Problem Help with 3G

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Guys migrated from Windows XP to Windows 7 where I'm working at present and from using the Vodafone 3g from an internal slot inside the laptop to a Dongle and people are complaining about speed. As my opinions of 3g are it's crap I wanted some more advise off peeps who use it more. The company uses a 3g dongles when offsite to do their emails, CRM system and surfing the net etc. So everyday type office work. Now we are using the K3760 Dongles that needed a fix to get them to appear as a dongle and we are using the latest Vodafone Software. My question is can these dongles slow the speed down from model to model and clutching at straws but Windows 7 wouldn't impact on the speed? They have just started using VPN access which will have a little overhead (they used a pass through authentication before the migration on their Windows XP laptops and Lotus Notes).

I'm asking this as in the past 3g was in my opinion a last resort type of connection if you couldn't work from a ethernet cable or wireless and certainly wasn't a good solution as your main connection back to the office. 3g is good for light web browsing and such is this still the case in peoples opinions?

I have to go onsite and other than check it's working I can't see what I can do or try. Bit stuck on this one.

 

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3G won't be affected by the OS.

Depending upon signal, and capability of the dongle you could connect on HSDPA, which i think is called 3G+ - i've done this before now and streamed at speeds of 5mbps - it was in an area with a strong signal, but it flew by.

Normal 3G speeds with a decent signal will get you around 1-200k/s depending upon the mast your connecting to and how much other traffic is being routed through it.

Your main problem is when the dongle only picks up GPRS or EDGE, as this'll show slow performance. I'd always say 3G dongles are good for general web browsing, downloading the odd few files, but for intensive work over a VPN i wouldn't say it was a great connection for it.

It'll all depend on what signal you're receiving on it, weather its gprs, edge, 3g, or hsdpa (If the dongle can do hsdpa) and the dB signal it's receiving, unfortunately there isn't alot of troubleshooting you can do to speed them up.

However, this is failry intersting if you have one free: YouTube - How to improve the reception of a mobile modem

 

Cheers for the reply Apexes. To be honest I'm clutching at straws as I've confirmed the dongle is capable of Vodafone's highest speed but yeah they aren't taking into account other factors like bandwidth and location in my opinion and they are out of my hands. The dongle works and apart from that I can't really do anything else. Think it's time to speak to my manager to see what he wants to do.

 

Check these out Vodafone Mobile Wi-Fi much better then dongles

 

Isn't that just another dongle with the capability of setting up your own wifi network without a router?

 

Yeah they are. They are actually trialing them at work but doubt they will sort the issue out.

 

What you describe sounds like coverage, i used to work for orange as a tech, and many a time i'd deal with this, but there is literally nothing the network can do, unless you are sat 100m away from the nearest BTS with no hills or roof above your head, it'll be difficult to pull in a decent signal.

Can always try giving your users saucepans like in that youtube video!

 

We are using them at our place as we had the same problems as you are having, used the the problems went away

 

cheers guys fingers crossed these wi-fi devices will sort the issue out or at least improve it.