3 Mobile and Broadband in Clontarf

Juliet

Hi! Can anyone tell me if 3 mobile and broadband coverage is good in Clontarf?

jor el

Moved to Midband.

Signal cover is largely irrelevant. Network congestion is your biggest concern on a mobile network, and you won't know what that is like until you try it. Also, cover can vary in a very short space, and can vary over time too, so any recommendation by someone else shouldn't be relied upon.

lucernarian

Irrelevant?! Sure any mobile connection in the first instance requires coverage for it to work. If you can't pick up a UMTS/EDGE signal then talking about contention etc is moot.

It's also not too hard for someone to imagine whether comments about mobile reception are relevant to them or not. For example a given housing estate will have similar levels of coverage assuming they are built on generally level ground and there are no apartment blocks or shopping centres which are in the way of a local mast.

The site http://www.askcomreg.ie/mobile/siteviewer.273.LE.asp is a very useful resource and gives people an exact idea where their mobile signal may come from.

People who receive a stronger signal and better signal to noise ratio will be able to use higher QAM modulation on their 3G connection and will also be more immune to cell breathing effects.

jor el

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Irrelevant?! Sure any mobile connection in the first instance requires coverage for it to work.

Yes, irrelevant, because coverage doesn't mean anything alone. It's possible to have 100% mobile signal, but little or no Internet connection. So knowing that there is signal there doesn't mean anything. The number of active users in a cell sector will have a much greater impact, but this is impossible for the customer to know.

If there is no signal present, then obviously you're going nowhere. Since there is bound to be signal from all networks in the Clontarf area, then without knowing exactly where the particular user is, the question of whether 3 have coverage or not is irrelevant.

As I said, the only way to know if it will work for you is to try it out. Everyone elses experience is meaningless.

lucernarian

Having 100% signal and no internet is possible (not very common by my experience either though dialup performance is somewhat common) but having no signal and no internet is certain. Surely this is obvious?

It's also reasonably easy to estimate what demand and therefore contention would be like, just like how people know whether their area has a high population density, how much traffic is in the area, a rough idea of how many students live in the area (Rathmines, hold your hands up) and whether there's a good selection of fixed broadband providers or not. These can be estimated fairly easily by someone with even a basic knowledge of their local area.

You also did not address my points about the effect of SNR and signal strength on speed and cell breathing.

Clontarf for the record has some awkward issues with terrain in places, and I have friends in the area who have mentioned coverage issues after local objections to a mast on some hotel or other. I don't know about three coverage but if there are GSM coverage issues then I would be concerned about three's coverage. So it really shouldn't be assumed that Clontarf has good coverage because "it's in Dublin sure" or whatever reason.

Something else that jor el forgot to mention is that all the mobile operators (last time I checked) have a trial period to use their dongles and can be brought back for free if it doesn't work out. This is an excellent way to assess coverage inside a home and to a much lesser degree can see how well it performs in the evenings etc. Be warned that some places can have no problems with demand for a long time and then almost out of nowhere there are massive slowdowns in the evening etc.

jor el

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Having 100% signal and no internet is possible (not very common by my experience either though dialup performance is somewhat common)

My girlfriend lives in Wexford town centre, has 80-100% signal from O2, but no Internet connection most of the time. Even when it does connect, it only stays up for minutes at a time. This only started to happen in the last few months, and O2 have been unable to do anything about it (despite 2 modem replacements now). By contrast, my Vodafone modem works perfectly in the same location.

So it is very possible to have good signal, but no Internet connection, on a 3G network. Nothing can be pre-determined, and even if it works now, it might not work at all next week.

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

You also did not address my points about the effect of SNR and signal strength on speed and cell breathing.

I didn't address it because it's not a major concern. If you're at the edge of a cell, then breathing can be an issue, but it doesn't effect congestion, which is something the user will not be able to determine up front. Even with a knowledge of the area, it is going to be near impossible to predict performance without first testing it. Your guess is as good as mine, even though they might be wildly different. Blind luck if you get this one right.

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

So it really shouldn't be assumed that Clontarf has good coverage because "it's in Dublin sure" or whatever reason.

I never said it did. In fact, I said that the user will have to check it out for themselves to know what they can get at their exact location. There will be signal coverage from all providers in the Clontarf area, but that is meaningless to this particular individual. Which one works, or will work, is the only concern, but that is something no one can tell them. That's why I always tell people not to ask this question, as it's not something anyone can give a reliable answer to.

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Something else that jor el forgot to mention is that all the mobile operators (last time I checked) have a trial period to use their dongles and can be brought back for free if it doesn't work out.

This is why I've said twice now that the they will need to try it out for themselves to see if it works. There is no other way to know, and statistics and general opinion of a particular product are irrelevant to the individual.

lucernarian

There's a couple of things being misunderstood here. Cell breathing is simplistically described as an edge of cell effect when the overriding concern is signal to noise ratio. This is mainly distance dependent but if someone has low signal strength because they're in a basement level or some large office block around the corner from a node B, they will suffer from cell breathing too.

On the air interface cell breathing is the main effect of congestion for 3G devices. It's inherent with the technology. Network congestion can be avoided with better backhaul and network planning and peering etc. but cell breathing can only be ameliorated with more base stations or for users to get themselves high-gain yagi antennas for 2.1GHz but that's a zero sum game and won't work for everyone who needs to use it for internet access.

I've seen mobile dongles not working despite there being adequate signal and the "619" errors are a plague but in the main, dongles generally give internet access of some sort once there is a signal and speeds tend to improve with increasing signal strength though the latter's a loose correlation in my experience. My point is that it's much more likely for mobile internet to work when there is good signal strength.

You've rightly suggested for people to try it out and see how their coverage is but equally I'm sure you're aware of the trial period offer from the 4 big networks so what's the harm in mentioning that? Suggestions like that would be more helpful if you do say that anecdotal stories of coverage are irrelevant.

Juliet

I've read your posts with a lot of interest but to be honest not very much understanding! Thanks for posting anyway and I definitely will do the trial - good idea!

LaVail

In my experience coverage has nothing to do with it. I can have 1 bar signal and in "off peak" hours i.e 4am I can get speeds of 2mbps , however in peak times which in my area lasts for about 12-14 hrs I get 0.12 - 0.20mbps

congestion is the big issue with mobile midband providers

William Powell

Juliet wrote: »

I've read your posts with a lot of interest but to be honest not very much understanding! Thanks for posting anyway and I definitely will do the trial - good idea!

There is NO 14 day Money Back Trial with 3. Only way out of a contract is if YOU can prove a problem with the connection within 14 days. So don't sign up for a contract with 3 on the bases you can get out of it as its not aways that easy. Its much safer to get a free 3Pay SIM and pop it in a S/H or borrowed dongle top it up and test it that way.

funnyname

William Powell wrote: »

There is NO 14 day Money Back Trial with 3. Only way out of a contract is if YOU can prove a problem with the connection within 14 days. So don't sign up for a contract with 3 on the bases you can get out of it as its not aways that easy. Its much safer to get a free 3Pay SIM and pop it in a S/H or borrowed dongle top it up and test it that way.

are dongles usually locked? if it turns out it is whats the easiest way to unlock so other mobile bb sims can be tested?

William Powell

funnyname wrote: »

are dongles usually locked? if it turns out it is whats the easiest way to unlock so other mobile bb sims can be tested?

Depends how technical you want to get when you say locked?

Most are locked in that the connection software they use will only work with the specific provider but Vodafone don't do any other locking (or at least didn't) so with some technical know how you can use Windows Dial Up Networking to get a connection with any SIM or just flash different software on the dongle. The last Metor dongle I looked at wasn't hardware locked and only needed the software on it changing. 3 modems on the other hand always locked but they are easy to sort.

The free DCUnlocker software will tell you if the modem is locked or not and if you need to unlock it then see if you can find the Huawei unlock tool created by dhiet online, with that it takes about 15 seconds to unlock almost any Huawei modem (but not routers).

But don't forget once unlocked you'll need some form of dialer software on your PC and again a hunt online should find you the necessary.

Point to take note of is that when you plug the dongle into a Windows PC that installs the drivers before it does anything else so if you then cancel the software install you can use Dial UP Networking or anyother Dialup/Connection Manager Software that is already installed and will allow you to create a new profile.

If I've more time later I might go into more detail.

lucernarian

LaVail wrote: »

In my experience coverage has nothing to do with it. I can have 1 bar signal and in "off peak" hours i.e 4am I can get speeds of 2mbps , however in peak times which in my area lasts for about 12-14 hrs I get 0.12 - 0.20mbps

congestion is the big issue with mobile midband providers

One bar is much better than no bars with UMTS or indeed anything else;)

Also, with the different iterations of HSDPA being rolled out on the networks you can get nearer to 7.2 or 14.4 Mbps. If you can manage 2 at the best possible time of day then I would say signal quality is indeed having a bearing on max speed.

A bit of reading for the nerdier folk:
http://www.m-indya.com/HSDPA/hsdpa-description-technical-overview.htm