Broadband Mobile Signal/speed Issues.

[simcor]

Have purchased a USB modem/laptop package from Currys.
Nice laptop and broadband modem with a provider I have always said were the best.
5GB per month package.
Checked coverage online at home and in store showing that I live in a good signal area all be it on the edge almost.
Signal at best I can get 2 bars sometimes only 1 bar. Speed fluctuates so much from a couple of hundred kbs to 1.3mbs for seconds at a time not even for a minute or two. Quite often showing up and down speeds as 0kbs also.
I know I have a 14 day cooling off period with Currys and can take it back for a cancellation, had it 2 days so far.
Spoke to customer services and they put me on to tech support.Told that after checking my postcode S458BP that I am in a poor signal area and speed will fluctuate and their is nothing they can do or try to help me, suggested that I complain to customer services as he could not help me at all. Said he uses a better network checker than the website one and I am in a poor signal area that is it.

Why cant the website one be as accurate as the one he uses as this would have saved me wasting my time it seems!

I have run various speed test including the Think Broadband one and connection speeds are painfully

Think Broadband test result
0.9mbs down 0.1 up
Speedtest.net test result


When actually connected to 3G+ the speed is moderate given being classified as being in a variable indoor signal, but it shows I am in a good signal area on the website. Although most iof the time it drops back down to 3G and once went to GPRS which was so painfully slow.

I am dissapointed to say the least with the unhelpfullness of the tech support and would like to know if there is any way to improve the signal at all. Is the modem at fault? My old 3 modem actually connected better here and their website shows worse coverage than Voda.

Just seems a shame I cant have the deal I want on the provider I want because I apparently dont live in a good coverage area.

Surely my signal should be better than 2 bars? Surely the speed should be a little more stable?Dissapointed.

Simon

[simcor]

Another test

Think Broadband test result
0.5mb down
0.3mb up



These test were taken within a minute of each other.

And image of the website checker result

[Retired-Reidar]

Hello Simcor

Welcome to the eForum.

i've had an opportunity to look at your signal coverage using our internal system and can see that you are in a 3G area, although some of the surrounding patches have little to no 3G signal. In addition, looking at your connection speeds (and speed test) 0.5 mb, which equates to 500 kb per sec is not standard where signal coverage is not 100%.

The 2 bars of 3G coverage would translate to full 5 bar 2G coverage if you weher to disable 3G, in addition to this factors such as network traffic can often work against signal strength.

Unfortunately there is no immediate way to increase your current reception.

Thanks

Reidar

eForum Team

[simcor]

Hello Simcor

Welcome to the eForum.

i've had an opportunity to look at your signal coverage using our internal system and can see that you are in a 3G area, although some of the surrounding patches have little to no 3G signal. In addition, looking at your connection speeds (and speed test) 0.5 mb, which equates to 500 kb per sec is not standard where signal coverage is not 100%.

The 2 bars of 3G coverage would translate to full 5 bar 2G coverage if you weher to disable 3G, in addition to this factors such as network traffic can often work against signal strength.

Unfortunately there is no immediate way to increase your current reception.

Thanks

Reidar

eForum Team

So I basically have no choice then but to take it back as the siganl is just so bad in my area then?

Like I say the speed varies so much all the time, the speed test were done and are only indicative of the connection speed at that moment, but there is no stable speed it works at which seems pointless.

If I was able to connect at say 0.5 - 1mb quite stable then it would be fine for what I want, but when pages take an ansolute age to load it is pointless.

Shame as I always thought Voda were the best network, untill we started having problems with our work phones on Voda.

Oh well no mobile broadband for me then.

Simon

[techmind]

If your signal is marginal, then putting the USB widget on the end of a 1.5metre USB cable and slinging it somewhere a bit higher (maybe near the top of a window) can make all the difference.

In my experience, if you've got one to two bars on 3G then although it's not ideal, it should be workable.

Some of us have experienced problems in recent months, nothing to do with signal strength, where web-browsing can slow down horrendously - perhaps particularly at peak times (informally, we reckon this is to do with Vodafone's http / web proxy servers getting overloaded). If this is what you're suffering from (and there could be plenty of other explanations), then you should find that https sites are less affected. This particular problem also doesn't really affect big-file downloads.