Orange: So this is mobile bb ?

Finally got a mobile broadband connection at the office, our regular ADSL is down due to cable theft in the area
It's taken over 2 hours to establish a connection and now I'm here the speed is s-l-o-w

Decided to crack out a few pigeons instead...

Are you on GPRS, 3G or HSPA and what signal strength do you have?

How many other people in the area are affected?

How many of them are likely to be trying to use the same base station bandwidth as you are?

The concept of using 3G as a backup in case of DSL failure has some snags, this is one of them.

In reply to a post by 5km:

Are you on GPRS, 3G or HSPA and what signal strength do you have?

I'm doing this at home, from memory, but recall the indication didn't show 3G, as we've seen at an event in town, but had just a capital E in the display, and then only 2 bars

Had a lot of fun getting any signal at all as the building we are in has really thick brick walls - have to use a bit of string to hang the dongle up in the air !

Orange show the postcode as having a 'very good' signal in all 4 catagories, although our building is slightly above the arrow and is in a 'low' block.

No, it's not the best scenario, but we have had better than this when we tested it before.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

How many other people in the area are affected?

How many of them are likely to be trying to use the same base station bandwidth as you are?

The concept of using 3G as a backup in case of DSL failure has some snags, this is one of them.

That probably explains some of it as we understand quite a large number of people have been affected by the outage. Some of the problem is our location and the building itself, as explained in my last post.

When we first moved to the current location I checked with orange. They said a new base station was planned that would vastly improve the signal. I've seen no change in the 4 years since, apart from being able to use T-Mobile, where available. Guess what, no T-Mobile anywhere near.

Looking at the Orange map, there's a massive area of the North Sea off Cleethorpes that gets much better coverage than we do...

Orange mast ref SYK7033 is just under 500metres away, but on the other side of our building - which blocks it quite well. We have to go stand outside to get a good handset signal. Normally that's not an issue as I have UMA on the WiFi - but Broadband is out thanks to having no phone service, hence the reason for using the mobile BB.

It's not the best area for mobile signal...

E is for Edge, not much faster then GPRS.

Can you disable 2G modes on the device? Some have a setting you can choose between 2G/3G and "3.5'G.

Matt

E is EDGE and therefore 0.1Mbps is about the maximum you can expect.

3G and HSPA are on 2.1GHz and doesn't penetrate walls well where as EDGE on 1.8GHz or 1.9GHz will have slightly better penetration.

Mobile networks simply can not cope with demand from people using it as a back-up if there is a major outage. Connections with good signal will be given priority, poor signals will be dropped if the network is under load to better provide service to those that can be. This is a simple fact of how 3G networks work and is sometimes the explanation for 'fade' in signal or dropped connections at the edge of coverage.

E = Edge? I don't know what that means, but it seems it's not good. Ah! - Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution. OK, so I know what EDGE means at least...

We are at the edge of the populated area for miles around, our office door looks out over a field. Mobile signal is bad at the best of times, hence using the UMA feature on a Nokia 6301 and now a Nokia E5 - when the WiFi is active of course.

The nearest (only!) transmitter is a Macrocell on 1800 GSM with 27.1dBW power. From that I guess setting the dongle to 3G would stop us getting any signal at all? I wouldn't know how to change it anyway.

We're DN8 4PB if you need to look. Our building ID's with this username on Google maps

Here's the mast: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=DN8+4PB&hl=en&ll=53....

Here we are: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=DN8+4PB&hl=en&ll=53....
- our door is just behind where you can see some sheets of something propped up against the wall.

It's the 515M dongle, if that helps? Orange said it was the best available, at the time we ordered.

I think we're up that famous creek ?

Edited by TMCR (Thu 01-Sep-11 00:34:30)

Should try using mobile broadband at music festivals!!!!

Or the main london train stations at peak times.

Anyway, I carried on trying to connect and had the dongle tied up to the wall next to the desk on a bit of string, as that was the only way to get a signal.

The string slipped it's knot and the dongle dropped behind a radiator, still attached to the USB cable. Before I pulled it back out I noticed that the display showed Orange UK and 3G+ but no bars. So, I clicked connect = hey, look at this!


I kid you not, the dongle is down behind the radiator, the USB cable snakes back to the laptop, and that's the signal I'm getting...

Dafter still, the local TX does not have 3G, so we must be connected to the mast that's a mile and a half away...

I suggest all mobile dongles come equipped with a radiator panel...

Just to mention that there's a major telephone line outage in our area, no less than 3 separate cable thefts in the last few days, all requiring 400 metre replacement from Openreach, down from 1am Tuesday, fix not due until mid Monday...

Hundreds of lines down, very bad mobile signal at best of time.

I'm sticking to the radiator...!

Not as daft as it sounds the radiator, if the dongle is facing a transmitter, basically a large directional antenna.

Right! I'm on to this now. Going to have to demolish the office next door 'cos I've ordered a skip...

In reply to a post by TMCR:

Right! I'm on to this now. Going to have to demolish the office next door 'cos I've ordered a skip...

Good plan!!

You can actually buy directional antennas for 3g dongles. Some can be mounted on a pole outside and pointed at the mast will give much better reception.

The mini-skip is on place and...

WOW! - Think what a full size Skoda, I mean skip, will do !

OK, I'll own up, that's not from the office. I've been out doing a PA and had the mobile in action, about 100 metres from a 3G mast... The same one we connect to if I force 3G at the office, but a couple of Km closer.

If only I could get that speed at the office...

In reply to a post by 5km:

You can actually buy directional antennas for 3g dongles. Some can be mounted on a pole outside and pointed at the mast will give much better reception.

You would need to have the dongle on the pole outside all the time though?

We use it at different locations on a regular basis, it was only used at the office due to the landfline being out of service, but a thought for the future perhaps.

You would need to have the dongle on the pole outside all the time though?

No.

Have a look at http://www.panorama-antennas.com/shop/products/wm11-...

You'd need to drill a hole in the wall for the cable but the dongle would be inside. Just disconnect from the antenna's cable and take the dongle with you when needed.

Be careful playing with antennas I have spent over £115 on a pole mounted antenna trying to squeeze more out of my 0.05mbps Orange dongle only to find that it had no effect at all. Best effect was to hang it in a tree with a 5m repeater cable. Sometimes get 0.1mbps when I first start but then it is throttled back to 0.05mbps on every connection (I am 3miles from 3G orange mast, 5km from BT exchange so no ADSL)

Regards G

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Be careful playing with antennas I have spent over £115 on a pole mounted antenna trying to squeeze more out of my 0.05mbps Orange dongle only to find that it had no effect at all. Best effect was to hang it in a tree with a 5m repeater cable. Sometimes get 0.1mbps when I first start but then it is throttled back to 0.05mbps on every connection (I am 3miles from 3G orange mast, 5km from BT exchange so no ADSL)

Regards G

Have tried all the networks here. Only Three is really good, which is odd since it isn't the nearest transmitter. But the ones from the other networks are in the "busier" end of the village which is also the end furthest from the phone exchange, so 3G may be their only broadband option perhaps hence contention.

We see over 5Mbps average and 6.6Mbps sometimes, that needs the dongle not just outside the window but clipped to a metal rail/runner that goes along the top of the windows (like a rain shield) and that takes the signal strength to 48% (like the radiator above perhaps)

3 miles from the cell is quite a distance (I'd thought that was getting on for borderline service), we're 2.7km from the cell with that signal strength. The exact positioning does mater, especially to the upstream which won't get anywhere near the 1.8Mbps maximum I've seen unless it's facing precisely the right way.

Like your our phone line can't support a broadband connection and so I'm going to get an antenna put on the chimney partly to see if it's any quicker but mostly because the E367 modem isn't going to tolerate getting cold, wet and rained on indefinitely

Always test first, before spending money on the extra poles etc

If you mount an external external that has 6dB gain, but need a cable run than introduces a 9dB signal lose, then you will be worse. In short you must buy good low loss cable when using external antenna's