Dongle Advice

[canals are us?]

I'm with three with a basic E3231 Dongle for internet but the last 3 days haven't managed to get on the internet.

 

Telephoned three and the advisor couldn't get my internet to work and thought it was due to the poor inside signal. She said I could send my dongle back providing it was complete.

My dongle the back cover had dropped off due to dangling the dongle out the window to improve the signal. Anyway I would be charged £24.99 + £4.99 for a new one of the same. I was disgusted at the cost and poor signal dropping out/slow speed especially in the last 2 weeks.

I asked her to find out about cancelling.

 

Anyway after a lot of trying the dongle in various windows/outside managed to get online and so telephoned 3 to ask where I could buy a better dongle with an external ariel and was told of the Burton On Trent store.

 

Went there and was told they have none and can't order me one!! What a waste of time, petrol and parking charge.

 

Tried 3 times to send a complaint on their complaint form but didn't get an acknowledgement that it had been sent!!

 

I will phone the 3 store at Tamworth tomorrow!!

 

Now the question.

 

Will a dongle with external ariel give a better chance of a signal? Or am I better off cancelling and going with a different provider with better coverage as I'm borderline with 3. Does anyone know the cancellation terms of 3?

 

Thanks James

 

[Guest]

Hi James ~ I don't know what is going on with Three at the moment. We have always had a good service with an external aerial on our home mooring but of late when we have been there the service has been very very erratic.

 

Their coverage checker shows the service should be good on our mooring but sometimes (often!!) I can't even get a signal on my phone when previously it was no problem....

No help sorry but just so you know you are not alone.

[junior]

Hi James ~ I don't know what is going on with Three at the moment. We have always had a good service with an external aerial on our home mooring but of late when we have been there the service has been very very erratic.

 

Their coverage checker shows the service should be good on our mooring but sometimes (often!!) I can't even get a signal on my phone when previously it was no problem....

No help sorry but just so you know you are not alone.

 

I asked a question on here recently in a thread about getting the internet on a boat along the line of;

 

Just about EVERYONE i've spoken to recently is changing networks to Three Mobile. Could the recent poor coverage/service be down to the sheer numbers of people using the network? Surely the network has a capacity and maybe in some areas this is being reached?

 

 

Also when i was asking for recommendations recently, lots of people warned of Three's customer services being abysmal, so maybe this is what you have just experieced with regard to being given duff info!

Edited August 28, 2013 by junior

[mrsmelly]

I'm with three with a basic E3231 Dongle for internet but the last 3 days haven't managed to get on the internet.

 

Telephoned three and the advisor couldn't get my internet to work and thought it was due to the poor inside signal. She said I could send my dongle back providing it was complete.

My dongle the back cover had dropped off due to dangling the dongle out the window to improve the signal. Anyway I would be charged £24.99 + £4.99 for a new one of the same. I was disgusted at the cost and poor signal dropping out/slow speed especially in the last 2 weeks.

I asked her to find out about cancelling.

 

Anyway after a lot of trying the dongle in various windows/outside managed to get online and so telephoned 3 to ask where I could buy a better dongle with an external ariel and was told of the Burton On Trent store.

 

Went there and was told they have none and can't order me one!! What a waste of time, petrol and parking charge.

 

Tried 3 times to send a complaint on their complaint form but didn't get an acknowledgement that it had been sent!!

 

I will phone the 3 store at Tamworth tomorrow!!

 

Now the question.

 

Will a dongle with external ariel give a better chance of a signal? Or am I better off cancelling and going with a different provider with better coverage as I'm borderline with 3. Does anyone know the cancellation terms of 3?

 

Thanks James

 

This is of no use to you but canal sides countrywide are notorious for poor signals. The boss and I have three fones one of which we just use ocasionaly and top up very infrequently and the other two for normal use. We deliberately use different networks so we have Orange, O2 and 3 at the moment. At least one of them always works.

 

Tim

[bottle]

 

(1) Will a dongle with external ariel give a better chance of a signal?

(2)Or am I better off cancelling and going with a different provider with better coverage as I'm borderline with 3.

(3)Does anyone know the cancellation terms of 3?

 

(1) Yes, if the signal is there in the first place

 

(2) If the coverage is better then you will be better off

 

(3) I do not know the specifics but it will be in the small print of your contract but will probably be something like the monthly amount x the number of months left on the contract.

Edited August 28, 2013 by bottle

[canals are us?]

Hi everyone

 

So I'm not alone then! Up until around a month ago no trouble even though it wasn't fast and you couldn't watch youtube videos until late at night and still not great, kept buffering.

 

I'll have to review 3's contract to see the T&C's I'm thinking upgrade the dongle and see how it goes as you really don't know who in reality has a good signal. I'm at Barton Marina and the few I asked has different providers either Orange or Vodaphone. but some say speed has slowed!!

 

James

[baffle]

I can report similar problems on mooring north of Leicester. 3 dongle with external aerial has been brilliant for a year, streaming films etc. Over last 8 weeks has been very erratic, and more often than not have not been able to connect. Have been trying 3 on Twitter for help but support there is pretty rubbish and will not engage. Know 4g will be here soon so am hanging on in hope.....

[Justme]

We are on Three. Just recently we have been able to connect but not access any web pages.

 

So I changed the DNS setting from "get from ISP" or similar to a fixed one of 8.8.8.8 with a secondary or 4.4.4.4

 

Now our internet works fine. I am guessing that Threes DNS is struggling with the load.

[Lady Muck]

Ive just got a new EE 4g dongle. It's brilliant, so fast. Can get 4g at mooring and also here on the Stort where nothing else worked.

 

We found 3 unusable for our needs - it's rubbish on much of the Lee and Stort and any uploading or downloading for more than a few MB and it throttles or totally cuts the connection. Never had this problem with Vodafone either. Guess that's why it's cheap. We're cruising atm and my partner still needs to download and back up website databases - impossible on 3, quick on this new gadget. I'm sure 3 is fine for casual surfing but it's not for us.

[baffle]

Thanks just me, will try that tonight. This makes sense with what I noticed last night. Could not access web pages but virus strings were updating and data flowing as tracked by task manager.

[Richard10002]

We are on Three. Just recently we have been able to connect but not access any web pages.

 

So I changed the DNS setting from "get from ISP" or similar to a fixed one of 8.8.8.8 with a secondary or 4.4.4.4

 

Now our internet works fine. I am guessing that Threes DNS is struggling with the load.

How did you change the DNS? I can't find any such setting in my phone, (Samsung S3 on The One Plan), and my Mifi doesn't seem to have any accessible settings?

[NB Alnwick]

We use Vodafone and O2 - it is rare to get a strong signal along the line of the canal but having the option of using one or the other helps. I looked at 3 but decided against them based on the inability of the salespeople (that I spoke with) to understand the concept of needing to connect to the Internet on a boat.

[Guest]

looking at the various coverage checkers of EE/Orange/T-mobile/O2/Voda none of them show any where near adequate enough coverage for our home mooring, Three's shows the strongest coverage but in practice it is pants lately. Orange (not EE) seems to come second so I might try one of their SIMs.

 

Of course we don't spend too much time on the boat on the mooring as nice as as it is - it's just incredibly frustrating when it has been so good in the past.

[Justme]

Dont know how to do it on a phone or mifi. I would guess that a quick trawl through the connection settings should find it.

 

I use a router so its easy to configure it in the settings. I have also just upgraded the router to a Deltenna WiBE unit.

 

Much more stable signal, smoother downloads. Another big plus is when the signal drops the old router (and the dongle if using it direct) would try to keep the old connection going & so not reconnect without manual intervention or a long wait. The WiBE spots that the signal has been lost & starts looking for a new one & going through all 4 antennas again to see what is available.

How did you change the DNS? I can't find any such setting in my phone, (Samsung S3 on The One Plan), and my Mifi doesn't seem to have any accessible settings?

 

 

A quick google suggests this (and a few suggesting you use an app called DNS Setting from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.daingo.dnssetting&hl=en'>HERE)

 

 

 

Open Wi-Fi settings. Press the menu button. Press advanced. Scroll to the bottom. DNS 1 is there.

[baffle]

Am using a Zoom 4506 router which has been good for about 30months. Just tried setting the DHCP to 8.8.8.8 and 4.4.4.4 With dongle back in it would connect to a Google search page but was otherwise non responsive. Went back into the Router via a cable and got rid of the DHCP settings, and now it has connected and is browsing OK. Perhaps I had got something else wrong. I dont really understand how the DNS settings work, but hopefully I will start to pick it up.

As an aside, one thing that really bugs me with the Zoom router is that it will drop its security settings after a couple of days, and return an unsecured connection. Rest of family are unperturbed by this, but it really bugs me! Zoom tech supp wondered if someone was pressing the reset button (which is a bit easy to do) but I think now that has been pointed out, that it isn't that and it is something else - although I might just be deluded here and I am being well and truly wound up.

[smileypete]

If it's weak signal then there's been a couple of threads recently with some ideas, try a forum search for the words 'smpt panel antenna'

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

[NBDensie]

I used an aerial from the Boaters Phone Company for some time on my 3 dongle. It worked very well and could almost always get a usable signal. However I found that the aerial socket on the dongle is not sufficiently robust to withstand repeated plugging-in and unplugging and I trashed 3 dongles. I have now moved over to the 3 wifi router which works brilliantly. It seems to provide better reception and it can simply be moved to wherever reception is best - eg the roof. As it uses a wifi connection to the laptop there is nothing to break and I feel, though have no proof, that the power load on the laptop is less. However you do need to recharge the wifi router every few days.

 

Ps using the wifi router means that we can use his and hers laptops/ereaders/tablets at the same time.

Edited September 1, 2013 by NBDensie

[ditchcrawler]

I used an aerial from the Boaters Phone Company for some time on my 3 dongle. It worked very well and could almost always get a usable signal. However I found that the aerial socket on the dongle is not sufficiently robust to withstand repeated plugging-in and unplugging and I trashed 3 dongles. I have now moved over to the 3 wifi router which works brilliantly. It seems to provide better reception and it can simply be moved to wherever reception is best - eg the roof. As it uses a wifi connection to the laptop there is nothing to break and I feel, though have no proof, that the power load on the laptop is less. However you do need to recharge the wifi router every few days.

 

Ps using the wifi router means that we can use his and hers laptops/ereaders/tablets at the same time.

I thought my laptop battery lasted much better without a dongle. I also use a 3 Mifi and it is very rear that I don't get a usable signal, but I don't stay in one place long.