three.co.uk USB dongle + 3G +HSDPA - Constant Switching/Losing Connection

PasturesNew

Hi
I'm using a three USB dongle and once connected it seems to swing between 3G and HPDSA every 10-15 seconds, usually losing my connection entirely. This is annoying as I can sometimes have trouble-free connections, then at other times spend an hour or so rebooting, reconnecting, etc etc repeatedly until I can get back online and stay there. Even now I will copy/paste this posting to my clipboard in case it loses the connection when I go to post.

Any ideas why? Or how to fix it? I am even now in a different room to earlier as I thought it was a room problem, but it was working here on this table OK yesterday ... driving me nuts

Thanks

jamespir

it does that with me lots too its realy annoying

PasturesNew

jamespir wrote: »

it does that with me lots too its realy annoying

I'm not impressed to be honest .... I got it (£15/month) so I could use my laptop and it won't work at all from home, so I can only use it while away.. and now I am away the first time it chewed through 15GB of bandwidth when I watched a couple of streaming programmes - it seemed to download 8GB and upload 8GB.... I'd not uploaded anything, so I can only assume that streaming chews equal bandwidth both ways (if so, I didn't know/expect that and won't do it again).

Then I waited until 00:10 on 1st September to get online again ... and, hurrah, it was a new month so new 15GB allocation ... and now this disconnection problem.

Seems to be going through an "OK moment" right now, which is a relief. It's certainly not stable enough to use "for work" of any sort I'd say. Not unless one were to work at 1/10th full productivity speed and copy/paste everything into a notepad document before pressing SEND on anything.

sco0ter

I got the free dongle and a new free sim from Three and my connection is excellent with it. i am not using one of the Mobile broadband services but a phone sim (with free minutes and texts) and its rock solid

culpepper

We have two 3 dongles and mine connects more steadily than my OH's, mine is the 160g model.
Sometimes connecting using the usb cable is better and sometimes it works better just plugged into the laptop socket.
The signal at the back of the house is much stronger rather like the TV signal is stronger from there too.

Moneybags55

PasturesNew wrote: »

Hi
I'm using a three USB dongle and once connected it seems to swing between 3G and HPDSA every 10-15 seconds, usually losing my connection entirely. This is annoying as I can sometimes have trouble-free connections, then at other times spend an hour or so rebooting, reconnecting, etc etc repeatedly until I can get back online and stay there. Even now I will copy/paste this posting to my clipboard in case it loses the connection when I go to post.

Any ideas why? Or how to fix it? I am even now in a different room to earlier as I thought it was a room problem, but it was working here on this table OK yesterday ... driving me nuts

Thanks

Your best bet might be to change your settings so that the dongle only seeks out a HPDSA connection rather than constantly trying to get a better (3G) connection when possible. This will result in slower speeds but maybe a more consistant ocnnection.

fiendishlyclever

Moneybags55 wrote: »

Your best bet might be to change your settings so that the dongle only seeks out a HPDSA connection rather than constantly trying to get a better (3G) connection when possible. This will result in slower speeds but maybe a more consistant ocnnection.

I think you have these the wrong way around. HSPDA > 3G. Try fixing on both settings and see which gives the best results.

Another alternative is to use a USB extension cable with your dongle so you can position the dongle where you get the best reception.

For what it's worth I'm near the end of an 18-month broadband contract with 3 and I've had similar problems with disconnections etc. Thankfully I only pay £5 for my 1Gb as a backup connection at work. I have experienced similar problems as well with my backup Vodafone dongle so I'm guessing it's a limitation of the technology, although 3 do have a history of overselling capacity.

millie

I got my contract for £5 a month 18months ago and the connection was fine never had any disconnections at my home address, sometimes it was a bit more unreliable away from home if the signal was poor. Now I am struggling to stay connected for more than 10 minutes most of the time, don't know why the only thing I can put it down to is too may people trying to use it at the same time. Over selling I would call it,

Freebyman

I too used to have the same problem, and occasionally it will just drop out and not work again for an hour or so which is most annoying :mad:

This is the same for a friend of mine as well, but we found that if you use the extension provided it works better and with mine I have connected to a desktop pc and found that with the aid of a decent usb extension cable and positioned it near a window it isnt that bad now, but nowhere near the claims 3 make for speed and reliability. Still what do you expect for £7.50 a month for 5GB?