3G is absolute rubbish

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furnic

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Damn, this 3G is really a crappy solution.
My telkom lines cut for the 5th time in 3 weeks and telkom this time not rushing to fix it, so I purchased a 3G modem the E220 and prepaid, but so many connection issues.
It is just so unstable - speeds when they work are fast, but its erratic to say the least - some site loads, then they dont then they do then they dont again and my first 500mb of data just went pooof - usage shows less than 50mb but you call vodacom and they so its inaccurate and it might be an automatic update - so maybe there was one somewhere, so I have disabled for now all antivirus all updates and doing minimal surfing and email, let see how long my next 500mbs last - but back to the actual product - its just rubbish, the connection is so finicky and unstable, i spend more time resetting the pc than anything else, soooo I have ordered neotel as a backup, doesnt sound great as well, but there is no way I am getting into a 3G contract, it is just rubbish.
 
sandmanm34 said:
What software are you using? VMC?

start sorting out your issues by installing mobile partner...

http://www.huawei.com/mobileweb/en/doc/list.do?type=-1&id=736
Click to expand...

meaning what, i am using whatever came with the device.
how will that sort out the vanishing mb's of data vodacom claim I have used?
My biggest issues are the erratic speed and connections. Anyhow only have to suffer 3G until Tuesday then I will begin moaning about Neotel, hopefully it wont be Neohell
 
Yip, if you want consistency then you got to remain with fixed line, 3G is versatile in that's it's portable but as Trinket points out speeds are versatile too and that's not a good thing...
 
furnic said:
meaning what, i am using whatever came with the device.
how will that sort out the vanishing mb's of data vodacom claim I have used?
My biggest issues are the erratic speed and connections. Anyhow only have to suffer 3G until Tuesday then I will begin moaning about Neotel, hopefully it wont be Neohell
Click to expand...
Yeah that would be VMC which is a volatile piece of software at the best of times and can be attributed to dropped connections. I'm not certain that the data usage dash board VMC uses is any more or less accurate than mobile partners but I do know mobile partners dash board gives u usage analysis for the session, day,month and year, upload and down load which in my experience is pretty accurate.

I assume you purchased the 3G to replace the fixed line therefore you will be using it in the same area all the time, probably at a home office? While your speeds may fluctuate, if you using the modem in the same area the speeds should be consistent but variable according to the time of day which is area specific, so if it's blitz between 4am-9am today it should be blitz at that time tomorrow too... If it sucks between 7pm-11pm tonight the same is lightly tomorrow... etc etc
 
I am no fan of 3g either, but am forced to endure it 'til april '09.

Go with Mobile Partner - personally I've found it works far better than the enormous piece of bloat that is vmc.
 
I hate 3g with a passion - i work in and around the east rand area in JNB, this is the only time i would ever need to use 3g, and well i cant because there is absolutly no signal, its unstable and is a pain in the neck.

3g is rubbish imo
 
I am climbing the walls of my office. My experience is the same as all the above. Added to that I have Autopage Paarl as my (NO) Service Provider
Amanda
Paarl
 
This is by no means a defense of the Vodacom 3G network, but it is important to remember the complexities of wireless networks, any wireless networks be it satellite, terrestrial, WiFi, 3G, Wimax, etc.

In a perfect world we all would have a bit of copper coming out the wall but, unfortunately, this is not the case and we often have to do with wireless as a fixed-line replacement.

Building, deploying and using a wireless network is a huge challenge and while it work for most people, you can be in a situation where it's giving you gray hairs.

Best then to tackle it in a systematic way and try and get the problem resolved. And if it can't be resolved, at least you can better understand the challenges and why you're affected.
 
+1 for comments in this thread. For two years I battled it - the erratic nature inherent to using 3G drove me mad. Signed up for ADSL two months ago and I've been in Internet nirvana ever since :D Good for backup/travel though, as mentioned by previous posters.
 
Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe my location is lucky- But I have to say that I won't need to be replacing my ADSL anytime soon- and I've had 3G on permanent use since disconnecting ADSL six months ago and have been surprised at the consistency of speed. I think in a 6 month window I've been dropped exactly four times (all day long affairs) and when I've moved my computers a couple of neighbourhoods over I lost 3G a while, but got it back almost immediately only when I asked for help
And yes, I stay offline daily during the peak of Rush hour traffic 5pm-6pm to save myself from some grey hairs.
Most of my problems have been trying to get PPDB before Pac Man ate through my remaining 10MB and my screen went blank:o
All in All 3G is a pretty satisfactory business solution for me and like everything in SA, there's vast room for improvement but I couldn't say it's rubbish. It does work. I don't need Telkom anymore, not even as a backup this time:D
 
Something I've been experiencing lately (last couple of months or so) is that when I'm browsing the connection speed intermittently drop to 0 and stays there, sometimes so long that pages timeout. When I'm downloading (transmitting continuously) its fast & reliable, it's the throughput intermittently dropping down to 0 while I'm browsing and continuously having to reload pages that's irritating the living sheite out of me. Using E272 with latest VMClite 9.3.0.9237 off vodacom site. Very seldom had such issues before with laptop with built-in 3G.
 
evilstebunny said:
Something I've been experiencing lately (last couple of months or so) is that when I'm browsing the connection speed intermittently drop to 0 and stays there, sometimes so long that pages timeout. When I'm downloading (transmitting continuously) its fast & reliable, it's the throughput intermittently dropping down to 0 while I'm browsing and continuously having to reload pages that's irritating the living sheite out of me. Using E272 with latest VMClite 9.3.0.9237 off vodacom site. Very seldom had such issues before with laptop with built-in 3G.
Click to expand...

This bugs the hell outta me too - the modem continuously 'going to sleep'.
 
The problem is that when it works it is so good. Those 1 mb/s speeds, the mobility and the sexy blue light on my E220. When it doesn't work it is terrible. Like a bad girlfriend...
 
vodacom3g said:
Can we find a trend here?

Modem type and firmware?
Version of dash?
Location?
APN?
Click to expand...

  1. e220 + e220-utpsb002d03sp04c03_(normal)
  2. Mobile Partner
  3. sedgefield, garden route (tower 200m away) signal always 5 bars (always HSDPA)
    apn is internet

pkid said:
The problem is that when it works it is so good. Those 1 mb/s speeds, the mobility and the sexy blue light on my E220. When it doesn't work it is terrible. Like a bad girlfriend...
Click to expand...

LOL +1

The biggest b*tch I have with the thing is this sleep / wake business. The dark blue light (no activity) then the bright blue ['cyan'?] (activity). You click a link - the modem is sleeping(light is dark blue). It's like you jab it in the ribs and it goes "Huh? Oh, sorry, OK, I'll find that webpage for you" . It finds the page (light turns cyan), then goes back to sleep. click another link, same story. Sometimes the delay stretches to 10 or more seconds. This is the infuriating thing for me. It happened with the VMC dash and the huawei dash, and also happens when no dash software is running at all - the modem is connected and not being monitored by any software at all.
It's after a short period of this - taking 5 times as long to surf, say 10 pages at these forums than it would on my adsl - that I say 'to hell with it', disconnect from vodacom and surf happily (and quickly) on my dsl connection.
But, as mentioned, for downloads nothing surpasses it. Yesterday an 800Mb game demo in under an hour - that I must say is nice.
 
Last edited:
ic said:
... something at the network layer that would normally require something like an intermittent..continuous ping to keep host connections alive.
Click to expand...

This sounds very promisingly, accurately & suspiciously correct - almost like you know something we don't...? ;)
 
ic said:
If you regularly read the posts in this forum, you would also know that a continuous ping can help keep connections alive, IOW I don't have any inside knowledge - I just know what I read here and I generally have a good memory for such things.
Click to expand...

There was no sarcasm intended - I guess I don't read enough of the postings. Just stuff that catches my eye here and there, like this topic for example. It just struck me that your suggestion sounded spot-on, and I wondered why such a solution wasn't already in place.
 
ic said:
Years ago, when I was still a customer using WBS' iBurst service, it became necessary [for several iBurst forumites including myself], to run a continuous ping [24*7] to get a few kilobits/s of throughput - not a bursty implementation of the iBurst standard IMO.

To a lesser extent, it seems like a continuous ping is sometimes necessary in some areas for some of Vodacom's HSPA customers - at least to workaround the actual problem.

My advice, is that forumites experiencing the effects of 'the sleepy modem syndrome', should at least try a continuous ping to see if it does workaround the actual problem, and if it does, then they should seriously consider helping v3g and Vodacom's network engineers so that the cause and solution to the actual problem can be found and implemented.
Click to expand...

I wholeheartedly agree and would be more than willing to assist in improving the service not only for myself but for everyone on the network as well. I was criticised some time ago here for being unwilling to assist vc in their endeavours to improve their service. I just have no idea how to set up something like 'a continuous ping' from my end. Rather, I thought you meant that vc servers would send a continuous ping from their end.

Moreover, would it not mean such a continuous ping would be using up my data allowance?

As an aside, this 'sleepy modem syndrome' thing doesn't seem to be consistent. I sometimes walk past my pc and see the cyan light burning on the modem, I click on the connection and see no up or downstream data transfer taking place. Nothing's updating in the background - the 'sent' and 'received' figures aren't changing - and yet the modem light will stay on cyan (awake) for a long while.
Other times it will remain dark blue (sleeping) after clicking on a link for so long that the 'network request times out'.
 
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