Started using Three's Mobile Broadband, a few questions

Hey all,

Started using three's mobile broadband "pay as you go". While it is currently my only way to connect to internet, I am hoping to get a few problems solved:

1) What is the best way to improve a signal? Does it help having the USB dongle aligned a certain way? on it's side? Does having the window open help? I noticed there is very little on the internet in terms of help with Mobile Broadband. I currently get around 2 bars but it often drops to 1 and I have seen it at 3.

2) The connection software stays connected indefinatly, but it appears I get disconnected for short periods of time. For example, I will be going through a website and pages are loading fine, then one page will just take a LONG time (about 40secs+) before it even starts to load. A similar example is with MSN, i get nothing for about a minuite then a load of messages from the last minuite of conversation.

3) Is it possible to update the USB's firmware and/or the windows drivers. In the past any problems with hardware can be resolved with a Driver update, yet the Three website offers no help.

Have to say, it would REALLY help if Three had a proper website with a technical forum, driver updates and a FAQ to improve signals, instead all they have is the selling side of things.

Thanks for any assistance!

[matthew]

1)
I dont realy know, i dont have mobile broadband, but to improve the signal have the dongle close to the outside, if your inside [[like next to a window]]
That should help.

2) Well tbh, i only use the internet at home, and when im going through websites and pages they are loading fine, then one page will just take a LONG time, i dont know why. I know it can be extremly annoying.
One reason can be if there is a lot to load on the webpage, or the websites server is being used by a lot of other people, with will slow down the response time to when the webpage loads.

3)I dont think there are any driver updates yet, but there should be, I dont know where you would get them from though, Look on the make of the USB dongle's website, might find some help as well there


I agree with you that they should have: a proper website with a technical forum, driver updates and a FAQ to improve signals, instead all they have is the selling side of things.
All they wont is your money, like any companys

Anyways, Hope ive helped you a bit

I also just bought 3's pays as you go and have a host of questions, noticing a dearth of answers around here, I will try to sum up my research:

1) There does not appear to be an external antenna, the pig tail socket is apparently only a 2G antenna. You can get around this by using an antenna coupler that clips onto the modem, but these are very lossy, 20% or more. 3G Modem Accessories

2) 3G uplinks at 1900 Mhz and downlinks at 2100 Mhz, This is very close to Wifi at 2400Mhz, as a consequence many Wifi antennas will work providing the lower cut off frequency is below 1900 Mhz. Alternatively, you can build your own hi gain directional antenna. Earth: Mostly Harmless :: July :: 2006

3) As far as I can gather the actual bandwidth available to a cell is a fixed constant and shared out between all the users, [of a particular cell.] As a result, speed is by and large a function of the number of people using a cell. So if you live in student area without broadband, it is going to be slow!

4) If you are used to "always on broadband," then you have surprise coming. With broadband, channels remains open more or less indefinitely. With 3G, the cell is a bottle neck which, potentially, has to deal with a large number of simultaneous users. To do this channels, isp numbers and all the other things that make the web work are allocated dynamically on an as need basis. What this means is that once a download starts, the speed is quite acceptable. But it may take a long time for the download to start.

Related to this last, at the weekend I tried to download an Open Office update of 120 MBs and had the distinct impression that the cell,[as part of its traffic management,] was intermittently reallocating the channel I was assigned. Whatever the case may be, the update was too badly corrupted to be usable.

5) As far as I can gather, the pay as you go modem is not locked. I think that if this was not the case for PAYG, they would have a very difficult legal position. What has been disabled is the manual service provider selection. To get around this all you need to do is set up a configuration file for your new provider and set this as the default configuration. Like I say I have not actually checked this because neither Vodafone nor T Mobile will give me 3G sim card without buying the modem. I hope shortly to be back in France and trust that Wannadoo will be more co-operative.

Thanks for your assistance so far. Unfortantly I was hoping for answers such as "ohh, just put your dongle in your shoe and upside down and you'll be fine". Seems like a lot of my problems are more to do with the other side of my connection, the transmitters etc.

I'm constantly browsing google in the hope I find someone who's found a good way to improve the connection, but no luck

Thanks for the help! Defiantly been good to know this stuff.

@Fangman (and everyone else here too)

I can certainly see where your comming from i too have been searching google for some help/tips with my payg 3 mobile internet without much success apart from these pages!

My own experience so far (i've been on 3mobile payg about 6 weeks!)

It's not great forget connecting between 5pm and 10:30pm at night it's useless i live in morecambe northwest! I can't really understand whats being said on the mobile internet coverage checker thats on this site it's rather confussing with shades all over the place

Anyway at times i've been very frustrated with the dongle and felt like crushing it in my hand but since it cost 49 quid i won't do that but really sometimes it does push me.

sometimes i've got 120k per sec downloads other times it's 5.6k a sec which is rediculous, however thats not my main gripe it's the fact sometimes i can't even connect to a page.

i only seem to get HSDPA when i click on a new site if it's idle it drops back to 3G and is it me or is 3G more like 56k connection it's rubbish (same on my sony k800i phone)

if it's a 3g connection it's slow as hell probs worse than 56k even.

i also get a hell of a lot of can't connect to this page or timed out error connections etc

I've joined this forum but am waiting for my email to come back to register in.

But if anyone here fancies it i want to start up a 3 mobile internet page/forum for us all to disscus just these problems at first it would be on free hosted pages a simple website with some kind of disccusion area etc i can do the graphics and the basic page if anyone wants to offer services to aid this be it hosting/forum setup/website set up they're more than welcome to join!

if you wish to discuss this further contact me at <Email Deleted>

cause i really wanna see a place to discuss 3pay mobile internet stuff and maybe later the other mobile providers too.

Hi All, I got my three mobile bb a few days ago (i live in the North East) and was getting speeds of 4-7 kbps and kept flipping between hdspda and 3g - it was unusable. Today i put the USB extension cable on (plug one end into the usb port and your dongle in the other) - this improved my speeds a bit. I then hunted around the house for another USB extension which i duly included into my 'bodge' :-)

I am now getting speeds of 400kbps down and 108kbps up so it looks like putting the usb extension on maybe increases the surface area of the device? Dunno, but it works!

Namesco BroadbandMax Bandwidth speedtest | Test your ADSL connection speed

The modem i have is the 160G huwea or whatever they call it :-)

Hope this info may help others.

Dave