3G Mobile Broadband

I tried out my Mobile Broadband dongle this weekend for the first time
away from home.

I did not have a very good 3G signal but it did switch occasionally to HSDPA.

It worked find on the web even when using a normal 3G connection but I
could not get it to receive mail properly using OUTLOOK. It might
download a few messages but often stuck on the first one. There was one
largish message so I set that to be deleted but it did not make any
difference.

Eventually I set the maximum message size to 1K, it download the few
messages that size but stuck again when I tried to increase the maximum
size.

I tried again this morning from the parked car in a location with a
strong 3G signal and no better.

Got home tonight and all messages downloaded normally and quickly on my
ADSL connection.

Any ideas?

MB

I have a similar problem with 3 mobile broadband. When downloading the
first 1Mb goes fast but then it stops. My USB modem stick is in for
'repair'.

Jonathan


"MB" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I tried out my Mobile Broadband dongle this weekend for the first time
> away from home.
>
> I did not have a very good 3G signal but it did switch occasionally to
> HSDPA.
>
> It worked find on the web even when using a normal 3G connection but I
> could not get it to receive mail properly using OUTLOOK. It might
> download a few messages but often stuck on the first one. There was one
> largish message so I set that to be deleted but it did not make any
> difference.
>
> Eventually I set the maximum message size to 1K, it download the few
> messages that size but stuck again when I tried to increase the maximum
> size.
>
> I tried again this morning from the parked car in a location with a
> strong 3G signal and no better.
>
> Got home tonight and all messages downloaded normally and quickly on my
> ADSL connection.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> MB
>

Jonathan Eales wrote:
> I have a similar problem with 3 mobile broadband. When downloading the
> first 1Mb goes fast but then it stops. My USB modem stick is in for
> 'repair'.
>

I had this some time ago,..with a flakey DSL connection. I simply set
thunderbird timeouts to hours not minutes.



> Jonathan
>
>
> "MB" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> I tried out my Mobile Broadband dongle this weekend for the first time
>> away from home.
>>
>> I did not have a very good 3G signal but it did switch occasionally to
>> HSDPA.
>>
>> It worked find on the web even when using a normal 3G connection but I
>> could not get it to receive mail properly using OUTLOOK. It might
>> download a few messages but often stuck on the first one. There was one
>> largish message so I set that to be deleted but it did not make any
>> difference.
>>
>> Eventually I set the maximum message size to 1K, it download the few
>> messages that size but stuck again when I tried to increase the maximum
>> size.
>>
>> I tried again this morning from the parked car in a location with a
>> strong 3G signal and no better.
>>
>> Got home tonight and all messages downloaded normally and quickly on my
>> ADSL connection.
>>
>> Any ideas?
>>
>> MB
>>
>
>

The message <(E-Mail Removed)>
from The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> contains these words:

> Jonathan Eales wrote:
> > I have a similar problem with 3 mobile broadband. When downloading the
> > first 1Mb goes fast but then it stops. My USB modem stick is in for
> > 'repair'.
> >

> I had this some time ago,..with a flakey DSL connection. I simply set
> thunderbird timeouts to hours not minutes.


It has been suggested that the MTU setting is causing the problem, that
sounds quite likely but just waiting to find how to change.

In answer to to the unhelpful replies - a solid cable connection is
obviously better but is not practical when in a car, similarly a
telephone modem is of little use in the car and hotel WiFi charges can
be very expensive.


MB

MB wrote:
> The message <(E-Mail Removed)>
> from The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> contains these words:
>
>> Jonathan Eales wrote:
>>> I have a similar problem with 3 mobile broadband. When downloading the
>>> first 1Mb goes fast but then it stops. My USB modem stick is in for
>>> 'repair'.
>>>
>
>> I had this some time ago,..with a flakey DSL connection. I simply set
>> thunderbird timeouts to hours not minutes.
>
>
> It has been suggested that the MTU setting is causing the problem, that
> sounds quite likely but just waiting to find how to change.
>

Thats pretty easy on a computer.

Its in network settings, and is a property of the TCP/IP stack.

Often reducing it to under 1500 works on some oddities.

In the Bad Old Days we often used to go down to 512bytes or less.

The message <(E-Mail Removed)>
from The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> contains these words:

> MB wrote:
> > The message <(E-Mail Removed)>
> > from The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> contains these words:
> >
> >> Jonathan Eales wrote:
> >>> I have a similar problem with 3 mobile broadband. When downloading the
> >>> first 1Mb goes fast but then it stops. My USB modem stick is in for
> >>> 'repair'.
> >>>
> >
> >> I had this some time ago,..with a flakey DSL connection. I simply set
> >> thunderbird timeouts to hours not minutes.
> >
> >
> > It has been suggested that the MTU setting is causing the problem, that
> > sounds quite likely but just waiting to find how to change.
> >

> Thats pretty easy on a computer.

> Its in network settings, and is a property of the TCP/IP stack.

> Often reducing it to under 1500 works on some oddities.

> In the Bad Old Days we often used to go down to 512bytes or less.



I will have a play late with the settings, I sent a message to 3 to see
if any suggestions so see what they say.

MB

MB wrote:
> The message <(E-Mail Removed)>
> from The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> contains these words:
>
>> MB wrote:
>>> The message <(E-Mail Removed)>
>>> from The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> contains these words:
>>>
>>>> Jonathan Eales wrote:
>>>>> I have a similar problem with 3 mobile broadband. When downloading the
>>>>> first 1Mb goes fast but then it stops. My USB modem stick is in for
>>>>> 'repair'.
>>>>>
>>>> I had this some time ago,..with a flakey DSL connection. I simply set
>>>> thunderbird timeouts to hours not minutes.
>>>
>>> It has been suggested that the MTU setting is causing the problem, that
>>> sounds quite likely but just waiting to find how to change.
>>>
>
>> Thats pretty easy on a computer.
>
>> Its in network settings, and is a property of the TCP/IP stack.
>
>> Often reducing it to under 1500 works on some oddities.
>
>> In the Bad Old Days we often used to go down to 512bytes or less.
>
>
>
> I will have a play late with the settings, I sent a message to 3 to see
> if any suggestions so see what they say.
>

What do they know?

Probably one guy somewhere knows, but you wont get him on the end.



> MB

The message <(E-Mail Removed)>
from The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> contains these words:

> MB wrote:
> > The message <(E-Mail Removed)>
> > from The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> contains these words:
> >
> >> MB wrote:
> >>> The message <(E-Mail Removed)>
> >>> from The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> contains these words:
> >>>
> >>>> Jonathan Eales wrote:
> >>>>> I have a similar problem with 3 mobile broadband. When
> >>>>> downloading the
> >>>>> first 1Mb goes fast but then it stops. My USB modem stick is in for
> >>>>> 'repair'.
> >>>>>
> >>>> I had this some time ago,..with a flakey DSL connection. I simply set
> >>>> thunderbird timeouts to hours not minutes.
> >>>
> >>> It has been suggested that the MTU setting is causing the problem, that
> >>> sounds quite likely but just waiting to find how to change.
> >>>
> >
> >> Thats pretty easy on a computer.
> >
> >> Its in network settings, and is a property of the TCP/IP stack.
> >
> >> Often reducing it to under 1500 works on some oddities.
> >
> >> In the Bad Old Days we often used to go down to 512bytes or less.
> >
> >
> >
> > I will have a play late with the settings, I sent a message to 3 to see
> > if any suggestions so see what they say.
> >

> What do they know?

> Probably one guy somewhere knows, but you wont get him on the end.



Just go through the system, they did ring back and say that passed on to
their technical people or at least I think that is what was said :=(

I asked them to EMail any solution rather than phone.

Huawei were very helpful with another problem that I had.


MB

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:48:22 +0100, MB <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I tried out my Mobile Broadband dongle this weekend for the first time
>away from home.
>
>I did not have a very good 3G signal but it did switch occasionally to HSDPA.
>
i have Voda & O2 adaptors (for work).

O2 is better - but might be as that is newer and less buggy s/w - but
the replacement "usb stick" they sent a couple of months back is
worthless as it requires latest everything to install.

so - not much use on w2k.....

>It worked find on the web even when using a normal 3G connection but I
>could not get it to receive mail properly using OUTLOOK. It might
>download a few messages but often stuck on the first one. There was one
>largish message so I set that to be deleted but it did not make any
>difference.
>
if you have poor 3G signal the adaptor will keep trying to swap to
GPRS as a backstop.
Turn that off as the wet string emulation is not great - and it can
take 30sec to swap modes.

>Eventually I set the maximum message size to 1K, it download the few
>messages that size but stuck again when I tried to increase the maximum
>size.

If you are trying to use Outlook as a front end to an exchange server,
then the round trip time is what kills it while connected to the
server (and the periodic atrocious packet loss rates).
The 10sec+ key echo when it decides to sit and think a bit is what
really annoys me.

if you have outlook web access that should be much less painful

try running in "offline" mode and then kicking off a sync in
background (F9).
It takes a while to sort out the address book sync on my setup, but
once that is done (once per outlook startup), then sync works better
(or rather not as badly).

Really annoying from the Virgin / CrossCountry trains with their gold
film coated windows for radio shielding.

The key thing is that it is this or nothing....
>
>I tried again this morning from the parked car in a location with a
>strong 3G signal and no better.

i have used this for a variety of real time apps (telnet to a unix
box) - and it is good enough when you dont have a choice.

but - get iPass or another roaming system and use the WLAN in the
motorway coffee shops without the £6 / hr charges if you have to stop
anyway.
>
>Got home tonight and all messages downloaded normally and quickly on my
>ADSL connection.
>
>Any ideas?
>
>MB
--
Regards

(E-Mail Removed) - replace xyz with ntl

On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:18:16 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> What do they know?
>
> Probably one guy somewhere knows, but you wont get him on the end.

They are actually very helpful and knowledgable - well, they are if
they are like the two young Indian ladies I spoke to when I needed to
register the dongle but couldn't do so from home where I had no
signal.

They both have a very good English which, although quite heavily
accented, wasn't hard to understand )