How to fix slow 3G Data card speeds

I’ve been using Vodafone’s 3G Data card for 18 months or more now, and have used it as a “last resort” for ‘net access in Towns, Cities and even Rural locations.

I say “last resort” as earlier this year I grabbed myself a T-Mobile “Web’n’Walk” package that allows me to use my Windows Mobile device to do just about everything I would need to do when away from the office. I can browse web-sites, have e-mailed pushed out to me, monitor client sites and remotely manage servers in an emergency.

However there are some occasions when a tiny Mobile ‘Phone screen just won’t cut it though, and that’s when it’s handy to have a Laptop with a 3G Card plugged into the PCMCIA slot.

Using the card in Cities is great. Nearly all Cities have 3G (fast wireless) access nowadays, and thus surfing the web is easily done at almost half-a-meg connectivity. When in Rural locations, the card automatically falls back to GPRS (bog standard wireless) – and thus things are slllllllooooowwwwwww – but ok at a pinch.

The biggest pain-point for me used to be smaller towns. Generally such locations have patchy 3G coverage, and it’s here that most 3G cards I’ve tested hit a cropper. The card always tries for the strongest signal – and when it loses that signal it drops back to GPRS. But what if you’re on the edge of a weak 3G and a strong GPRS signal area? That’s right – the Datacard spends all of it’s time disconnecting from GPRS for the fast 3G signal it’s just found, then losing that 3G signal and dropping back to GPRS. This manifests itself to you, the end-user, as an Internet connection that simply doesn’t work as the endless cycle of connections and disconnections takes over.

So when I overheard someone at a meeting the other day mentioning how slow their Datacard browsing was – I had to chip in with this advice:-

Set yourself up with two “Profiles” in the Datacard software.

Profile 1 – 3G Preferred. When you’re in a City, you’ll get the strongest signal (which should be 3G) and thus the fastest speed.

Profile 2 – GPRS Only. If you’re in a town and getting the above problems, switch to this Profile.

Sure, it’ll be a slower connection, but it’ll be reliable and not constantly be trying to re-negotiate a faster connection.

You then may just get that important e-mail sent before the laptop goes out of the window. 🙂