o2 3G broadband speed increase

Syferus

I live in a very rural area where there's not a chance of any type of landline broadband.

I got o2's 3G modem to try two weeks ago since it was my best shot at anything above 28kbps dial up (incidently, I opted for the E270 modem since it was advertised to have betterupload speeds and better preformance on the edge of the network).
It did achieve a stable connection on an upstairs window sill, with download speeds topping out at around 9kb/s (on o2's EDGE network) compared with 3kb/s on my dial up connection.

Since the awkwardness of it only worknig on a window sill and the lack of a large jump in speed, I intended to run down my 30 day return peroid and download as much as possible with it.

Everything was going to plan until last night when I connectedd the modem and it conencted to HPSA, giving me at first speeds of 60 kb/s and up to 170kb/s (equilvent to about 1.2mbps)

The connection is relatively stable, having only dropped back to EDGE twice in the many hours I've had it connected since last night.



What I'd like to know is what reason could there be for this jump? Low traffic can't be the reason since this is a very rural area and the nearest town is relatively small (and itself serviced by *on paper* better broadband options) with very few 3G phones, let alone modems, and I would have picked up this signal at least once in the last two weeks if it was there.

The fact this began on a Sunday seems to rule out the mast being upgraded but I honestly don't know.

MunsterCycling

Call o2 and ask, they will be able to tell you what mast and sector you are on if you identify the modem to them.

MC

Syferus

The below is my speedtest.net results, giving me an mbps rating even higher than what I said before.

I'm just in dreamland.

MunsterCycling

A happy camper, now that is novel in this BB backwater of a country...

Syferus

Haha! Yeah!

For someone who has had to live with half speed dial up for years this is no small victory.

I only hope to God it sticks.

MunsterCycling

Just don't tell anyone in the area so that the sector load doesn't increase and slow you down...
MC

gamer

my friend got a 10ft usb cable, from pc world ,to improve signal on laptop usb modem 3g.they probably just installed a new mast in your area .10/15 ft usb cable costs around 15euro they may have em in maplins, he gets around 900k per sec on average .that way you can have laptop ,on table while modem is on the window ,facing the mast.cable is usb in for modem,other end is usb out ,plugs in to pc usb port.

smellslikeshoes

Sounds like cell breathing. The more connections on a mast, the area which it covers shrinks. It might be the case that there was less people using the mast the last few days for whatever reason and it was spread out enough for you to get signal. It could also be the case that the mast has been upgraded to hspda in last few days. Lots of competition in the market right now and all the providers are upgrading all the time and it might just be that you got lucky that they upgraded one that could service you.