Vodafone 3g data card problems

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william.hooper@gmail.com - 28 Nov 2006 11:57 GMT

At work many internets sites and personal email sites are blocked so I
leave my 3g card running all day on my personal laptop. At least that's
what I try to do... If I don't run a "ping -t google.com" in a command
prompt window vodafone disconnect me after an hour or two. Even with
this ping running to keep the connection alive, I regularly have to
disconnect and reconnect in the Vodafone Mobile Connect application as
data transfer rate drops to zero. I have almost never been able to
download more than 50Mb files without a disconnect, and Windows Updates
are a nightmare. On top of this all the images I see on the web are
compressed, you have to press Ctrl-F5 to see them in your browser
correctly. It's all a bit of a nighmare... do other users feel the same
way?

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Richard Oliver - 28 Nov 2006 12:01 GMT

> At work many internets sites and personal email sites are blocked so I
> leave my 3g card running all day on my personal laptop. At least that's
> what I try to do... If I don't run a "ping -t google.com" in a command
> prompt window vodafone disconnect me after an hour or two. Even with
> this ping running to keep the connection alive, I regularly have to
> disconnect and reconnect in the Vodafone Mobile Connect application

Which version on MC are you running?

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Ken Wheatley - 28 Nov 2006 12:12 GMT

>At work many internets sites and personal email sites are blocked so I
>leave my 3g card running all day on my personal laptop. At least that's
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>correctly. It's all a bit of a nighmare... do other users feel the same
>way?

My Lenovo came with a Vodafone HSDPA card. It doesn't seem to want to
stay connected for more than ten minutes, if that. What's worse is
that it frequently 'disappears' - device manager is happy that it's
still working, but Vodafone Mobile Connect and the Thinkpad Connection
Manager seem to believe it's gone away somewhere.

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william.hooper@gmail.com - 28 Nov 2006 13:45 GMT

When I do Help, About I see "Vodafone Mobile Connet Version 6.01.0001"
developed by diginext. I guess this is the latest version.

This software is pretty horrible. The other day I kept getting the port
in use please reboot message. I called Vodfone and they told me the 3g
network was down. Which idiot wrote software that reports a harware
fault when the network is down!

If you get frequent disconnets try running "ping -t google.com" in a
command prompt window. Wihout that it's a nighmare.

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Faza20 - 29 Nov 2006 09:32 GMT

Have you tried doing a direct connection to bypass the software? To do
this go to start - connect to - then pick the appropriate connection.
The only downside is that as you are not using the connect software, it
will not record your usage, so you'll either need to keep track on
download a 3rd party data counter.

Alternativly, Version 7 of the Vodafone Dashboard is available here

http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&
_pageLabel=template11&pageID=BS_0036&tabIndex=2

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william.hooper@gmail.com - 29 Nov 2006 17:58 GMT

Yes I can connect that way but I still get the same problem where the
data tranfer rate drops to zero but the connection is still technially
alive. So I still have to kill the connection and restart it. Because
of that i prefer using the Vodafone software which has an easy button
to disconnect and then reconnect.

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Faza20 - 30 Nov 2006 08:26 GMT

Ok, if it still does the same without the software, that means it has
to be the equipment.....

A few questions which should tell you what the problem is so you can
get it resolved.

1) Is the SIM more than 18mths old? (Older SIMs can cause problems with
new cards)
2) Does the same happen if you put the SIM in a mobile phone and access
the internet?
3) Is the problem area specific, or does it happen everywhere? (As if
it happens everywhere, it will not be the network)
4) Have you tried your card in a different laptop? (If your not able to
do this, a Vodafone store should be able to help you out)

Once you have the answer to these, either go into a Vodafone store or
give C/S a call, and they should be able to help out.

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