[Gllug] eeePC and 3g

Wed Jun 18 11:18:12 UTC 2008

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008, John Hearns wrote:

> On Wed, 2008-06-18 at 10:09 +0100, michael norman wrote:
> > 
> > Thanks for that, I'll pass it on to son and girlfriend.  A quick
> > look at the 3 site gives you the option of white or black modems
> > but doesn't go into any detail as to whether they are any
> > different technically.

If going for a dongle I'd go for the smallest and sexiest looking one.
If it doesn't work at first, then that's just more fun getting the
kernel patched and stuff to get it working :)

> > I'm still wondering whether it (3g broadband) is worth doing
> > especially given that the eepc will pretty much connect to wi fi
> > anywhere and there seem now to be a lot of free ones (libraries,
> > pubs etc)

Unless using this as your primary connection, ie GBs of download, then
you're quite unlikely to go near the fair usage limits.  You will
however never face the annoying situation of a lack of wifi, or loads
of wifi points around but all are pay for use, or secured against
publish use.

> I have an eeePC, and as of yesterday a new shiny Nokia E51 phone
> with HSDPA. I got it connecting up this morning via the USB cable,
> but couldn't get the Bluetooth connection (I think more of a problem
> with the Bluetooth than anything else).

I favour BT over USB simply as a comfort of use situation.  I can
leave my phone in my pocket and the laptop doesn't have dangling
wires.  I believe BT is limited in speed to about 1MB though.

> I'd still go for the 3G dongle. There may be lots of free wireless
> around, but not as ubiquitous as you want it to be.

I completely agree, and as this is gLlug, you should have 3G for most
networks pretty much over the whole of the capital.

As I regularly use my phone itself for PuTTY (e90) I was particularly
interested in multiple APN support.  I also wanted EXTREMELY reliable
ssh, as others have mentioned in this thread, and O2 definitely
provide that.  I can sustain a connection even with minor drops on
tunnels on the bottom part of the circle line!  I'm in screen(1)
anyway so it's not a major issue to reconnect but I was extremely
impressed to see my cursor continue to move after waiting a second or
two for the G, E or 3G symbol to recover and the crossout symbol to
return.  If on G or E and a call comes in, it crosses out and returns
back after as long as the tcp/ip timeouts haven't been exceeded, so I
guess it's not that surprising.  If I'm on the move, such as using my
GPS and google maps in the car, it has no trouble switching from one
cell to another and even cleanly dropping from 3.5G (I get 1MB or so
all over London) to 3G to EDGE to GPRS and then recovering back up
again to 3.5G for ssh sessions lasting hours.

Make sure you read this though:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/o2_accidental_call/

As for which network.  I went through this pain over a period of about
2 months, testing all providers.

Below is my writeup of the situation.  I tested coverage as I
travelled around, speed for upload and download, and how reliable ssh
was.

I really wanted to stick with O2, as historically they had the best
coverage over the country.

They used to show coverage maps years ago in the shops, back when it
was BT Cellnet, and they really did stretch everywhere.

To be fair, the other networks covered populated areas perfectly well
so it's sort of irrelevant, but then you never know when you'll be up
a hill miles from anywhere and all you can see is O2.

I also knew from their gprs that the ssh was extremely reliable, but
as I had a 3G phone I needed to investigate proper speeds.

o2
==

**UPDATE** 2008-01-09 I now get 1Mb/sec down, 0.5Mb/sec up load at the
office!

**OLD**
Typical download speed:
17kB/sec unless you're on a business tariff, in which case 50kB/sec
Upload 15kB/sec
EDGE is faster!  They've rolled EDGE out due to the iPhone.

**UPDATED** The above slower speed was due to the following:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/o2_accidental_call/

Reliable sustained, famed O2 coverage.  However near warwick I did see
others with 3G, O2 with GPRS only.

EDGE available, good auto switching up and down.

Multiple connections can be made, ie different APNs for different
apps, or BT to computer at the same time as using apps on the phone
(different IPs at remote end)  -  This did NOT defeat the bandwidth
cap at 50kB/sec, I didn't try upload.

vodafone
========

bitty, but ~65kB/sec average, saw 99kB/sec for a mo
 No time for average d/l measurement, saw some 0kB/sec so possibly not that
 brilliant.
 Dickon claims 3.6Mb/sec

**UPDATE**  I've seen 2Mb/sec which is faster than BT can provide.  A
colleage at work gets about 5Mb/sec at home!!!

Upload 45kB/sec

PuTTY worked despite fast download, lasted untouched for 3.5mins
(reliable) only tested for a few mins

PAYG rate limited to 50kB/sec as I saw.

It failed to upgrade to 3G from GPRS by a window, I gave up waiting and forced
UTMS phone connection.

Multiple connections dissallowed, it pops up a warning if you try.

Poor to no coverage at the office!  Expensive.

orange
======

Only tested PAYG, apparently EDGE available

HSCSD up to 28.8kb/sec in case only GSM available.

50kB/sec, didn't test upload

Coverage seemed pretty good.  Didn't leave putty for ages.

I can't recall if multiple connections were permitted.  Possibly.

t-mobile
========

50kB/sec on PAYG and contract and Upload rate

Seemed very reliable, switching up and down GPRS and back to 3G when needed.

Multiple connections can be made, ie different APNs for different apps, or BT
to computer at the same time as using apps on the phone (different IPs at
remote end)

Multiple people have had poor performance from t-mobile, poor coverage
at the office and outside london.

"3"
===

266kB/sec seen once, saw 150kB/sec a different time, but these were
one off bursts.  The fastest average download on a 4MB file was
60kB/sec.  But I frequently got 10kB/sec or slower as it spent large
parts of its time at 0kB/sec.  It became gradually more reliable after
a week, but I still got patches of 0kB/sec even stood outside the shop
where it was most reliable.

Had to pay 10quid a month for unlimited Internet access rather than
just Web access (5quid unlimited ... well 1GB).

It's not clear if ta udp heavy VPN will work on the 10quid one,
certainly Davide's connection which permitted ssh and icmp (well,
ping) DIDN'T work with the Google VPN.

After ~2.5mins of no data sent out on PuTTY the connection failed to
permit further data to be sent out.  Leaving a 10s ping caused enough
in/out to keep it alive though, so screen kludge might have worked.
Generally too unreliable.

Pretty impressive 3G coverage.

Upload in the office (quick test) only acheived 17kB/sec

Multiple connections dissallowed, it pops up a warning if you try.

Several people have confirmed unreliability with the data.  Free skype is
handy, and the deals are cheap with them.

Damion

-- 
Damion Yates - damion.yates at gmail.com
mobile: +44 (0) 7801 741582
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