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View Full Version : 3G Vodafone mobile connect woes


Davidc
17-11-2004, 08:49 PM
I bought the 3G card on Monday and have not had much success either with the card or vodafone support...

On Monday sitting stationary in the Tower Bridge area of London having gone through the install, the card lights up (noisy even though the volume is on mute - its going to annoy any train commuter that I am sitting next to)

Anyways the blue and green lights flash in sync, the blue light continues to flash after a few minutes and (even though it doesn’t mention this any where in the glossy booklet that comes with it) that means I’m in contact with vodafone 3g network -

Well not quite after a minute it stops flashing.

Dig around for some contact info, and eventually get on to vodafone support who ask where I am located and then tell me that the g3 network is down around Euston!

Try using gprs

Do it all again the green light stays on; well some access is better than none right - wrong

Stays connected but email and internet don’t work, only thing that works is sms text

Back on to support, waffle, waffle repeat questions and script, eventually we will get an engineer to contact you call logged 15:00 Mon

Call in at 5 nothing
Call in at 8 nothing

Call in Tuesday; it might take 3 days for an engineer to be in contact with you
Call in Wednesday; engineer might call you in 24-48 hrs

This is an expensive piece of kit that can only do SMS texting at this point

Still waiting for an engineer to call.

Have found a number of people who have discovered that it doesn’t work with Dell & IBM Laptops (I fall into that category so we will have to see what the engineer says should they ever call)

I went for the high tariff £45, I expect to use and have access to a network
with some reliability.

This is currently a very expensive pager. And to cap it all even though I told the salesman that I will be using primarily on my train journeys (3 hrs a day) I find on the frequently asked questions on the mobile connect web page that an arial is recommended if using the device from a train.

Was this mentioned at purchase time - of course not!

Davidc
18-11-2004, 03:23 PM
Vodafone have decided to replace the card i bought on Monday

Gunner
18-11-2004, 05:20 PM
Glad to hear it, let us know how you get on with your new one.

simonlant
20-11-2004, 05:41 PM
ive been using the Voda3G card for a few months now and i think its really good. Only major dissapointment is that there is no cool flippy up aerial like the gprs flavour and the overhang is balls!
If im travelling on trains its going to be Virgin and their new Voyagers have a shell that interferes with mobile signals both GSM and UMTS - so i was told by the train manager!
If you are in one place and not moving the card is extremely reliable, however if you are moving it not so good - the 3G-GRPS handover is very good tho. Ive only once lost a VPN connection during change over.

thumbs up from me, just need better coverage now!

deron
22-11-2004, 10:03 AM
Has anyone done any speed comparisons between this and using a 3g phone as a modem?

Just out of curiosty...

Gunner
22-11-2004, 06:44 PM
Hi deron - can you post any speedtest results that you're able to get using your Vodafone as a modem for comparison?