Stuck on EDGE, unable to switch to 3G (E1820 / E1752?)

ginggs

ginggs

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Morkhans and I were doing some wardriving yesterday afternoon with new a Cell C 3G SIM in a Huawei E1820 doing some speed tests. At about 17:00 we inserted the Cell C SIM into Morkhans' Huawei E272 modem and could only connect on EDGE.

We then put the Cell C SIM back into the E1820 and for the rest of the evening could only connect on EDGE, despite disconnecting the modem, rebooting Windows and trying other PCs, several times.
This morning CellC 3G is back.

I was wondering whether there was a general 3G outtage in Cape Town, or if our wardriving and speed tests, or inserting the SIM into another modem caused the SIM to be temporarily locked out of the 3G network?
 
I had a similar thing happen yesterday with only a edge connection available. I did sort it out with the cellc software by re registering it on the network with a network search.

And in the network type tab under the settings selecting GSM900/GSM1800/W900/WCDMA2100 in the band drop down
 
ginggs said:
Morkhans and I were doing some wardriving yesterday afternoon with new a Cell C 3G SIM in a Huawei E1820 doing some speed tests. At about 17:00 we inserted the Cell C SIM into Morkhans' Huawei E272 modem and could only connect on EDGE.

We then put the Cell C SIM back into the E1820 and for the rest of the evening could only connect on EDGE, despite disconnecting the modem, rebooting Windows and trying other PCs, several times.
This morning CellC 3G is back.

I was wondering whether there was a general 3G outtage in Cape Town, or if our wardriving and speed tests, or inserting the SIM into another modem caused the SIM to be temporarily locked out of the 3G network?
Click to expand...

Hi Graham

I was testing to see if the Cell C Sim would work in the old Huawei E620, it could have been around that time, it was very slow and for most of the evening using both modems. mmda allowed me to connect on Huawei E620 but showed the provider as Vodacom and while it was connected did not show any uploads etc or RAT, then the Cell C software kicked in. I then inserted the Vodacom SIM into the new Cell C E682 and it connected showing all the correct details. So the Dongle does not seem to be locked.
 
ColdComfort said:
And in the network type tab under the settings selecting GSM900/GSM1800/W900/WCDMA2100 in the band drop down
Click to expand...
I did try this, but it didn't work for me.

What time did it happen and what area (Northern / Southern Suburbs, etc) were you in?
 
This is my novice observation:

Tonight I could only connect to the Cell C edge network... pretty frustrating
So this is how I got it to connect to 3G again:

Whilst disconnected:
Settings->Options->Registration Mode: Manual search and register (radio button)
Here you will see the dreaded Cell C(2G)
Click Refresh
Try register on another network e.g. Vodacom(2G)(3G) (I know this is weird, but this is just to force it off the Cell C (2G) network)
This will obviously fail,
But now when you refresh again, register for the Cell C (2G)(3G) network, and voila

good to be downloading again

Note: On the MDMA app, while I could only connect to EDGE, I could see a 3G signal when I forced it on 3G only, but it did not display the signals details. Also after I apply 3G only and close MDMA and try the Cell C connector, it does pick up edge either.
 
Last edited:
Ginggs, I don't believe the Huawei E272 is compatible for 900Mhz UMTS which Cell C is using so you will only get EDGE. I checked the Vodafone site for info and it states support for 2100Mhz.
 
wndrbees said:
Whilst disconnected:
Settings->Options->Registration Mode: Manual search and register (radio button)
Here you will see the dreaded Cell C(2G)
Click Refresh
Try register on another network e.g. Vodacom(2G)(3G) (I know this is weird, but this is just to force it off the Cell C (2G) network)
This will obviously fail,
But now when you refresh again, register for the Cell C (2G)(3G) network, and voila
Click to expand...
So de-registering and re-registering seems to do the trick, and ColdComfort concurs. I would have thought the unplugging or shutting down the modem would have resulted in the modem having to re-register on the network.
wndrbees said:
Note: On the MDMA app, while I could only connect to EDGE, I could see a 3G signal when I forced it on 3G only, but it did not display the signals details.
Click to expand...
I think this is a symptom of your modem attempting to roam on a network which will not allow you to register. I wonder if the fact that Cell C users can roam on Vodacom 2G, but not Vodacom 3G that is causing the problem.
wndrbees said:
Also after I apply 3G only and close MDMA and try the Cell C connector, it does pick up edge either.
Click to expand...
I would expect that behaviour, the settings are stored in the modem.
 
q12485 said:
Ginggs, I don't believe the Huawei E272 is compatible for 900Mhz UMTS which Cell C is using so you will only get EDGE. I checked the Vodafone site for info and it states support for 2100Mhz.
Click to expand...
That is correct, we were testing whether Cell C had UMTS 2100 in our area. The problem was even after we put the Cell C SIM back into the E1820 modem we could not get back on Cell C's 3G network.

Perhaps because we put the Cell C SIM into the E272 in "3G preferred" mode, the Cell C SIM was registered as roaming on Vodacom's 2G network, trying to switch to Vodacom's 3G network. Then after swapping back to the E1820, the Vodacom network remembered this SIM had been roaming and so it registered there first.
 
Last edited:
I can confirm that using MDMA or Huawei Mobile Partner to switch the E1820 to "3G Only" or "W-CDMA Only" mode does cause the modem to get stuck on EDGE. This must be the reason why this option is greyed-out in Cell C's customized version of Mobile Partner. Wndrbees' solution above works for me, and staying off the network for a few hours seems to work as well.

However, last night I was using Cell C at work on 3G with no problems, I disconnected the modem and shut down the laptop. When I got home I switched the laptop on, plugged in the modem and was stuck on EDGE. It took me several iterations of the wndrbees method to get back on 3G.
 
I just realised that this is the exact problem I was having. Is this going to be a problem continuously without solution? i.e. should I just return the modem now? Or is there light at the end of the tunnel?
 
I've just tested this on a friends modem that also got stuck on EDGE only. It looks like setting the band to "GSM900/GSM1800/W900/WCDMA2100" in addition to "WCDMA only" in the generic version of Mobile Partner will kick it out of EDGE and back to 3G.
 
morkhans said:
I've just tested this on a friends modem that also got stuck on EDGE only. It looks like setting the band to "GSM900/GSM1800/W900/WCDMA2100" in addition to "WCDMA only" in the generic version of Mobile Partner will kick it out of EDGE and back to 3G.
Click to expand...
You might be on to something there. As 1geoff99 pointed out here, switching to 3G-only in MDMA seems to change the bands on the modem (even though it shouldn't), which is probably why this option is disabled in Cell C's dashboard. Maybe there is a way to automatically change the band after to switching to 3G-only.

I have tried a Cell C promotional SIM in a Nokia 900 which supports UMTS @ 900MHz, I haven't seen it get stuck on EDGE, so perhaps this is an E1820 or firmware specific problem.
 
Does anyone know where I can download the Huawei software so that I can change the bands on my K3715? It is now stuck on EDGE :(

The links I have found in searching this forum don't seem to work.
 
pkid said:
Does anyone know where I can download the Huawei software so that I can change the bands on my K3715? It is now stuck on EDGE :(
Click to expand...
Are you still stuck with this? You should be able to copy the contents of a Cell-C modem and install from there.

There's a new [-]beta[/-] version of MDMA that now supports locking the modem to '3G Only', discussion here.
 
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EDGE / HSPA+ switching. STUCK ON EDGE

Hi all,

I'm reviving this thread as I still have the same problems with the E1820 dongle.

I've now tested it on multiple computers (PC and MAC) and it seems to have the same problem. The modem will initially only connect to EDGE. When I go to the Cell C software and check Options > Network it only shows Cell C 2G network (and no other networks). I have to then follow the steps in the thread above - i.e. refresh networks manually, try to register on Vodacom which fails, and then register on Cell C 3G. Then it goes back to HSPA+ and connects no problem. Sometimes it also randomly disconnects, still shows the HSPA+ network but gives an error when trying to reconnect. You have to remove the dongle, plug in again, inevitably it's back on EDGE and then repeat steps above.

This is highly annoying especially as we bought both a router and a balancer so that we could use the dongle on a small office network. And while I can solve the problem (with some irritation above) on my laptop, the dongle is useless in the router and balancer as it immediately goes to green light EDGE and I can't reproduce the steps above with the router to solve the problem so it stays on EDGE.

Any thoughts on why this is happening or suggestions on solving it. Is it:
1) faulty dongle?
2) faulty network?
3) firmware?

Every time I call Cell C tech support they tell me yes they have seen 'something' on the network and have now fixed it but it never seems to make any difference. I think they are just trying to placate me and get me off the phone.
 
umqombothi said:
Any thoughts on why this is happening or suggestions on solving it. Is it:
1) faulty dongle?
2) faulty network?
3) firmware?
Click to expand...
1) I don't believe your dongle is faulty, it seems to be a common problem.
2) It may have something to do with the UMTS 900 network, as I don't see this problem on MTN and Vodacom's UMTS 2100 networks using the same modem.
3) This is the kind of thing that may be solved by a future firmware upgrade.

What workes for me is setting the modem to '3G Only' using the new version of MDMA linked to above. This setting is stored in the modem's NVRAM, so it will stay even after removing the modem and plugging it in to your router.
 
umqombothi said:
Hi all,

I'm reviving this thread as I still have the same problems with the E1820 dongle.

I've now tested it on multiple computers (PC and MAC) and it seems to have the same problem. The modem will initially only connect to EDGE. When I go to the Cell C software and check Options > Network it only shows Cell C 2G network (and no other networks). I have to then follow the steps in the thread above - i.e. refresh networks manually, try to register on Vodacom which fails, and then register on Cell C 3G. Then it goes back to HSPA+ and connects no problem. Sometimes it also randomly disconnects, still shows the HSPA+ network but gives an error when trying to reconnect. You have to remove the dongle, plug in again, inevitably it's back on EDGE and then repeat steps above.

This is highly annoying especially as we bought both a router and a balancer so that we could use the dongle on a small office network. And while I can solve the problem (with some irritation above) on my laptop, the dongle is useless in the router and balancer as it immediately goes to green light EDGE and I can't reproduce the steps above with the router to solve the problem so it stays on EDGE.

Any thoughts on why this is happening or suggestions on solving it. Is it:
1) faulty dongle?
2) faulty network?
3) firmware?

Every time I call Cell C tech support they tell me yes they have seen 'something' on the network and have now fixed it but it never seems to make any difference. I think they are just trying to placate me and get me off the phone.
Click to expand...


Hi umqombothi,

We can send you the latest firmware for your speed stick alternately you can email us on [email protected] with your contact details we will contact you.
 
IceQB - yes it's a TP Link TL-MR3420. And the Balance unit is the Peplink Balance 20. The peplink engineers remotely connected a number of times to try to solve the issue but it has them stumped as well.

ginggs - I just tried that and set to 3G only but unfortunately still the dreaded green light on the router.

Cell_C - I will email you contact details now. Would appreciate the latest firmware to see if this solves it.
 
umqombothi said:
ginggs - I just tried that and set to 3G only but unfortunately still the dreaded green light on the router.
Click to expand...
After setting it to '3G Only' with MDMA were you able to get an HSPA+ connection on the PC? I wonder if your router set it back to '3G Preferred'? Does it not have an option to set this?
umqombothi said:
Cell_C - I will email you contact details now. Would appreciate the latest firmware to see if this solves it.
Click to expand...
Please let us know what happens.
 
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