Vodacom Problems: Slow Throughput, trying to Connect, DNS, High Latency

[Csnoopy]

CS is Circuit Switched and PS Packet Switched. not sure why your dash gets confused (mine does as well) as there is no such thing as 3G CS.

My dashboard will carry on working irrelevant of what it shows, so you can probably just ignore it.

Which dashboard are you guys using?

I am using HMC dashboard if I select 3G Preferred then I would only see 3G. When I select 3G only then I will see UMTS or HSDPA.

 

[devnull]

ive been having endless amounts of fun with my ppdb e220 combo the last while. at some points in the night it wont stay connected for more than a few seconds on hsdpa even though i have full signal, had to switch to gprs. last night i got it connected but the dns was wrong. once i fixed the dns it stayed connected for quite a while. but the service in general has been very erratic lately.

 

[Barfish88]

Vodacom HSDPA Blues

Iam getting tired of the poor quality service Iam getting from Vodacom. In the last two weeks my latency to the US Wow server has become so bad and unstable that Iam unable to play. My normal latency was around 700ms, now I am lucky if its stable on 1500ms. Upon signing the contract I was promised broadband internet and Iam not getting it. But come the end of the month Vodacom will want their R349. I would not mind paying this for a reliable service which Vodacom is NOT offering. And trust me its not the game server or any other reason other than Vodacom poor service, I have tested the line. Other people in my area using ADSL are getting a stable latency of 700ms. I would like to cancel my contract but until I am able to do so I can only tell people interested in Vodacom HSDPA not to bother rather take your R349 and burn it. We all hear vodacom is upgrading their lines, getting their own international line, wha wha wha kuk.......

 

[netbek]

Fired off the following to VC customer care, hope this is the right topic to post to here. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

--

My connection has been running fine at 4/5 bars on HSDPA for the
last 2 weeks, except the odd disconnection every few days. However,
since Monday evening (2007-07-23) it stays on for 5-10 minutes, drops to
3G then GPRS and then dies. I've tried plugging it in/out and various
places indoors and outdoors without better luck today. Any ideas for
resolving this ASAP?

My details are:
Area: Cape Town - Parow North
Modem: Huawei E220
IMEI 355083014430174
Using VMCLite 1.0.10.1061 (no updates after purchase), Windows XP SP2
Cell number ********** (used for data only, no text messages on it if
that makes a difference)

Results from ping 30 times:
ping -t smtp.vodacom.co.za
min 111ms, max 452ms, ave 174ms

ping -t -l 500 smtp.vodacom.co.za
min 225ms, max 1614ms, ave 453ms

ping -t -l 1000 smtp.vodacom.co.za
min 283ms, max 602ms, ave 324ms

 

[Csnoopy]

A few suggestions:

• AFAIK there is a newer version of VMC-Lite available at http://www.vodacom.co.za/services/mobile_data/downloads.jsp
• You might want to consider using the generic Huawei E220 Mobile Connect dashboard software instead of VMC-Lite - Csnoopy has a post in this forum that explains the procedure in detail
• With the latest version of either VMC-Lite or HMC, you should be able to select a 3GOnly profile, which would prevent switching to GPRS|EDGE, a lot of forumites prefer 3GOnly
• There is also [post=756106]Ginggs' application[/post] which might be quite helpful with signal strength issues etc

PS: Welcome to MyBroadband .

What you can do is to run Gingg's application for a while and monitor the signal strenght for a period. I have experienced that if the signal goes to low you will get a disconnect. Gingg's tool has a better graph of the signal strength.

 

[netbek]

What you can do is to run Gingg's application for a while and monitor the signal strenght for a period. I have experienced that if the signal goes to low you will get a disconnect. Gingg's tool has a better graph of the signal strength.

Thanks for the input guys; kinda had a feeling I'd get better support here than from VC, sorry v3g ;-)

I haven't updated any firmware/software, giving it a download workout while running Gingg's tool. Signal strength is holding steady at -95dB, and it's been on for 15min now, ooh! Hopefully can only get better now... I'll trawl the forum some more.

 

[Csnoopy]

@Csnoopy, any chance you could add a link to your forum signature that points to your HMC installation post?

OK. Will do so.

 

[[OUPA]MrNutz]

619 619

alright...

its 7:34 on a sunday morning

i've got about 350megs of data left... can't authenticate 619

-restarted windows
-removed/reinserted e620 card.
-used vodafone connection method - 619.
-used 3g shortcut under network connections - 619
-enough money on sim (using a 1gig bundle)
-sms to 100 -balance doesn't return anything (last night it worked as normal)
-i can't open www.vodacom4me.co.za - page cannot be displayed. (on adsl)

so i recon the system is faulty/upgrades/maintenance.

phoned helpdesk - noooo sir...no problem on their side..must be on my side

yea..i was using the service without a problem yesterday.

not even my cellphone (gprs) via bluetooth connects

--seriously need to inform people somewhere of planned work/downtime (noticeboard) /sms????
---this puts pressure on the importance of unused data rollover..

not nice hey

 

[Spamhater]

619 619

Having the same problem,cant log on to vodacom`s 3G internet.Using my virgin mobile sim at the moment to log on to the internet.Even my vodamail e-mail is not even working tried the *111# services and that is also not working.What is going on this morning seems it is going to be a black Sunday.

 

[Syndyre]

same problem here, my contract sim's working though so i'm guessing its a prepaid problem? can't use my 1 gig prepaid bundle.

 

[psc]

Had same problem this morning, at least it appears to be working now (PPDB)

 

[Syndyre]

Just started working for me now too.

 

[SlowInternet]

same problem here, my contract sim's working though so i'm guessing its a prepaid problem? can't use my 1 gig prepaid bundle.

Neither my contract sims or pre-paid sims were working this morning. Also had problems with *111#

But luckily everything is working at the moment.

 

[[OUPA]MrNutz]

suggestion

now this applies not only to vodacom or the 3g/hsdpa platform - but to any broadband/resellers/providers/clones/wisps/amp abusers ect out there.

PLEASE put up prior notification of your planned work..
or if possible - a notice of a current problem..

"subject to change without prior notice - my six!"

it can save you ALOT of calls to helpdesk!!!

i know some Tier1 ISPS and resellers have noticeboards - but i'd really like the smaller and other parties to do the same...because in this instance the bloody support desk techie told me all at their side was fine , and indeed it wasn't - as per website being down, and other features not being available.

just get good communication.... all i'm asking
thx

 

[Csnoopy]

now this applies not only to vodacom or the 3g/hsdpa platform - but to any broadband/resellers/providers/clones/wisps/amp abusers ect out there.

PLEASE put up prior notification of your planned work..
or if possible - a notice of a current problem..

"subject to change without prior notice - my six!"

it can save you ALOT of calls to helpdesk!!!

i know some Tier1 ISPS and resellers have noticeboards - but i'd really like the smaller and other parties to do the same...because in this instance the bloody support desk techie told me all at their side was fine , and indeed it wasn't - as per website being down, and other features not being available.

just arrange good communication.... all i'm asking
thx

Service goes about communication.%

 

[Tux]

tried connecting this weekend with a telkom sponsored(dont ask ) 3g card
Only got 619 errors. Kinda intimidating for a first time user
Will give it another shot tonight and see if it works

 

[Iam3G]

I only connected from about between 11am and 12pm yesterday. It seemed to working fine all day.

One thing i did notice though is that the evening before, i was connected to HSDPA, but i had download speeds of 12 to 17KB/s. Rather slow for HSDPA not so?

So i think this problem started the night before. I did also experience more disconnections than normal.

Maybe it was the very bad weather this weekend? 3G does perform very poor under bad weather(My observations and experiences).

 

[Iam3G]

Not sure of the exact time I connected yesterday, but it was after this thread was started, and after Syndyre's post at 29-07-2007 09:03 AM.I was not around much on Saturday evening to notice, but yes that would be rather slow for HSDPA, were you doing a download&|upload at the time that you noticed that low throughput, and was it like that with just one site or multiple sites, and what area were you in at the time? - maybe a congested backhaul link somewhere...

I was downloading at the that time. I always check to see my download speed. When i saw the speed(being so low), i checked the light on the modem(light blue), so i was on HSDPA. Lets just say every web page i opened was too slow to bear. I almost started pulling out my hair out of frustration. I just decided to go sleep ,becoz i my eyes were fallen closed while waiting for the pages to open.

The are i live in is somewhere in Gordon's Bay, Cape Town. My Specific area has really good Coverage and the signal strength is usually constant 4 Bars.

 

[Iam3G]

And what is a "congested backhaul link"... would really like to know and understand it.

 

[Iam3G]

Since it was more than just one download from a single server, i.e. you also experienced problems with normal web pages from various sites, that indicates congestion.

If it was the base-station that was congested, then you would probably have suffered the effects of [searchforum]"Cell Breathing"[/searchforum] and experienced problems with your connection dropping out of HSDPA - unless your physical location was quite close to the base-station [in which case others further away would have had HSDPA signal issues], that kinda leaves the [searchforum]"backhaul link"[/searchforum] as a possible point of congestion, or further upstream.

With the kind of person i am, i still read into the complexity of what you are saying, but i do understand on some level what you mean(i did very poorly in N+ on Campus, so the terminoligy and theory is really hard for me to understand).

So what i understand by what you mean by a backhaul link or a congested base station is that its a overloaded base station??? Meaning there was a tremendous amount of peers connected to that base-station at that time all or most of them doing downloading???

As for cell breathing i dont completely understand, as i've read from the other post concerning this. being on the edge of a breathing cell, does it mean an exausted cell or something to do with range?? and how does one experience cell breathing or go into that state of connectivity if you're in a area with Superb Coverage?

Are there any links you have that illustrates this via pictures?