E160 dongle - Poor connection speeds

[pjblake]

I am using the above dongle, one of the last with non-expiring credit.

The problem I am having is, the Mobile Connect Lite window shows long periods of 0/0 bps up/download traffic & pages take forever to load. Another issue is that it invariably connects to the 3G network & shows 'Poor' or 'very poor' signal. I have tried changing it to connect to GPRS/EDGE only which, when it does connect, shows 'Good' or 'very good' signal but it rarely connects to this option, preferring 3G with a 'Poor' signal.

Anything I can do to improve things?

[Retired-Holly]

Hi pjblake,

Can you confirm your full postcode please? It may just be that your coverage is not very good.

If you travel with the dongle, e.g. in a laptop do you notice any improvement?

Let us know and we'll be happy to investigate further.

Thanks

Holly
eForum Team

[pjblake]

Hi pjblake,

Can you confirm your full postcode please? It may just be that your coverage is not very good.

If you travel with the dongle, e.g. in a laptop do you notice any improvement?

Let us know and we'll be happy to investigate further.

Thanks

Holly
eForum Team

Hi Holly

The home postcode is SO16 8DP.

The laptop is only used via the V/Fone dongle at this address, because Virginmedia want extortionate amounts of money to add broadband to the existing TV/telephone package & my parents, whom I'm investigating this issue for, do not use the internet enough to warrant a pay monthly connection.
Also - & I don't know if this is part of the same issue - when the V/fone Mobile Connect Lite icon on the desktop is clicked on, it can take upto 10 minutes for the program to actually open & thats before you even try to establish a connection!
Another thing that occurs regularly is IE displays the 'IE cannot display the page' error page, despite the V/fone connection still being active.

[Retired-Holly]

Hi pjblake,

Thanks for getting back to us, the postcode you have given has better than average coverage however during peak hours the signal may drop due to network congestion.

Do you have more than one computer? It may be worth testing the dongle on another machine to compare.

If you can't do this can you try uninstalling VMC via your control panel and reinstalling again?

Thanks

Holly
eForum Team

[pjblake]

Hi pjblake,

... the postcode you have given has better than average coverage however during peak hours the signal may drop due to network congestion.

Do you have more than one computer? It may be worth testing the dongle on another machine to compare.

If you can't do this can you try uninstalling VMC via your control panel and reinstalling again?

Thanks

Holly
eForum Team

Hi Holly

Sorry, but I have to beg to differ on your statement that 3g is 'better than average' in this postcode area. NEVER, EVER, EVER have I had a signal reported as better than 'poor' & 99% of the time it is 'very poor', regardless of time of day - 5am to Midnight, or day of the week! On the VERY RARE occasion that it locks onto a GPRS/EDGE connection, this is reported as 'good' or 'excellent' but if I change the settings to 'GPRS/EDGE Only' it never finds a connection & if set to GPRS/EDGE Preferred, 99% of the time it connects to 3G/3G+ with a 'poor' or 'very poor' signal.

As you suggest, I have uninstalled/reinstalled the VMC Lite software numerous times, to no avail, & I am writing this post from a different, but identical, model laptop with exactly the same hardware setup.

[Retired-Wayne]

Hi pjblake

Thanks for your post here.

On the other machine, is everything working ok or are you experiencing the same issues?

Please let me know as this indicates if the problem is with the network coverage or your laptop

Thanks

Wayne

eForum Team

[pjblake]

Hi pjblake

Thanks for your post here.

On the other machine, is everything working ok or are you experiencing the same issues?

Please let me know as this indicates if the problem is with the network coverage or your laptop

Thanks

Wayne

eForum Team

Hi Wayne

Sorry for the delayed response. As I said in an earlier post, I'm researching this for my parents so don't have constant access to the laptop in question.

To answer your last question, I can see no discernable difference in the performance of the E160 dongle on either of the identical laptops mentioned, in terms of the chosen connection type - 3g or GPRS - the dongle still opts for 3g most of the time, despite 'poor' or 'very poor' signal.
I may, however, have improved the reliability (less dropped connections) & speed of the connection, partly by accident!!!

I went into (on an XPHome setup) Start>Connect to>show all connections, right-clicked on the VMC icon & left-clicked on Properties. From here things are a lot less clear, as I changed so many things...

The upshot is, at the moment, the connection seems a bit more reliable & maybe a bit quicker. I'll see how it goes over the next few days or so & report back if the problems continue/return.

... Just noticed, there are still prolonged periods of 0/0 up/download traffic as mentioned earlier!