Dongle Dilemma - help please
Submitted: Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 10:47
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Member - Dalb (SA)
Hi All
Advice needed please...
I have had no problems with
my home computer access when at
home – the ADSL connection is good and quite fast enough for me. The problem is when we are travelling.
When we were away in Tassie I tried unsuccessfully to access wifi spots in caravan parks etc while everyone else was sitting wherever they like and using internet/emails etc using their dongles.
So I bought a dongle, the Telstra Elite USB pre-paid, but it has lots of problems for me:
• Poor reception – only 2 bars at best in my lounge room, and often cuts out.
• When it works at
home, the speed is very slow, and this is apparently due to poor reception??
• The Elite software seems to be problematic in that it gives messages about ‘no signal’, sometimes even when it is clearly receiving emails.
Today I talked to someone in Harvey Norman who seemed to know more about the Telstra facilities that all the OZ Telstra staff put together………………..
They said I need the Telstra Ultimate USB, which has speeds up to 20Mbps (I know this will not be achieved outside the CBD) and has (allegedly) far superior reception range over the Elite.
I would like to buy the Telstra Ultimate USB on their 2 year plan, but there appears to be no way of trying it in a poor reception area (like my lounge room, or on the road) first.
[For info, the current 2year plan offered is $299 up front, which is immediately transferred to usage credits, so its effectively free, and $19.99 per month (after discounts) for 1Gb per month.]
Does anyone out there have any experience with the Ultimate, or alternative advice???????
Thanking you in advance.
Cheers, Dalb
Reply By: Member - Heather MG NSW - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 13:57
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 13:57
Hi Dalb,
I have just upgraded my device to the USB Bigpond Ultimate, on a 24 month plan (3 GB for $29.95 after a $20 rebate for also having landline and mobile phone on a single bill) and find that the reception is much improved from my previous 3yr old blue Maxon one. I can now use it at
home which is in an area of very poor 3G reception (probably the poorest signal of any place we ever go, bar the remotest
places) and have two bars of signal without attaching any external antenna whereas previously I had to attach a high gain antenna to get the same signal strength.
I have not investigated whether my new device has an antenna point but if it does, then I think there would not be too many
places in Australia where there was no signal.
It is also faster than the previous one and works
well with just 2 bars of signal, doesnt disconnect etc.
I dont have any other internet access as we travel too much of the year to justify having an ADSL connection so rely on it at
home.
The upgrading of the plan was not all that straightforward as I have had to take on a new email address and the original one has become a secondary one. (I also have an older bigpond one from our dial up days...where does it end?) I have lost at least a weeks emails in cyberspace. Hopefully I have managed to contact most of my address book and inform them of my new details but it is a very tiresome process as my adult daughter who has been staying here can attest to. She witnessed my tantrums and frequent expletives as I am not the most patient of people especialy when it comes to using internet/laptops!
Hope this helps you out.
Regards,
Heather MG
AnswerID:
451987
Follow Up By: Member - The Bushwhackers -NSW - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 22:00
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 22:00
Heather,
I read every word you write,,,,
well, in your
blogs.... frequent expletives,?? I find that hard to imagine.
lol, hang in there
Cheers, Dave
FollowupID:
724688
Follow Up By: Member - Rob Mac (QLD) - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 22:24
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 22:24
Hi Heather, you should be able to divert your other emails/address's to your current one. My ex flatmate did that, he had all his emails forwarded to his Gmail a/c. Dont know how it was done and he now lives in New Guinea so cannot ask him, if you have some tech savvy friends they may be able to help you.
Cheers from Rob Mac who is Levuka-ing it this weekend with a few other exploroz people/
.
FollowupID:
724692
Follow Up By: Member - Heather MG NSW - Friday, Apr 22, 2011 at 07:08
Friday, Apr 22, 2011 at 07:08
Hahahaha Dave, I could probably be described as a person who uses 'colourful language' pretty quickly when frustrated or annoyed! I just dont write that way in my
blogs as they would be full of bleeps! Which reminds me that I havent finished the last one about Tassie yet...must get on to it.
And thanks Rob, yes I have managed to have all my email addresses sent to Windows Live Mail but in the week when Bigpond was doing the 'email retention' all of the emails to my previous address just didnt arrive when I could finally access it again. I haven't bothered contacting bigpond again to ask why yet.
Have fun at Levuka with the EO gang.
Cheers Heather
FollowupID:
724708
Reply By: snoopyone - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 14:01
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 14:01
I bought a Blue ZTE Telstra modem for our trip.
I told them specifically what it was going to be used for.
Out of the city it was useless.
I finally got P'd off after a Telstra salesman told me that these were only city modems.
After getting two replacements I finally went to Fair trading and got my money back.
I then bought an old
home modem A Maxon BP-3 which was marvelous and got reception in place where my phone didnt.
Wasnt fast but worked as good as anything.
Would use it again with a prepay Sim card as the plans are too dear.
AnswerID:
451988
Follow Up By: Faulic_McVitte - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 15:47
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 15:47
If you go to the Whirlpool Bigpond
forumWhirlpool Bigpond Forum
you will see the Sierra Wireless equipment like the Elite and Ultimate are low quality rubbish and a failure in congested or low signal areas. The Elite and Ultimate drop out all the time, fail to perform in medium to low signal areas especially when levels of congestion on the network. All the experienced users there and experienced travellers use the Maxon BP3-EXT. I have every Bigpond modem in my personal possession and presently have the Bigpond Ultimate tossed in a draw it is such a faulty piece of rotten stinking cheese. Yes the Maxon BP3-EXT is not the fastest thing on 10 wheels, but it will connect and stay connected when nothing else will and be able to load web pages which all the other modems will fail to do under adverse and low signal strength conditions. We use the BP3-EXT with a 3G wireless router connected to a marine fold down NextG specific dipole aerial. I also carry a large 3G Yagi when out of range of the dipole aerial.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: Fried Rice - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 16:10
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 16:10
We're happy with Telstra-supplied ZTE T100 used as a modem attached by USB to our laptop computers via software called "join ME".
Only issue is that we use TPG as our server and the Telstra system won't carry outward emails. I had to reconfigure our Outlok Express to send outward mail with Bigpond. Inward mail arrives as normal wih TPG.I expect to reconfigure back to TPG when we are no longer using the T100.
I bought a magetically attachable (is that a word?) external antenna but have not needed to use it yet on this trip so far just from Bris to Poserpine via inland.
I pay $20 per month added to my mobile account, for 2GB.
The phone cost $49.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: snoopyone - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 16:12
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 16:12
Mine sat on the mudguard roll of the van under the table and never needed anything else to work anywhere.
Why did you need a wireless router as the BP3 is a standalone device and we just plugged the laptop into it. It also supports external aerials with a patch cord.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: snoopyone - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 16:24
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 16:24
That configuration applies when you use a different providor through Telstra.
Had same trouble as I was on iinet.
Wait till you get your ZTE away from the high saturated areas on the East Coast It wont be good.
A said I had 3 Original one that was considered less than perfect by ZTE in
Melbourne The Replacement one Died in
Alice Springs and the third one would not pick up a signal where my phone would so demanded money back and got it.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: Faulic_McVitte - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 18:39
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 18:39
The reason use a 3G wireless router is so I can use the BP3-EXT on wireless and keep the aerial cable as short as possible.
You are incorrect about ZTE as ZTE phones out perform most other brands of phone and are the preferred brand Blue Tick phone by rural users.
"Fried Rice posted:
Only issue is that we use TPG as our server and the Telstra system won't carry outward emails."
A good reason to use GMail so if you ever leave TPG you don't have to change e-mail address and advise everybody. GMail is soo good if you have smart phone or need at any time to use web mail.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: snoopyone - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 19:03
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 19:03
Sorry I misread his post I am referring to ZTE USB modems.
You dont have to change email address when using Telstra as a providor.
I had an iinet email addy for years and when I went touring I just had to change the outward mail server to Telstra instead of iinet.
Quite simple and gives you two addresses as you can also have your bigpond one as
well.
Didnt
camp in the bush so never needed an external aerial.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: Faulic_McVitte - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 19:09
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 19:09
"You dont have to change email address when using Telstra as a provider." I did not say you had to change e-mail address. Please read the replies correctly and comprehend what is been posted.
The ZTE USB modems are substantially better than the Sierra Wireless rubbish, but not as good as the Maxon BP3-EXT, however with an external aerial ZTE give surprisingly good performance.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: snoopyone - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 19:55
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 19:55
Would have been hard to do on the ones I had as they didnt have a socket to connect an aerial.
You can actually have an email addy only, with quite a few providors I paid $25 a year to retain
mine even though I had given up my broadband
home connection with them.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: Faulic_McVitte - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 20:55
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 20:55
"You can actually have an email addy only, with quite a few providers (spelling corrected) I paid $25 a year to retain mine"
That is pretty dumb when you can have a GMail e-mail address for nothing and an excellent service. More money than sense or no brains.
ZTE only produced one USB modem without an external aerial socket and you could in fact get a replacement case from ZTE at the time for free that provided an external aerial socket.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: snoopyone - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 21:02
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 21:02
Very sorry I dont meet your high standards.
I dont recall seeing posts from you before.
Are you new here.
Strange that ZTE didnt offer me the new case when I went to their Australian Head office in
Melbourne and spoke to a head Tech there.
Only gave me a replacement one which promptly died three weeks later.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: Member - The Bushwhackers -NSW - Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 22:06
Thursday, Apr 21, 2011 at 22:06
Faulic is a very smart person.... too smart for the rest of us ordinary people, just ask him/her
Cheers, Dave
FollowupID:
724690
Follow Up By: Stu & "Bob" - Friday, Apr 22, 2011 at 18:52
Friday, Apr 22, 2011 at 18:52
I have an Iphone on a Telstra next G service.
For my email, I am using TPG as
well. I did have some problems with not being able to send email (received email ok), but it was just a configuration problem that I had not done when setting up the phone. You will need to enter the server address, user account and password into your phone to be able to send using your current (TPG) account.
HTH
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Follow Up By: snoopyone - Friday, Apr 22, 2011 at 18:59
Friday, Apr 22, 2011 at 18:59
I also have an Iphone to my disappointment.
My old Nokia was a far better phone away from the East Coast.
Iphones are really a city phone and don't work all that
well in isolated
places.
I used a Carkit with an external aerial which gave better reception but the Nokia beat it hands down on the West Coast where towers are few and far between
FollowupID:
724772