manage to speak to support on Friday but the promised call back is still awaited.

bugler

Last night was really bad. It was the first time it was actually unusable. Boards wouldn't even load, or it would eventually but the next link I'd click would just result in an error.

I haven't been getting disconnects, my signal hardly changes at all between the good times and the appalling. A pity, I won't be keeping this service.

Sponge Bob

You guys should remember that The total amount of spectrum available for all Vodafone 3g services is actually very small and must be used ( and re used) very very carefully.

Once a cell 'fills up' in an urban area it will be fairly difficult to slot in a new cell and unload some of the traffic onto it.

Vodafone only have 2 x 15mhz + 5mhz . one 15 is down and the other is up so they only have 15mhz available really .

The best coding schemes can bang out 1.5mbits per mhz in a lab. 3g is not the best coding scheme. The maximum amount of data you could get through a "flat earth" cell is about 12mbits , in the real world and with spectrum reuse and whatnots its a lot less .

I would estimate on the back of an envelope that the best that Vodafone or 3 or o2 could manage in an urban environment is 4mbits thruput PER CELL + or - 50% in that 15mhz . Thats 4mbits for everybody in the cell.

Therefore when you connect at 3.6mbits you are connecting at almost the entire capacity of the cell , nominally.

Contention is 100% guaranteed and thats what you are actually seeing .

In a rural cell isolated without interference it would be higher of course because spectrum reuse is less of a priority and avoiding a nearby cell is a non issue as there is no nearby cell.

The 15mhz total spectrum for all downloads compares to wi-fi with 20mhz and most unfavourably to the likes of Digiweb Metro with a lot more spectrum per cell/ per sector in cell and with a better mbit per mhz usage ratio.

IBB breeze has 100's of Mhz available betwen 5 and 6 ghz but as its not guaranteed any of it it must hop away from interference and find a quiet bit. This it tends to do well nowadays unlike in the past.

There will be more spectrum , in time , for Voda and 3 and o2 but you will need a new card probably . Comreg have not started a consultation so you must wait.

spockety

I too got the 3G mobile connect before xmas and it was great. Now it's basically unusable. How they can advertise this product as a mainstream alternative to broadband I do no know, it is not ready for prime time at all.

If there is something genuinely wrong on their network that they are trying to resolve , then I'll take it all back, because it was working great in December.. 1.6mbps every time I did the speed test no matter what time of day or night.

Now I'm looking at constant packet loss.. last night it was 49% (!!!!!) packet loss, and even during the day it's about 8%.

DemonOfTheFall

I always thought it was funny when I started to see 3G broadband being pushed as a mass market thing, knowing how little you can fit in the airwaves with it. Seems that with the advertising they've filled up the air awfully quickly.

niallb

Sponge Bob wrote:

... when you connect at 3.6mbits you are connecting at almost the entire capacity of the cell , nominally.

Contention is 100% guaranteed and thats what you are actually seeing .

In a rural cell isolated without interference it would be higher of course because spectrum reuse is less of a priority and avoiding a nearby cell is a non issue as there is no nearby cell.

Hi Sponge Bob,
I'm in a rural area - can't see another house from our front door except in winter when the trees are bare ;-)

I'm aware of the cell data capacity restriction, and also the cell breathing phenomenon which is more likely to get me as I'm distant from the mast.
However, there's no HSDPA service out here, I'm only pulling 144k to 384k at best, and so is anyone else I happen to share the cell with.

It just seems a little odd that we're all seeing this degradation at the same time. Maybe there's some tweaking going on.

During the period I mentioned last night, I still had 3-4 bars of 3G on
the meter on the Nokia 6680 I'm using as a modem.
I switched the SIM back into the USB modem, waited for the light
to go blue, and tried again but with no more success.

I noticed late morning that there was no 3G service detected on the phone, and that it had switched to a neighbouring mast offering GPRS.
By the time I got home around 5:30, the 3G icon was back up.

Worth keeping an eye on anyway.
Let us know if you hear anything.

NiallB

JWB

I have been having the same problems on GPRS, I am in a rural area in Cork. It only started yesterday or maybe the day before.

However, I notice now (5.30 am) that it's behaving much better. In fact the delays/response times are a little better than normal, so browsing is tolerable.

One obvious conclusion is that it's the middle of the night but I suspect there may have been something else going on. I guess I'll know later in the day.

Sponge Bob

niallb wrote:

I'm only pulling 144k to 384k at best, and so is anyone else I happen to share the cell with.

Niall, it looks like you have the huawei 618 card which maxes at 384k, could you read this thread please to see if its of any use to you. Even rural cells should be able to do 1.8mbit connects nowadays .....sometimes.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054990043

godskitchen

Both my vodafone and three data cards were painfully slow last night........for the first time ever, i know three will be upgrading the mast near to where i live very soon, but i also know vodafone will not be doing so.......for a very long time......im at a loss to work out why it was happening, the weather was nothing out of the normal and everything was kept the same.

maceocc2

Lads Lads, dont worry, its all good. Vodafone, O2 and Three have all been busy updating there networks with the new Ericsson 3G equipment including new software for the RNC's and Node B's so give it some time and you'll be doubling your previous Download speed very soon.

Sponge Bob

maceocc2 wrote:

Lads Lads, dont worry, its all good. Vodafone, O2 and Three have all been busy updating there networks with the new Ericsson 3G equipment including new software for the RNC's and Node B's so give it some time and you'll be doubling your previous Download speed very soon.

How is it all good when they all have only 15mhz of spectrum available nationally .

Its all the same and especially so in urban areas which will hit the exact same wall Voda did by the summer.

maceocc2

Just to add to your point and clarify it, each 3G provider has a licence for the 5Mhz spectrum this is correct, but obviously you havent heard of WCDMA or maybe you just dont know enough about it.

Also another reason why the lads here might be getting an interupted signal could be becuase of cell breathing which was stumbled upon by the creaters of 3G.

Sponge Bob

Cell breathing only applies if the number of units in the cell increases , meaning the cell shrinks or expands if the number of units decreases .

As most persons are static after 8pm it does NOT apply thereafter but would apply during the rush hour as the number of devices in a given cell changes a lot during that time .

maceocc2

Most people are static after 8pm, thats a fairly general statistic. How can you honestly believe that cell breathing doesn't take place after 8pm.

Anyway My first conclusion to the problem i would say is the fact that vodafone are in a massive upgrade with ericsson at the moment changing out there RNC's and stuff. I would be nearly 100% certain that its nothing to do with the spectrum allocated to vodafone 3G, after all WCDMA only needs 5Mhz spectrum to work off due to the fact that all user can transmit at the same time on the same carrier frequency.

godskitchen

Well i have good news for you all, after my night of crap connection on GPRS i turn on the router today to find a little blue light flashing at me.........imagine my surprise as vodafone told me they would not be upgrading the mast across from my house "for years" so i go out and get the Three data card on top of the vodafone package i already had!

i had some problems connecting and the speeds are not going above 26Kb/s at the max and its up and down all the time............i live in the middle of no where (think i am the only user of a data card on that cell, you know what rural communities are like, i know everyone around here.) and have good LOS, so i put in the laptop and used the vodafone software to see what sort of signal i was getting, 2 bars, i would expect a higher download rate than that as i assume any mast upgrades since the end of last year would be pumping at 3.6M.............i have the E620 card so should be able to get at least 1.8M.

Anyone got any idea whats going on?

Sponge Bob

maceocc2 wrote:

Most people are static after 8pm, thats a fairly general statistic. How can you honestly believe that cell breathing doesn't take place after 8pm.

It can be ruled out thereafter as insignificant . Yes.

Anyway My first conclusion to the problem i would say is the fact that vodafone are in a massive upgrade with ericsson at the moment changing out there RNC's and stuff.

In plain english, adding a few cells will imprve matters and I concur.

I would be nearly 100% certain that its nothing to do with the spectrum allocated to vodafone 3G, after all WCDMA only needs 5Mhz spectrum to work off due to the fact that all user can transmit at the same time on the same carrier frequency.

righty ho Ted . that would be a new law of physics you found there.

If there is 5mhz available in asector ina cell ( I SAID up to 15 max ) The max thruput will be under 5mbits for all users in that sector , you seem to believe its (infinite users) x 5 .

Fascinating Captain

mcaul

I was on to three today to see if there was any update on the high speed service and also because I had connectivity issues this morning.

They expect to have all transmitters completed by end Feb and they ahve not been informed of any change to that, however they have said there will be intermittent service disruption during the upgrade processa dn the connection will revert to vodafone's 2.5 service which will only give about 40kbs.

we'll see in 4 weeks!

DemonOfTheFall

maceocc2 wrote:

after all WCDMA only needs 5Mhz spectrum to work off due to the fact that all user can transmit at the same time on the same carrier frequency.

Really? At what speed exactly can all of these users transmit at the same time? This WCDMA technology sounds amazing, even more throughput than a 1Gbps wired network connection :rolleyes:

davidf1412

Now in Banagher getting 5 bars 3G signal and speeds between 0 and 500bps sometimes up to 3 kbps - it's taken me 20 minutes to get to write this via 5 time-outs.

It's really irritating paying 50 a month for a barely usable service. And I'm tied to a 1 year contract I guess I can't get out of it.

maceocc2

Sponge Bob wrote:

It can be ruled out thereafter as insignificant . Yes.

If there is 5mhz available in asector ina cell ( I SAID up to 15 max ) The max thruput will be under 5mbits for all users in that sector , you seem to believe its (infinite users) x 5 .

In 3G cells there is only 5Mhz of spectrum available not 15. The 15 your talkin about is 2 * 5Mhz GSM channels + the 5Mhz 3G channel
So if theres a maximum of 5mbits available for all users in a cell tell me this...... How is HSDPA (maximum 14.4Mbit/s) possible???

rebel.ranter

Cell breathing is related to the noise floor in a cell. The more users or interference in a cell the more a cell "shrinks". The reason that the number of users is associated with "cell breathing" is because every user introduces additional interference for other users in the cell.
This in turn means that the others users in the cell have to up their power in order to communitate with the Node B (or mast). Some users will not be able to increase their output power enough, hence they will not be able to connect. The cell is said to "shrink" in cases like this.
What could also be happening is interference between cells on the network. All WCDMA cells use the same frequency, they use codes to differenciate between them (unlike GSM where there is a frequency re-use pattern to limit interference). Once a cell knows that another cell exists (i.e. it is defined as a "neighbour" cell) then the Node Bs (masts) can differeciate the different signals using the scrambling codes. If the cell nearby is not defined as a neighbour cell then it is seen as noise or interference. The interference will cause problems with communication between the user & the cell causing the data transmission to fail or constantly get re-transmitted. Hence causing slow dowload speeds.
Slow download speeds can be caused by problems in other parts of the network too, not just in the air interface (link between you and the mast). It could be in the backhaul from Node B back into the network. Insufficient capacity on the RNC (radio network controller), core network issues (switch, SGSN,GGSN) etc. Even a dodgy handset/data card can cause problems.
The fact that GPRS is also affected probably means that the problem is further up the chain than at a specific mast. It is most likely problems SGSN, they have probably over sold the devices & never upped the capacity on the SGSNs.
It seems all networks are swapping out their 3G equipment already, so this will also lead to issues. Swapping this equipment is not like changing the tyre. It's not like for like, it's like going from PC to a MAC. There are bound to be loads of issues while this equipment is swapped out.

niallb

Excellent post Rebel.Ranter.
A better plain english description than
I found anywhere while I was looking it up last month.

I wasn't aware that an undefined neighbour would be treated as noise.
Wonder how that works between providers?

Part of what I'm experiencing is that the connection is fine for just over a minute after connection, then drops its throughput almost to nil, and finally disconnects at about 4 minutes if it can still see the other end.

I've been back on dialup for most of the last week now, but I'm tempted to have a go with a bigger satellite dish and see if that's enough gain for it :-)

Thanks,
NiallB

rebel.ranter

Hi Niall B,
as a matter of curiosity have you tried using your datacard outside?? Indoor penetration is not good on 3G as it runs at 2100MHz, try bring your laptop outside to see if you get an improvement. What also might be happening is you are getting an unusual radio condition in your house. I would also try to download something in the middle of the night when the network is quiet. The bars on your phone will not show interference remember.
But if GPRS is also suffering it suggests the problem is further up the chain in the network.
If the problem still occurs you shoudl ring their customer care give as much detail about what you have done to rule coverage/quality problems.
As for problems between operators it shouldn't be a massive issue. For example Vodafone use 2147.4MHz and O2 use 2167.4 MHz, there is adequate spacing between these to prevent interference. In extreme cases you might get interference where one operator was extremely weak & another really, really strong, it's called 3rd order intermodulation. The only soluton is for the weak operator to build a new site close by. This only occurs in very unusual cases.
Interference with TV signals from re-broadcasters (of UK channels) can also happen in situations like this. The only solution here is to put a filter up by the TV antenna. Even thought the frequencies are very different the difference in power can mean that problems manifest themselves.

niallb

I've tried a lot of things!
Discussed many of them in other threads here over the past month.
This is the kit I used to find the best spot for the modem.

The most consistent spot just happened to be indoors,
and I feel that the structure of the house is playing a role.
Vodafone and O2 both have minimal coverage in the area.
Meteor's coverage is excellent, and it's hard to tell with Three
seeing as they won't just sell you a SIM to see if you can get a signal.

I found the Vodafone service at first to be very weather dependent - the windier the better - but once I found the right spot,
I was very happy with the connection until a few days ago. I was getting regular speeds of well over 200k with glimpses on a speedtest of 380. The link was also stable, and hardly ever dropped without me specifically hanging it up.

I've moved my data SIM to a Nokia 6680 and found it holds a lock on
the 3G service better than the USB modem without amplification.
It also allows me have a central traffic use counter, and see which
cell I'm connected to. As a bonus it gives me the option to connect to the
service via bluetooth, which was convenient as the room with coverage
is not my office ;-)
For the record my connection problem is identical over wire or bluetooth.

What's the spacing like with 3 and Vodafone?
I do see 3 mentioned at various points in the house,
particularly in the attic, in response to an AT+COPS=?

Is a card's AT+CSQ response much use as a measurement of signal quality?
Best I got was 9 which gave me a very reliable link.
The 9 stayed solid for the few weeks, and dropped in the last few days to 5.

I am in an area where I pick up UK channels on a roof antenna.
I'd rule that interference unlikely based on the facts that it
worked fine for several weeks, and the antenna is on an 83 foot pole,
but it's a point to note.

Anyway, I'll pick up an 80cm dish and see if it makes a difference.
I hadn't bothered up until now seeing that there were problem
reports coming from all over and the household is much more harmonious without a satellite dish on a microphone stand in the living room.

Hope I can feed your curiosity enough to get to the bottom of it!
Thanks,
NiallB

Sponge Bob

niallb wrote:

I've tried a lot of things!
Discussed many of them in other threads here over the past month.
This is the kit I used to find the best spot for the modem.
The most consistent spot just happened to be indoors,
and I feel that the structure of the house is playing a role.

That K glass can play puck with a signal , it contains metal. Double blocks don't help either.

I found the Vodafone service at first to be very weather dependent - the windier the better - but once I found the right spot,
I was very happy with the connection until a few days ago. I was getting regular speeds of well over 200k with glimpses on a speedtest of 380. The link was also stable, and hardly ever dropped without me specifically hanging it up.

marginal then. always a bitch. add in a bit of ' breathing ' and it falls off the cliff. rebel.ranter explained it very well .

What's the spacing like with 3 and Vodafone?
I do see 3 mentioned at various points in the house,
particularly in the attic, in response to an AT+COPS=?

assume unlesss you KNOW otherwise that they use the same masts and that their coverage will be determined by users in cells by network, whichever is least used may be best in your case....and that may change over time. I would still assume they are on the same masts/ same power etc. If you are marginal with one you are equally marginal with another.

Best I got was 9 which gave me a very reliable link.
The 9 stayed solid for the few weeks, and dropped in the last few days to 5.

...and that may be because the sectors/antennae were retuned to provide a better signal along a main road where the 3g operators wish to provide a consistent voice service. For the moment the 3g network buildout is a matter of ' follow the N roads ' .

and the household is much more harmonious without a satellite dish on a microphone stand in the living room.

send a picture to Noel Dempsey or even better to the Meath Chronicle . Noel believes that broadband is easily available to all in the pale and that its all thanks to Noel the great guru that he is.

I personally believe that the government was wrong ( 2 or 3 years ago) not to bring in a tax scheme like section 23 apartments to foster more masts being built.

rebel.ranter will correct me if wrong but the problem is this.

2g has better range than 3g. If you assume that we are in the bog of allen here is what happens OUTDOORS .

2g cell provides full services (voice + gprs) easily to about 5 miles. pi x (r x r ) is 3.14 x 25 miles or 78 square miles of coverage

3g only works to 3 miles (full service = video calls data and voice) pi x (r x r) is 3.14 x 9 miles or 28 square miles of coverage

Crudely you need 3 times more masts/cells to provide 3g coverage equal to 2g coverage

Then add in hills bumps buildings and walls and the fact that 2g penetrates better at 900 or 1800mhz than 3g at 2100 mhz or higher and I would estimate you need 5 times more masts to get quality 3g coverage as well as quality 2g coverage . Thats equal to 2g coverage given the different services.

Where the **** are these masts ??? , we knew we would need them 5 years ago .

rebel.ranter

The interference in relation to the TV signal was the TV signal being interfered not the 3G signal being affected by the TV. It normally only happens with GSM (900 MHz).

The 3G FDD spectrum is divided as follows:

Uplink (what you phones uses to transmit):

Three: 1920MHz - 1935MHz
Free: 1935MHz - 1950MHz
Vodafone:1950Mhz - Vodafone - 1965MHz
O2: 1965MHz - 1980MHz

Dowlinlink (the Mast/Node B transmits):

Three: 2110Mhz - 2125MHz
Free: 2125MHz - 2140MHz
Vodafone: 2140MHz - 2155MHz
O2: 2155MHz - 2179MHz

So all operators have 3 x 5MHz channels. They are all currently using the "middle" channel in their allocated spectrum to minimise inter-operator interference. Right now 3 would appear to be in the best position because of the currently unallocated (SMART ahem) spectrum above them. But in reality inter-operator interference is not an issue.
They also have 5MHz spectrum each for TDD use in the 1900MHz-1920MHz band, most are only using these for trials yet.
As for questions about how speeds can be increased over current rates on 3G, regular 3G uses whats called QPSK, HSDPA (which is 4Mb/sec now, up 14Mb/sec in the future) uses what's called 16QAM. It needs good radio conditions though. HSDPa devices are different to the early 3G devices.

Yes any bandwidth is shared between users but you must also remember that each operator has the potential to put 3 carriers on each sector of each site, up to 6 sectors per site plus operators have many more sites than a typical wireless broadband provider has right now. Hopefuly the rollout out of these services stays steady with the uptake so we will all win.

watty

If 5 users then throughput is less than max speed divided by five.

Vey few multiple air access schemes scale linearly. Mosly as more users added the overhead increases (Tradition Ethernet coax is MUCh worse!). Token ring or master scheduled systems have a fixed overhead. WCDMA is NOT a fixed overhead. Thus as more users (N) added each gets less than 1/Nth of the peak throughput.

Also GSM, GPRS, 3G and HSDPA are data piggy backed on a voice network design. Latency is poor and the voice call on the cell get priority!

True Mobile Internet solutions are IP based and give low latency. All the stuff with sectors, masts, channels etc of course applies to ALL wireless systems. Some of the fixed Wireless Broadband use many sectors and channels (up to 32 x 4MHz possible on some) Fixed wireless can sometime reuse polarisation to double capacity, which mobile systems can't

rebel.ranter

I would disagree about 3G being based on voice systems. 3G is a data system that has been adapted to suit voice. Any network worth it's salt will keep voice on 2G for now.
OK GPRS systems are designed to give voice priority which is fine, but a properly dimensioned cell should take account of the traffic going through it. However at busy hour it is inevitable that there will be a degradation in throughput due to lack of resources.
Most modern networks are now switching to an IP based backhaul, getting away from ATM. So that will make sharing a "pipe" of connectivity more efficient. Also in HSDPA the rate adaption is handled by fast link adaption. It must also be noted that the resource is shared in a time based way too, so if there are 2-3 users surfing but downloading at different times they all experience the 4Mb/sec speed. It's really clever stuff. The latency (delay in download) is really improved too.

Cell Range
The range of a GSM cell is 35km. However with the extended cell feature you can extend this to 70km. It does work, ask any fisherman.
The range of a 3G cell is variable, set by the operator, often limited to 10km in Urban areas with a max range of 80km. Not sure how well it would work though at 80km!!

The proximity of sites to each other is determined by capacity requirements & "in building" coverage requirements. Poor quality may also require a new site to be put in place. One thing is for sure you do need many more 3G sites to get similar levels of "in building" coverage.

Sponge Bob

rebel.ranter wrote:

Cell Range
The range of a GSM cell is 35km. However with the extended cell feature you can extend this to 70km. It does work, ask any fisherman.

It does indeed , I remember doing a network scan off the back of the Holyhead ferry a few years back out of interest . At one point in the middle of the Irish sea I could 'see' every 2g network in Ireland and the UK. Thats 30 miles out from both sides.

Our government has not provided the carrot and stick mix that we need to get the extra masts out there for 3g . These things require leadership and vision of which we have seen none...or worse.

rebel.ranter

Sponge Bob wrote:

Our government has not provided the carrot and stick mix that we need to get the extra masts out there for 3g . These things require leadership and vision of which we have seen none...or worse.

In my opinion there is no REAL demand for this service yet, enough to justify the level of rollout required to bring it to an "ideal" stage. That coupled with the fact that the speed required would not be physically possible, between anti-mast crew, suppliers, skilled people required etc. it would not be done right at speed.

niallb

My connection seems to be back up.
Anyone else noticed an improvement?

NiallB

bugler

Yeah it's better for me now. It's been improving all week and right now it's fine. I'm in Dublin 7.

watty

Of course if your boat is sinking you will find you need your marine radio as the cell sizes have mysteriously shrunk to 5km just where you are.