Need help with a few problems with the Huawei E220

[Extreme Coder]

Hi,
First of all, sorry to be posting here when I'm not supposed to be. I live in Egypt, but I use a Vodafone Huawei E220 3.5G USB Modem, I have a few questions/problems about it and this seems like the only place that knows this device pretty well. Sorry again for posting here.

Anyway, I just got one this month, and I'm pretty happy about it:
The speed is much faster than most DSL connections here: about 100-160 KB (I think it was 1200 Kilobits in the Vodafone Mobile Connect)
The latency is not that bad, most pings for WoW, BF2 and Urban Terror servers are usually between 100-400 ms..

But still, I have a few things to ask:
Most images usually look degraded in quality, and when I hover my mouse over one of them, I get a tooltip that says :" Shift+R improves Quality Image ..."
How do I get images back to normal quality and stop that annoying tooltip?

Also, I was interested in installing VMC 9 (not Lite) because it supposedly had more features and I wanted to see if it could stop the annoying image problem. But the version I have doesn't work for E220, is there a version for it out there?

A minor problem is that speed testing websites do not work correctly. When I try to open one of them, it begins then ends abruptly without finishing. Why is that?

Last, all ports are closed, and I need to use BitTorrent, so how do I open a port?

I think some of these are probably Vodafone Egypt-only problems, but I don't know which.. :/

Hope you don't mind me here..

Thanks a lot!

 

[ic]

Most images usually look degraded in quality, and when I hover my mouse over one of them, I get a tooltip that says :" Shift+R improves Quality Image ..."
How do I get images back to normal quality and stop that annoying tooltip?

We had that here too in South Africa, but we complained endlessly, and Vodacom disabled it at the network level, I believe it also resulted in a custom-version of Vodafone Mobile Connect being released by Vodafone for use on Vodacom's network - although it was a very long time ago so I could be wrong about that.

You could try manually dialling the connection [without using VMC-Lite], from your Windoze Control Panel, or try a different dashboard, but I don't think that will solve your problem - worth a try though.

Also, I was interested in installing VMC 9 (not Lite) because it supposedly had more features and I wanted to see if it could stop the annoying image problem. But the version I have doesn't work for E220, is there a version for it out there?

VMC version 9.2.* supports the E220 AFAIK, but I don't know if it will allow you to disable the image compression used by Vodafone-Egypt.

A minor problem is that speed testing websites do not work correctly. When I try to open one of them, it begins then ends abruptly without finishing. Why is that?

That could be java or browser or anti-malware or firewall or Vodafone-Egypt's network - or a combination of two or more of those. First upgrade your Java Runtime, then test again, if not working, try a different browser [e.g. Firefox]...

Last, all ports are closed, and I need to use BitTorrent, so how do I open a port?

You will need to ask Vodafone-Egypt about that, it probably involves using a different APN which is the case here on Vodacom's network.

Lastly, for the benefit of us South Africans, what sort of package are you on, and how much does it cost, and how much data can you transfer during a given billing period?

PS: Welcome to MyBroadband .

 

[Extreme Coder]

Thanks a lot for the reply! Didn't expect one in such a short time

1) Dashboard? What is that? Excuse my noobiness :/

2) Do you have any links to VMC 9.2? I only have links to 9.1 :/

3) I will try my friend's laptop with the speed test, hopefully should solve this problem. But it isn't a big deal, since real downloads work fine

I will contact Vodafone about that APN. Hopefully they even have an alternative one.

Here are the details of my contract (I converted the prices to South African Rand using XE):
I bought the modem from a Vodafone shop for 2,071 ZAR.
You can either "Pay as you Go" or pay for a certain amount of MB/GB.
For the first month, I decided to splurge, and go with 4 GB, which monthly costs 712 ZAR. But I think I will downgrade a bit later
2 GB costs 427 ZAR, 500 MB costs 141 ZAR (there is no 1 GB)
Any more details you want?

BTW, tell me, how are the prices compared to your country? And the speed?(which ranges from 100-150 Kilobytes usually)

Thanks!

 

[ic]

Dashboard s/w is just the software that manages your connection for you and does some other stuff, dashboard examples for the E220 include: [searchforum]"VMC"[/searchforum], [searchforum]"VMC Lite"[/searchforum], [searchforum]"Huawei Mobile Connect"[/searchforum], [searchforum]"Huawei Mobile Partner"[/searchforum], [post=756106]ginggs' application[/post].

For VMC 9.2, you could try Vodacom's Downloads, but beware the image compression thing, so don't uninstall or overwrite your VMC-Lite when installing VMC 9.2.

Thanks for the pricing info .

Vodacom's pre-paid and post-paid [contract] data bundle pricing and bundle sizes are all on this page...

We have a [thread=60978]dedicated speed test results thread[/thread] that will give you an idea of local throughput within South Africa, we are hoping & waiting for SEACOM and EASSy for better international bandwidth alternatives to SAT-3...

 

[Extreme Coder]

Dashboard s/w is just the software that manages your connection for you and does some other stuff, dashboard examples for the E220 include: [searchforum]"VMC"[/searchforum], [searchforum]"VMC Lite"[/searchforum], [searchforum]"Huawei Mobile Connect"[/searchforum], [searchforum]"Huawei Mobile Partner"[/searchforum], [post=756106]ginggs' application[/post].

For VMC 9.2, you could try Vodacom's Downloads, but beware the image compression thing, so don't uninstall or overwrite your VMC-Lite when installing VMC 9.2.

Thanks for the pricing info .

Vodacom's pre-paid and post-paid [contract] data bundle pricing and bundle sizes are all on this page...

We have a [thread=60978]dedicated speed test results thread[/thread] that will give you an idea of local throughput within South Africa, we are hoping & waiting for SEACOM and EASSy for better international bandwidth alternatives to SAT-3...

Thanks! And the VMC you linked to works anywhere, right? Not just for SA?

 

[vodacom3g]

Thanks a lot for the reply! Didn't expect one in such a short time

1) Dashboard? What is that? Excuse my noobiness :/

The dashboard is the software that runs on your PC, i.e. the VMC application.

Have you checked if there is not a setting in the VMC you can set the graphics resolution to 'normal' or 'high' or maybe it's called 'compression' or something similar.

You can try the VMC 9.2 from vodacom.co.za. It might support your network.

/added/ Oh, cr@p, I give up!!!

 

[ic]

Thanks! And the VMC you linked to works anywhere, right? Not just for SA?

In theory it should work, but just keep your VMC-Lite installed in case it doesn't work - e.g. with the compressed images on Vodafone-Egypt's network. Be sure to let us know what happens .

/added/ Oh, cr@p, I give up!!!

LOL, why?

 

[Extreme Coder]

The dashboard is the software that runs on your PC, i.e. the VMC application.

Have you checked if there is not a setting in the VMC you can set the graphics resolution to 'normal' or 'high' or maybe it's called 'compression' or something similar.

You can try the VMC 9.2 from vodacom.co.za. It might support your network.

/added/ Oh, cr@p, I give up!!!

In VMC Lite, there isn't any such option, which is why I am right now downloading VMC 9.2 from Vodacom's site.

Don't worry ic, I will let you know what happens

Thanks!

 

[Extreme Coder]

Success!
Thank you vodacom3g and ic, the very annoying Shift+R problem with bad quality images is finally solved! VMC 9.2 fixed the problem (I had to choose it in the optimizations)
I think the other issues I will have to solve myself with Vodafone Egypt..

Thanks again!

But I will stay here for awhile

 

[ic]

Success!
Thank you vodacom3g and ic, the very annoying Shift+R problem with bad quality images is finally solved! VMC 9.2 fixed the problem (I had to choose it in the optimizations)
I think the other issues I will have to solve myself with Vodafone Egypt..

Thanks again!

But I will stay here for awhile

.

 

[vodacom3g]

LOL, why?

You type faster than me!

 

[VolkerCairo]

Bad Upload with Vodafone Broadband 3G in Cairo

Hi,
First of all, sorry to be posting here when I'm not supposed to be. I live in Egypt, but I use a Vodafone Huawei E220 3.5G USB Modem, I have a few questions/problems about it and this seems like the only place that knows this device pretty well. Sorry again for posting here.
Thanks a lot!

Hi,

I also live in Cairo and I bought the Huawei E272. I connected it to different computers (one VISA one XP) - The download is great with up to 180 kb/sec

But even if I have the 3G+ symbol in the display of the vodafone lite connecting software, I only get 7 !!!! KB upload - the modem is able to do 2,1 MBit and I would be content if I would get about 30 or 40 KB/sec.... Does anybody has an idea ?

Thanks in advance and best regards from Cairo
Volker