QOTD: Mobile data performance?

Posted on January 8, 2010 by Shaun

qotd27Have you noticed a change in your mobile data performance recently? There have been many scare stories about lack of capacity and sparse reception, but so far it’s all working OK for me.

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4 Responses to QOTD: Mobile data performance?

  1. Jason says:
    January 8, 2010 at 6:52 am

    It’s been ok for me as well. But my data connection sometimes choke if I’m underground in extremely busy train stations during rush hours.

    (fyi, in case anyone is curious, we get strong cellular connection even in underground train stations here in Hong Kong.)

  2. gavinfabl says:
    January 8, 2010 at 10:41 am

    normally ok but there is always the odd days every year when it fails.

  3. AndrewP says:
    January 8, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    I’m new to 3G as I’ve only had my Pre for a month or so – prior to that I was on GPRS with the Treo 680.

    Generally, speed is ok, but unlike my PC, I don’t regularly see download rates so it’s harder to compare.

    One thing I do notice is that if the Pre loses a 3G connection and reverts back to GPRS, it doesn’t always swap back to 3G when back in coverage.

  4. RuiD says:
    January 8, 2010 at 12:45 pm

    Funny you mention this because I have just yesterday night phoned my Mobile Broadband service as I’ve been experiencing a reduced traffic speed at home. It all started around summertime, but I dind’t care as it was satisfactory for my needs. But since October I noticed a drop in download/upload speeds. I contacted them and they said I was in a low coverage area… in spite my diagnostics read 3,5G and excellent signal. They argued that there are several conditions for loss of speed… weather, availability of the signal, etc. Anyway, yesterday I thought it was enough and phoned again. I did a few tests and they confirmed my low speed. They reported the issue and said that if the problem continues they will contact me to replace the pendrive. This was around 23h. Suddenly around 23h30 my speed just went up. I carried out the usual speed tests and they immediately confirmed high level speed again.
    So… what to think of this? apparently they can do something if they can… but… they only do it if people complain? If not, they leave it as it is instead of trying to improve?

    And by the way… as I’m on a low coverage area, my pendrive only got around 1Mb top speed. I searched the net for solutions and run into the “cantenna” thing. I didn’t think of that much, but made me wonder, so I decided to try it out – bought a can of cheap beans, made a hole and inserted the pen. Guess what – signal immediately went up from 2 bars in 5 to 4 in 5, as well as speed. So… it works! I also read somewhere that apparently that’s illegal??

    Considering my phones network it’s fine and never once failled on me 3G is on almost all of the time (loses signal when traveling by train, but that’s ok). I think we have pretty good services here in Portugal. But sometimes weather conditions can cause a bit of caos, right? BTW… still snowing in London? ;)