O2 performance poor lately for others?

Mullins07

Up until a month ago the O2 mobile broadband has been perfect most of the time in my location (North Kildare).

Recently it constantly becomes interrupted despite a full strength HSDPA connection. This appears to be especially at weekends and evening times. I do not notice any problems during day times.

This has particularly been the case over the last few evenings. Has anyone else on the service noticed this?

It may be a problem specific to my location.

Thanks.

biologikal

Sounds like the times when people are most likely to be at home, using the internet or their mobile phones, so likely a contention issue.

Kriebie

Hi,
Sounds exactly like my problem, I just wrote O2 an email.
I only have O2 broadband for two weeks now.
It does not seem to be a contention issue, because download speeds drops very suddenly and very steeply to an unusable value of only something like 30 kbps. Ping has gone to 5 seconds, where 200..300 ms is a normal value for me.
Yesterday evening this happened approx. between 22.00 and 23.00.
Different location (near Tallow, Waterford).
And just as suddenly as the download performance drops to almost zero, it suddenly picks up to normal values again (for me: around 1500 kbps).
Upload speed does not seem to be affected, at least not so dramatically as download.
I am very anxious to get an answer from O2 before my trial period ends.

Jan

admol

Kriebie wrote: »

Hi,
Sounds exactly like my problem, I just wrote O2 an email.
I only have O2 broadband for two weeks now.
It does not seem to be a contention issue, because download speeds drops very suddenly and very steeply to an unusable value of only something like 30 kbps. Ping has gone to 5 seconds, where 200..300 ms is a normal value for me.
Yesterday evening this happened approx. between 22.00 and 23.00.
Different location (near Tallow, Waterford).
And just as suddenly as the download performance drops to almost zero, it suddenly picks up to normal values again (for me: around 1500 kbps).
Upload speed does not seem to be affected, at least not so dramatically as download.
I am very anxious to get an answer from O2 before my trial period ends.

Jan

It sounds like your just at the end of the coverage zone. Bring the modem into the centre of town and see if it improves.

It might be as good as you can expect.

Kriebie

It is true that I am not in the centre of the coverage area, but this problem is present (and very persistent for one or two hour or so), when I am measuring a signal strength level of two bars. Then suddenly the problem disappears, and connection resumes at high speeds for the rest of the evening. Normally I am receiving high speeds with only one bar of signal, or sometimes even without any bar! It seems unlikely to me that this is simply a marginal signal-problem.

Note that I operate the modem in "HSDPA only", so it has nothing to do with an auto-switch to GPRS or something like that.

I would like to try the modem nearer to the transmitter station, but I don't have a laptop available...:(
Perhaps I can steal on from work for the weekend.

Mullins07

I run a ping desktop gadget and I can confirm that my signal remains unchanged, HSDPA full strength, in a static location, but the pings timeout for long periods.

It is unrelated to signal strength and I do agree I was suspecting contention, but wanted to ensure it was not just my location only.

Kriebie

Mullins07 wrote: »

I run a ping desktop gadget and I can confirm that my signal remains unchanged, HSDPA full strength, in a static location, but the pings timeout for long periods.

It is unrelated to signal strength and I do agree I was suspecting contention, but wanted to ensure it was not just my location only.

If it is a contentention issue, I would expect a more gradual, fluctuating loss of performance. But what I am experiencing is more like On to (almost) Off, and then On again. Are the symptoms the same for you? If that is the case it looks like I do not need to consider a problem with the signal strength; I would say that it is more likely a problem in the O2 network.

Mullins07

Kriebie wrote: »

If it is a contentention issue, I would expect a more gradual, fluctuating loss of performance. But what I am experiencing is more like On to (almost) Off, and then On again. Are the symptoms the same for you? If that is the case it looks like I do not need to consider a problem with the signal strength; I would say that it is more likely a problem in the O2 network.

Yes. It is instantly from full speed to off completely.
You could be right. Contention issues would see a gradual slow down...

foggy_lad

off topic slightly but i am having the same problem with the 3 data modem. at different times the service seems to drop quickly to almost nothing then a few hours later it resumes at around 700kbps.

Mullins07

Still very poor at peak times for me despite a call to say it was resolved.

Can someone confirm that the service is still 100% fine for them in the evenings?

Walkman

I'm not a tech head but maybe this is nothing to do with O2, Voda or 3 but just maybe a downfall of mobile "broadband". Seems all networks are suffering from speed/connection problems especially at "peak times"

Bren_M.Records

Hi Im on O2 and experiencing the same problem.
Iv had the package for several months now and it seems to be becoming more and more unstable as the weeks pass.

smellslikeshoes

Walkman wrote: »

I'm not a tech head but maybe this is nothing to do with O2, Voda or 3 but just maybe a downfall of mobile "broadband". Seems all networks are suffering from speed/connection problems especially at "peak times"

Yep even though some will be better than others, all of them will suffer from this. This is what Mobile internet is.

themossinator

Hi, on O2 bb as well, noticed over the last 2 or 3 weeks that speeds sometimes drop from 5pm onwards to as low as 5k/s which is as bad as dialup

Id say its just that more people are using it in my area now, to be expected i suppose

foggy_lad

expect it yes and the respective networks must also have expected this and yet failed to provide service to meet the demand

and because of the up-take they will all now blame unprecedented interest and promise upgrades in the forseeable future

cgarvey

Had a horrific weekend about 3 or 4 weekends ago. Full EDGE signal, but couldn't connect at all at some stages, and other stages the link would go dead for periods of minutes (pings to first hop timeout even allowing 10 seconds), and without doing anything all's well again in a few minutes.

Other than that I haven't/hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary for EDGE/3G (varying pings, low QoS / some packet loss, high latency, etc.)

Mullins07

Well, still absolutely dreadful every evening.

The advice from O2 seems to be to find another provider!
They don't appear to care about the congestion and are denying any problems at all.

I am trying Three again to see if they have improved and maybe give Vodafone a go.

At least it will be easy to get out of the contract as they basically push you out and also if you keep ringing the support line, you will get a free month no problem.

biologikal

Mine was bad a couple of evenings ago, Sunday evening to be precise, it kept dropping out every 10 seconds or so. Yesterday and this evening (and even Saturday) it's been fine. I even forgot to disconnect it while I went away for an hour or so to watch TV, and when I came back it was still connected. I'm often getting only one bar (or sometimes none) on the WCDMA, but it still seems to be working fine, for what it is. I have the black E270 modem, and was trialing the white one a few weeks ago, but performance seems to be more or less the same on both.

This is my most recent speedtest:



What kind of pings/speeds are the rest of ye getting?

Kriebie

biologikal wrote: »

What kind of pings/speeds are the rest of ye getting?

Signal similar to yours ( 1 or 2 bars, sometimes 0 bars), same modem:
Dublin server:approx. > 1600 kbps down, 350 kbps up, ping 250..300 ms

Limerick server gives significantly lower ping (around 200 ms), but data speeds are usually lower.

hideous ape

Hi all,

I'm in Cork city and only had O2 for the last month and it was running fine up until a few days ago. Even though I have 1 or 2 bars at HSDPA it has been crawling along for pretty much the last 4 days.

Tested it today around lunchtime here's what I got:



Regards,
hideous.ape

Xcellor

o2 used to be quite flawless but now more than occasionally I have to refresh to get pages to load. I can get up to 4 bars so I don't believe its to do with signal.

Phoned them about it... I was supposed to get a call back. Still waiting.

Can everyone who has problems please report directly to o2. No use coming and moaning here ,if the issues start to progress you want to have your problems logged from start.

versager

...I can confirm as a three & vodafone broadband ex-user that the one form o2 is the best I had so far, honestly. However, still under 30 happy days warranty, after three weeks roughly, I experienced problems with the speed for the very first time just yesterday...speed was changing dramatically from nothing to everything...This evening is getting very good so far.
Generally, I mean there can't be any broadband really without slight problems from time to time. Before I used vodafone (datacard huawei e620, the old one:rolleyes:, but quite reliable in speeds), still using the three thingy (huawei e220) until may or so (but very very slowly in the evenings in downloading content, though reliable enough for surfing stuff, you know:cool:).
But the o2 one (huawei e270) is extremely good for downloads, just an average in surfing, though...

Then try to choose, ehm

No, I don't complain at all, I'm a loyal customer with great attitude:pac:

Now seriously: it's not bad to use at least two wireless broadband options, just in case to be sure, if there's a specific problem with one or both providers...(good to compare what sites are banned or allowed:eek:)

Have a good evening people:)

Mullins07

Xcellor wrote: »

o2 used to be quite flawless but now more than occasionally I have to refresh to get pages to load. I can get up to 4 bars so I don't believe its to do with signal.

Phoned them about it... I was supposed to get a call back. Still waiting.

Can everyone who has problems please report directly to o2. No use coming and moaning here ,if the issues start to progress you want to have your problems logged from start.

If you use a tool to ping a site every few seconds you will see that the reason you are having to refresh is that for long periods, you have no internet connection despite having a full strength HSDPA signal.

I agree that people need to start calling the support to get pressure on O2 to increase the service capacity to sort this out. It has become increasingly worse since I first noticed it almost 2 months ago now.

Also, as I mentioned before, if you call them enough, your payment for that month will be cancelled.

biologikal

Does anyone know what the difference (if any) there is between HSDPA and WCDMA? Where the signal bars indicator is, I've noticed it change between these two acronyms, though it doesn't seem to affect the connection or speeds.

Also, I get the impression that the number of bars doesn't affect speed. I'm getting 3 or 4 these days, when a month ago I was getting none or one, but it doesn't seem faster or slower than normal.

I'm happy enough with the speeds I'm getting. Test sites rate it at between 800kbps and 1600kbps whenever I test it, and I can browse easily with that. Even 100MB files are coming down in 15-25 minutes, depending on the time of day, and this is reasonable enough for me.

BTW, does anyone know when the 10GB limit is reset? Is it at the beginning of each calendar month, or on whatever date you signed up for the service?

Our man in Havana

Also, as I mentioned before, if you call them enough, your payment for that month will be cancelled.

+1
You really need to nag them into submission though. The support agents are the most disinterested bunch of people that you are every likely to meet. All they every say is "yeah, yeah" and "I understand". They even eat their sandwiches whilst on the phone.

I am on EDGE and get 5 bars all the time yet sometimes of the day connection is impossible. Support could not explain this. I eventually bow beat them into giving a free month. For €40 a month you would expect better.

el diablo

oops, I'd read some good reports about o2 Mobile Broadband, well that was till I found this thread.
Those of you having problems, what part of the country are you in? Can anyone tell me what the service is like in the Dublin area?

thanks a lot..:o

hideous ape

You can try it out for 30 days and if it sucks ass in your area, just return it and get your money back. They call it their 30 day Happiness Guarantee??? I'd be happy if it still worked half as well as it did in early March.

Remember to bring proof of identity and proof of address with you into the O2 Store. To get a stronger signal I attached the modem to a long USB cable and hung it off the curtain rail..:)

It was excellent for most of March here in Cork but has been an utter disgrace in the last two weeks. Due to work I had to get finished on my PostGrad I was up till 4am one night and my speed averaged around 10kb/sec. O2 can't claim there was loads of users at that time of day!!!

Anyone go over the 10gig download limit yet?

Our man in Havana

Anyone go over the 10gig download limit yet?

I do every month.

jor el

Mine works fine for HSDPA in Limerick (Raheen area), usually get full strength. In Enniscorthy (crap town for all mobile coverage) I still get about 1-3 bars on HSDPA, even miles out of the town (where there is no 3G mast). Up in Galway (Caltra, middle of nowhere) I get Edge, and it's usually fairly OK. Used a few times down in Waterford city too, and again had no real issue.

hideous ape

Bond-007 wrote: »

I do every month.

...are you only going over by a few hundred Meg or are we talking Gigs over the the limit?

10Gig really is too low for most users...streamed a few footie games over the weekend and have already used up 1.7Gig of my monthly limit....doh!

Our man in Havana

Between 300 to 900 Meg each month.

hideous ape

I'll definitely be going over it this month for sure!

The Premiership run-in is gonna massacre my download limit, a 288kb stream averages out at 400 to 500 Meg per match. So bye bye 10 gigs.

biologikal

So THATS why the service has been getting worse recently, with youself and Bond-007 burning up the data

Projections show that I'll be only using 3-4 GB a month. Has there been any reports of hand-slapping/fines for anyone abusing the "fair-usage" policy?

maims3875

foggy_lad wrote: »

off topic slightly but i am having the same problem with the 3 data modem. at different times the service seems to drop quickly to almost nothing then a few hours later it resumes at around 700kbps.

I am having the same problems with 3, in Mid Kerry. Was great during the 10 day trial but after that, poor. I called 3 and they said that they can change your settigns to increase the reception rate! I will be contacting them tonight

Our man in Havana

Has there been any reports of hand-slapping/fines for anyone abusing the "fair-usage" policy?

Not to my knowledge. But no one knows what they call fair usage.

cgarvey

Bond-007 wrote: »

Not to my knowledge. But no one knows what they call fair usage.

10GB, no? Or do they restrict users below the cap under a fair usage policy?

Our man in Havana

They don't restrict those under the cap. What I was saying is that no one knows at what point over the 10GB they don't consider fair usage.

Scruff

this may explain things if they have implemented this policy here too
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/o2_speed_limits/

Xcellor

I've downloaded 16 gigs before with o2. No mention of any problem on the bill.

At the moment the o2 connection is really bad. Sometimes I have to reconnect many times before I get a modem like speed. Already logged a problem a week or so ago still no feedback. I don't feel like complaining too much since before this point, a month ago say, the service was flawless.

Our man in Havana

Scruff wrote: »

this may explain things if they have implemented this policy here too
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/o2_speed_limits/

Yikes! :eek:

If they do that here you would have a case for breach of contract and you could cancel without penalty.

Xcellor

Bond-007 wrote: »

Yikes! :eek:

If they do that here you would have a case for breach of contract and you could cancel without penalty.

Yes because its a substantial change in service to the detriment of the user.

Lets hope they do it as soon as Eircom pull the finger out and upgrade my exchange

el diablo

my download speed varies from 0.15kb/s to 1.27kb/s. very, very slow.

upload speed at the moment: 0.17kb/s to 1.12kb/s.

And I'm in the Dublin area. anyone else experiencing such poor performance.

Just registered a few days but i think I'll be returning it before the 30 days happiness guarantee expires. :mad:

Our man in Havana

Performance here in the midlands can vary anywhere from 2kb/s to 25kb/s. No HSDPA here anyways.

O2 support are not interested in doing anything, and at €40 a month they really should be doing something.

If you are not happy take the get out of jail for free card.

el diablo

Bond-007 wrote: »

Performance here in the midlands can vary anywhere from 2kb/s to 25kb/s. No HSDPA here anyways.

O2 support are not interested in doing anything, and at €40 a month they really should be doing something.

If you are not happy take the get out of jail for free card.

I'll give it another week or two and see how it goes. it's slower than dial-up at the moment. but isn't it €30 per month (and €15 for the first 3 months) or did you get a different deal? :eek:

Our man in Havana

If you take o2 bb on its own it is €20 for the first 3 months then €40 thereafter.
If you are an existing o2 contract customer you get the deal you are on.

el diablo

Bond-007 wrote: »

If you take o2 bb on its own it is €20 for the first 3 months then €40 thereafter.
If you are an existing o2 contract customer you get the deal you are on.

I'm a O2 Speakeasy customer but the guy in the O2 shop told me it was €15 for the first 3 months and €30 thereafter and that's what I assumed it cost before I signed up.
So I'm not sure what I'll be charged when I'm finally billed for it. there's no mention of it on the receipt/contract...

Our man in Havana

Speakeasy is €20/€40 per month, basically no discount.

el diablo

Bond-007 wrote: »

Speakeasy is €20/€40 per month, basically no discount.

yep I know but the guy in the shop told me 15/30 so I'm not sure what I'll be charged when I'm finally billed.

jor el

Bond-007 wrote: »

If you take o2 bb on its own it is €20 for the first 3 months then €40 thereafter.
If you are an existing o2 contract customer you get the deal you are on.

That's the way it was when I signed up too, but there's no mention of having to be an existing O2 subscriber to avail of it for €30 a month. It used to be detailed, but no longer. Have they reduced the price for everyone? I'm still paying €40 a month.

el diablo

jor el wrote: »

That's the way it was when I signed up too, but there's no mention of having to be an existing O2 subscriber to avail of it for €30 a month. It used to be detailed, but no longer. Have they reduced the price for everyone? I'm still paying €40 a month.

the terms and conditions on the O2 website state that it's €40 per month for non o2 bill phone customers/Speakeasy customers but it's not made very obvious when signing up for it.

I asked the guy in the o2 shop twice what the charges were and he told me €15/€30.

Our man in Havana

jor el wrote: »

That's the way it was when I signed up too, but there's no mention of having to be an existing O2 subscriber to avail of it for €30 a month. It used to be detailed, but no longer. Have they reduced the price for everyone? I'm still paying €40 a month.

http://www.o2online.ie/wps/wcm/connect/O2/Home/Shop/Broadband/Online+offer/
Yep, says €15 for 3 months then €30 thereafter.

I feel robbed. :mad: