Whats different with the newer modems?

E

elroc

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I've decided to give iBurst a try. Used a friends new (orange) modem to test the signal at my place and must say I was truly impressed (90% signal, downloads at 70KB/s, pings to local site avg between 100 and 200 ms).

Now, I can get my hands on an older iBurst modem (white I think). I think it might have been one of the firsts batches of modems, and I'm trying to find out if the hardware/performance of the older modems are the same as the new ones.

In short - if the older modem can give me same performance as the new one, i'm not going to fork out the 2 grand just to get an ugly orange modem, but if there is a considerable difference I might consider it.

Any comments??
 
I didn't know there was a new orange modem.. I thought the new ones were black? No mention of a new modem on their site.

But I doubt there will be any difference in performance. If you feel its worth it you might as well go ahead. Those are normal speeds for anyone using an older modem, and any difference could be easily made up with an antenna, but I doubt its needed.

You could probably set it up to give even better results than when you tested. Check out UTTraceStar, its stickied on these forums. Those speeds could still be a bit better.
 
Ekhaatvensters said:
I didn't know there was a new orange modem.. I thought the new ones were black? No mention of a new modem on their site.

But I doubt there will be any difference in performance. If you feel its worth it you might as well go ahead. Those are normal speeds for anyone using an older modem, and any difference could be easily made up with an antenna, but I doubt its needed.

You could probably set it up to give even better results than when you tested. Check out UTTraceStar, its stickied on these forums. Those speeds could still be a bit better.
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Must say orange is not the prettiest color on a modem :) A colleague of mine got iBurst about two weeks ago and got this orange monstrosity. But he's happy with the service, and I'm happy with the performance it showed here. I'll test the older one here as well, and if its dramatically worse, i'll just get a new one.

Only 'glitch' is I have to wait till end of the month to get the older 2nd hand one, and now that i've decided I want to get it, I want it yesterday :)
 
Well the new black ones looked awesome, no idea why they would swap them for a uglier colour.

but, I guess orange is the new brand colour for Iburst, might as well keep it on the modems too. Interesting that they do have new ones though, there could be a small difference. Any reseller got the new ones to test yet?

btw, elroc, if you are in cape Town theres a second hand Iburst UTD for R1300 that could maybe be haggled down a bit in the Cape Ads. Not a bad price.
 
Ekhaatvensters said:
btw, elroc, if you are in cape Town theres a second hand Iburst UTD for R1300 that could maybe be haggled down a bit in the Cape Ads. Not a bad price.
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Thanks, though i'm in pta. Also the 2nd hand one i can get here is at an even better price.

Thanks for the comments all. I was afraid ther would be something like a 'dont get a modem older than a year, they suxor!'. But nothing of the sort. So from next month i'll be on iburst and i might hang around here more often.

Goodbye GPRS!!
 
As far as I can tell the newer utd units (black or orange) are similar... but certainly not the same as the older white units.

I have both and am testing them side by side... it may be purely coincidental but I find my old white beast to be the more stable bet.

The orange modem is supposedly a promotional "Limited Edition" unit. I must say that it's NOT a good looking modem.
 
regardtv said:
As far as I can tell the newer utd units (black or orange) are similar... but certainly not the same as the older white units.

I have both and am testing them side by side... it may be purely coincidental but I find my old white beast to be the more stable bet.

The orange modem is supposedly a promotional "Limited Edition" unit. I must say that it's NOT a good looking modem.
Click to expand...

This is even better news, if you say the white one is more stable, co-incidental or not. At least its not worse. And I assume you get the same throughput with the same signal strength, etc.
 
1 x Orange Monster
1 x White Beast

45cm from each other, <1km from the Randpark Ridge tower.

Similar performance, orange monster sometimes "goes to sleep" while on ppoe to my linux box. Power cycle only thing that fixes it...
 
Anyone considered that the newer modems may support higher speeds than 1mbps?

So when it gets rolled out... the new modems support it.
 
Yep, hopefully that will be the case.

But does that mean everyone will have to upgrade their modems to get 2mbs or higher?

Shureley they should subsidise this or actualyl do it for free like vodacom, we can come swap ours in for nice new black ones.
 
If it's black, then it'll be proudly displayed for world+dog to see in the computer room...

If it's orange, I'm gonna hide it in the roof... :D
 
When was the last firmware update for the modems? God I wonder if I still have the USB cable.
 
The last one was in October last year, our probably up to date.

And I lost my cable a few weeks after getting Iburst, but a normal printer USB cable is exactly the same. Ive updated my firmware over my printer cable. Then again, maby thats why I cant use UTTraceStar...
 
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