Mobile broadband coverage issue

RaiderHammer

Hi can anyone offer any advse on this please.

My Mum purchased an mobile internet dongle on a one year contract. I am currently overseas and we use it to stay in contact. She was helped with purchase by our family because she has little knowledge of the internet. I had managed to find here a good fixed line deal on the internet, but they seemed to charge in and get this mobile broadband for her.

Here lies the issue!

Internet seems OK but when we talk on Skype it's usually hard work and I can usually only hear the first word in a sentance that Mum says. When I checked '3's website it clearly stataes that the area my Mum lives it's only good for outside use. It recommends trying the dongle upstairs in a room with windows for better connections. Tried this but not really improved the situation.

Any other ideas or suggestions please?

Thank you.

fwor

There's not a great deal that you can do if the signal isn't strong enough - 3 dongles don't have a connection for an external antenna (well mine doesn't anyway), so the best you can do is get high up in the house and try rooms on different sides of the house to find which is in the direction of the nearest 3 transmitter.

If one room is significantly better, it may help to have the dongle on a short USB extension lead, taped to the centre of a window.

nunnygirl

My 3 dongle has an adaptor on it for an external aerial. It's a Huawei E156g. I think they are all different though, as I'm sure my old one didn't have one

I agree with you about the USB lead to a window fwor. Thats almost exactly where mine is and it works well

cooltt

If the signal is weak you can't really do much about it except what's been said above. Explain the situation to 3 and they may be kind enough to cancel the contract. It's always a little silly to rush in to the latest technology with no real understanding how it works and if it's right for you.

With Skype if you haven't already turn off the video camera, it requires alot of bandwidth and just speak.

vikingaero

On my Vodafone dongle I can see signal strengths of other networks. Might be worth seeing if you can flick through the menus and see which network is strongest for you.

computershack

RaiderHammer wrote: »

Any other ideas or suggestions please?

Thank you.

Find out where the "3" mast is in the area.

Now this is going to sound mad but it does work....

Get a metal pan. On its side, point it so that the opening is at right angled to the direction the phone mast is in and stick the dongle so it is in the middle of the pan flush with the outer rim, not the bottom. Basically, you're making the mobile broadband equivalent of a satellite dish.

Should improve things considerably.

Oneday77

I will second that it would make a difference. Also having a rolling ping running in the back ground keeps the connection alive and helps connection drop offs.
The ping command is: -
ping -t www.google.co.uk
I only use google as an example, I am sure someone could tell you how to run it as a service but just open up the comand prompt and type the above in for a starter try.

RaiderHammer

Thanks for all the replies. I am afraid my Mum is not very technical!

I received a message yesterday saying 'you told me to unplug the leads and take the laptop upstairs to try. I did and the battery is low now. I don't know how to plug the charger back in. I will be off line now until my daughter in law comes around on Tuesday'

It's very hard work!!!

So will try and try the above suggestions next week.

Thanks again.

computershack

You're on a hiding to nowhere.

RaiderHammer

computershack wrote: »

You're on a hiding to nowhere.

I think so!

computershack

Heh-heh. May I suggest the following books:

PCs for Dummies and Windows XP/Vista for Dummies, depending on which OS she's using? They are very good books, use non-technical instructions and don't assume any knowledge at all. They go through to a reasonably high level too.