Ericsson vs Sierra: EDGE Cards

yes - it is locked. It won't take Vodacom sim cards.

yes - have the MTN dashboard.
 
mc721221 said:
yes - it is locked. It won't take Vodacom sim cards.

yes - have the MTN dashboard.
Click to expand...

Mine does take a Vodago Simcard. I had some difficulty initially because

* I forgot that it was a new simcard without the access point on the simcard
* The simcard SMS memory was full and that crashed the Wireless Manager the whole time.

Downloading the GPRS settings to simcard, deleting a few SMS and I could connect, although the card did connect and disconnect twice before it established a connection that I could actually use. Subsequent connections were faultless .... except NO EDGE :D :eek:

The Telkom speed test at 6-10kbps is a painfull experience :)

The only reason I would want to use the Vodacom simcard was if for some or other reason the MTN network was down, because so far even in non-EDGE areas the card has given me way better rates than 6kps. I'm 600m from a Vodacom tower (3G provisioned according to the Cell Info display) and almost 2km for the nearest MTN tower here at home.

Over the past week or so on MTN, at home and at work (close to a number of MTN towers) I have received download speeds of between 120kpbs and 180kbps most of the time.
 
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mc721221 said:
yes - it is locked. It won't take Vodacom sim cards.

yes - have the MTN dashboard.
Click to expand...


I am personally involved with the customisation of all product that arrives through MTN's warehouse, and I can confirm these were definitely not Network Locked.

Your issue could possibly be related to one or more of the points raised by BloemGuy.
 
Problem with AC775

Hi MTNhandsets,

Having a strange problem with my Sierra AC75: it was working fine until this morning, when it said connected but I could not ping anything.

I tried reconnecting, rebooting etc with no luck. Then I tried the card on another laptop (where it had also worked fine yesterday). It said "device not available" even through it was fully inserted. Back to my laptop (Dell Inspiron 9300) and this time Watcher did not autorun. Manual start produced strange behaviour - "connected at 40kbs" then "network cable unplugged". Watcher was unresponsive. Could not ping even when it said it was connected.

From what I have read this seems to be an isolated case. Should I just return it and ask for a replacement or do you have any other suggestions like reflashing?

Thanks.
 
Sidelong, please keep us posted with your progress/solution.
 
ok, i will be trying my laptop with 2 other identical cards, swapping sims etc to isolate the cause of the problem.

btw I used the MTN sim card in my Vodafone card and it connected fine - so it's not a tower issue.

i'll put on some more info tomorrow
 
Update: i reinstalled the software and the Watcher app is no longer hanging - BUT it still says that it is connected meanwhile I cannot actually get online or ping anything.

I am going to try installing the next version of the software (build 27) from the sierra website. This includes a firmware upgrade and hopefully will make a difference.

On the other laptop (Acer P4 2.6GHz, 512MB, XP Pro SP2) the software runs ok but does not see the card at all. Very strange.
 
Ok. This is well strange. Today I tried the aircard in a different location and everything works perfectly. Connected fine. I could Google (i Googled "strange" because it was!)

Some tower info: CellID 32031 (not working Aircard, but sim worked fine in Vodafone adapter)
CellID: 18251 working perfectly.

Is there any diff between the towers perhaps ... although it has worked on both.

I will post again tomorrow when I try from home again.
 
btw the "new" software was not new. Its said Build 27, but the version was still 26, and there was no firmware change, so that couldn't be it!
 
Ok ... some more info: seems the Aircard is working correctly here as well, it's just that when I have another network connection active the laptop no longer looks to the aircard connection for an internet link but rather tries to activate a DUC.

Any thoughts on this anyone? Meanwhile if I sort it out I'll post asap.
 
OK ... you can use the aircard as a DUC as well which has solved the problem. Hope this helps someone else ... otherwise I made a lot of noise for no reason :)
 
OK ... you can use the aircard as a DUC as well. This does not seem as stable as the LAN connection .... but I will persevere a bit more.
 
MTNBroadband said:
I am not sure what you mean by network locked - in terms of which network it is locked to and which network you are trying to access? I will confirm on Monday but I'm sure we did not specify for ours to be locked.
Click to expand...

I've just been reading all the submissions on ICASAs website regarding handset subsidies and MTN states in its submission that it stopped network locking equipment totally...not sure when precisely though.
 
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Been using aircard as a DUC for two weeks or so. Largely problem-free - does drop the connection now and again (every other day) and you usually have to shut down Watcher and remove the aircard for a few seconds to get everything running again.
 
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