Mobile broadband help please.

[Franks Wild Years]

Has anyone signed up to either Voaphone or 3's mobile usb broadband thingy ? And if so what do you think ? Is it crap ? Is it good ? Whats the coverage like ?
I'm a Mac user BTW.

 

[house your seagull]

i have one of those white things that you USB into the side of your mac or whetever you have. it costs me £30 a month for a very flakey 2.4mb connection, but it is a godsend because i have no land line. i live in central manchester so the 'signal' is good but it can be rubbish at other times and it also seems to peak and trough.

 

[Franks Wild Years]

So £30 a month thats Vodaphone ?
Have you used it to listen to on line radio or SW commentary ?

 

[house your seagull]

no, i'm on t-mobile.
i struggle on the mac because of software reasons but it steams fine on my girlfriends pc.

 

[Franks Wild Years]

OK, cheers for that.

 

[Drumstick]

mines 25 a month on vodaphone.. Very pleased with.. Although 3 advertise theres is on 10 you get a much rectricted service, obviously no good for online gaming and it doesnt like saltdean when I come home forabit

 

[Rangdo]

Has anyone signed up to either Voaphone or 3's mobile usb broadband thingy ? And if so what do you think ? Is it crap ? Is it good ? Whats the coverage like ?
I'm a Mac user BTW.

Check those networks for their 3G coverage in your area. Other networks also do them so I'd check the big 4 and see which gives you the coverage in the area that you require it.

 

[Vankleek Hill Seagull]

no, i'm on t-mobile.
i struggle on the mac because of software reasons but it steams fine on my girlfriends pc.

Seagulls World commentary will only stream on Windows due to DRM (Digital Rights Management). The licence for the audio stream requires Windows Media Player on Windows. It won't work on Macs. Which is a right royal PITA.

 

[Franks Wild Years]

Seagulls World commentary will only stream on Windows due to DRM (Digital Rights Management). The licence for the audio stream requires Windows Media Player on Windows. It won't work on Macs. Which is a right royal PITA.

Bloody right its a pain. I've bought a second hand pc laptop from a mate just to listen to football.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Have you tried switching it off and on again?

 

[Cian]

I've one from Vodafone, is absymally slow during working hours and oddly enough better in the evenings (when you'd expect the reverse with wired broadband), and considering I mainly use it during working hours... not good.

 

[Rangdo]

I've one from Vodafone, is absymally slow during working hours and oddly enough better in the evenings (when you'd expect the reverse with wired broadband), and considering I mainly use it during working hours... not good.

Because you're connecting to Vodafone's mobile network which is busier during the day than it is in the evenings.

 

[Cian]

Because you're connecting to Vodafone's mobile network which is busier during the day than it is in the evenings.

Not... quite... I'm connecting to Vodafone's HDSPA/HUSPA network, which isn't used to carry voice calls, only data card traffic; and despite them selling this to home users it seems the majority of users are still business.

 

[Rangdo]

Not... quite... I'm connecting to Vodafone's HDSPA/HUSPA network, which isn't used to carry voice calls, only data card traffic; and despite them selling this to home users it seems the majority of users are still business.

Firstly it's HSDPA (and HSUPA).

And secondly HSDPA is 3G so although it may not be used for mobile voice traffic it is used for a multitude of other mobile data devices including mobile phones and mobile office data cards whose peak usage is during the day. Surprisingly Vodafone's HSDPA network isn't reserved exclusively for these mobile broadband USB devices.

 

[Cian]

Amazingly, the slots used for UMTS voice calls and HS(D/U)PA traffic are not affected by phone traffic due to being isolated off (at least on the Vodafone network here). Having used a 3G PCMCIA card on Vodafone back when the data cost was obscene, I can tell you that the vast, vast majority of traffic has come on since the cheap packages came on the market. You would always get nearly the entire 384k on the old card, its often hard to get over 200 on the new cards.

And yes, of course its used for mobile phone 3G data, I did neglect to say that. Typing initialisms from memory isn't a good idea when they're over 3 letters, too.

 

[surrey jim]

im on 3 mobile internet £15 a month 3gig download 3.5mbps, works fine (5bar reception) in Lindfield,

 

[Rangdo]

Having used a 3G PCMCIA card on Vodafone back when the data cost was obscene, I can tell you that the vast, vast majority of traffic has come on since the cheap packages came on the market. You would always get nearly the entire 384k on the old card, its often hard to get over 200 on the new cards.

So you're saying that you used to get much better download speeds back before 3G data costs got much cheaper and the number of 3G data users massively increased? Bit of a no-brainer that one and also takes us neatly back to what I originally said. You get slow download speeds during the day because that is the peak time for mobile (data) usage across all devices with which you share that network.