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Forums › Vodafone New Zealand › Is Vodem worth ?


799 posts

Ultimate Geek

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Topic # 15428 22-Aug-2007 16:22
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Hi,

I am looking for vodem as that provides a 3 gig plan whereas Telecom 3G has only 1 gig plan

Many tell vodem is not good as it should be and the speed is worst.. :(

Any suggestions on vodem ?

Thanks




Regards,
Chaks

Desktop : Intel Quad Core Q9400 2.66GHz - 8GB RAM - 500 GB + 500 GB HDD - NVidia GeForce 9800GT - LG246WH Flatron Display - Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V
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262 posts

Ultimate Geek
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  Reply # 83357 22-Aug-2007 16:41
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I have a Vodem and a Telecom AirCard (595)

The AirCard kicks Vodem to Touch.  Even for general internet browsing, the vodem takes an age to do anything!

The vodem is now reserved for international usage...

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Reply # 83373 22-Aug-2007 18:37
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I live about 200m away from a Vodafone transmitter and the speed is fine (fairly consistently around 1.4mbps) but that's really the only good thing that I can say about it. It suffers from frequent freezes, occassional unexpected disconnections and it sometimes takes more than one attempt to get a connection. Furthermore, Vodafone's software for it seems to be very problematic.

 
 
 
 




799 posts

Ultimate Geek

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  Reply # 83404 22-Aug-2007 22:24
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so it depends on how far i am away from the vodafone transmitter ?




Regards,
Chaks

Desktop : Intel Quad Core Q9400 2.66GHz - 8GB RAM - 500 GB + 500 GB HDD - NVidia GeForce 9800GT - LG246WH Flatron Display - Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V
Virtual Machine : Powered by Hyper-V and VMWare Workstation
Laptop: HP dv7-3004TX Entertainment Notebook PC | HP Touchsmart tx2 1119au - Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Mac: iMac 21.5" Snow Leopard
Mobile : iPhone 3GS

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Ultimate Geek
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  Reply # 83413 22-Aug-2007 22:42
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Alasta is close, and has the same issues as I do...

I can also get upto 1.4Mbps....  but latency is still high!



799 posts

Ultimate Geek

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  Reply # 83422 22-Aug-2007 23:28
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When I asked my local vodafone shop, they said you will get 1.4 mbps practically , but theoritically it should go upto 3.4 mbps :(




Regards,
Chaks

Desktop : Intel Quad Core Q9400 2.66GHz - 8GB RAM - 500 GB + 500 GB HDD - NVidia GeForce 9800GT - LG246WH Flatron Display - Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V
Virtual Machine : Powered by Hyper-V and VMWare Workstation
Laptop: HP dv7-3004TX Entertainment Notebook PC | HP Touchsmart tx2 1119au - Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Mac: iMac 21.5" Snow Leopard
Mobile : iPhone 3GS

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Reply # 83436 23-Aug-2007 07:25
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chakkaradeep: When I asked my local vodafone shop, they said you will get 1.4 mbps practically , but theoritically it should go upto 3.4 mbps :(

Yes, 3.4mbps is the theoretical maximum while 1.4mbps seems to be the realistic maximum that you will achieve. Some have suggested that the performance of 3G Broadband is bottlenecked by Vodafone's woefully inadequete backhaul so there may be a slight increase in performance if this issue is ever addressed in the future, but in my view 1.4mbps is still a respectable figure for a service of this nature.

My experience of the Vodem would suggest that it has a weak receiver so you will need to be close to, or within line of sight of, a transmitter to acheive that 1.4mbps figure. Moving the device around also helps a bit. I seem to recall that Freitasm has recently reported that the performance of his Vodem is abysmally slow at his home in Johnsonville where the 3G signal is poor, so it would be fair to say that signal strength does make a big difference to the performance.

The reliability, on the other hand, is poor regardless of how good your 3G signal is.

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  Reply # 83442 23-Aug-2007 08:42
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chakkaradeep: When I asked my local vodafone shop, they said you will get 1.4 mbps practically , but theoritically it should go upto 3.4 mbps :(


If you're hokked up to a cellsite with decent backhaul you will get up to 3Mbps. The problem is that many Vodafone sites only have a 2Mbps backhaul for data which reastically means you're never going to get more than 1.2-1.4Mbps on a lightly loaded cell which seems to be fairly typical.

Speed is also very dependant on good signal strength and will drop significantly if you're mobile.



799 posts

Ultimate Geek

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  Reply # 84481 30-Aug-2007 17:08
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I am going to get the VMC card instead of Vodem....

any suggestions?




Regards,
Chaks

Desktop : Intel Quad Core Q9400 2.66GHz - 8GB RAM - 500 GB + 500 GB HDD - NVidia GeForce 9800GT - LG246WH Flatron Display - Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V
Virtual Machine : Powered by Hyper-V and VMWare Workstation
Laptop: HP dv7-3004TX Entertainment Notebook PC | HP Touchsmart tx2 1119au - Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Mac: iMac 21.5" Snow Leopard
Mobile : iPhone 3GS

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Reply # 84486 30-Aug-2007 17:59
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XU870 all the way and in the future when vodafone launch faster speeds the card can be upgraded to 7.2mbps downlink.



799 posts

Ultimate Geek

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  Reply # 84496 30-Aug-2007 19:07
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johnr: XU870 all the way and in the future when vodafone launch faster speeds the card can be upgraded to 7.2mbps downlink.


Yea, thats why I want to get it. Vodem cannot be upgraded to high speeds




Regards,
Chaks

Desktop : Intel Quad Core Q9400 2.66GHz - 8GB RAM - 500 GB + 500 GB HDD - NVidia GeForce 9800GT - LG246WH Flatron Display - Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V
Virtual Machine : Powered by Hyper-V and VMWare Workstation
Laptop: HP dv7-3004TX Entertainment Notebook PC | HP Touchsmart tx2 1119au - Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Mac: iMac 21.5" Snow Leopard
Mobile : iPhone 3GS



799 posts

Ultimate Geek

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  Reply # 85091 3-Sep-2007 14:12
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Changed my mind, got vodem, how to make it work with vista :(

Any help ? I checked the thread which had installing VMC in vista but that didnt help




Regards,
Chaks

Desktop : Intel Quad Core Q9400 2.66GHz - 8GB RAM - 500 GB + 500 GB HDD - NVidia GeForce 9800GT - LG246WH Flatron Display - Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V
Virtual Machine : Powered by Hyper-V and VMWare Workstation
Laptop: HP dv7-3004TX Entertainment Notebook PC | HP Touchsmart tx2 1119au - Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Mac: iMac 21.5" Snow Leopard
Mobile : iPhone 3GS

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Master Geek


  Reply # 85092 3-Sep-2007 14:22
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there are updates for the vodem on the vodafone site... do a search on www.vodafone.co.nz for vista and you will find the page.
the update needs to be done via an XP machine though.
but its easy and painless.. done it may times now.

for those of you that are experencing lockups and pauses etc i suggest you update to the latest firmware and vodafone software.
there was a new update in august (not publicised enough) that fixed the frequent hopping between cell sites etc.. in my experance it has made the vodem a lot better!



799 posts

Ultimate Geek

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  Reply # 85095 3-Sep-2007 15:03
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The Vodem I got was said its Vista ready and currently downloading the VMC software for vista from here

vodem got detected anyway though :)




Regards,
Chaks

Desktop : Intel Quad Core Q9400 2.66GHz - 8GB RAM - 500 GB + 500 GB HDD - NVidia GeForce 9800GT - LG246WH Flatron Display - Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V
Virtual Machine : Powered by Hyper-V and VMWare Workstation
Laptop: HP dv7-3004TX Entertainment Notebook PC | HP Touchsmart tx2 1119au - Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Mac: iMac 21.5" Snow Leopard
Mobile : iPhone 3GS

72 posts

Master Geek


  Reply # 85097 3-Sep-2007 15:13
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chakkaradeep: The Vodem I got was said its Vista ready and currently downloading the VMC software for vista from here

vodem got detected anyway though :)



i think you should be getting it from here..

http://www.business.vodafone.com/site/bus/public/enuk/support/10_productsupport/general/microsoft/vista/30_modem/p_modem.jsp

the page you linked to is for vmc cards....



799 posts

Ultimate Geek

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  Reply # 85133 3-Sep-2007 18:53
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Ok, all is well now Cool

The vodem what they gave had not had the vista upgrade, so a change made it just work with Vista Wink

Here is the screenshot of my vcmlite. I got 4 signals out of 5







Regards,
Chaks

Desktop : Intel Quad Core Q9400 2.66GHz - 8GB RAM - 500 GB + 500 GB HDD - NVidia GeForce 9800GT - LG246WH Flatron Display - Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with Hyper-V
Virtual Machine : Powered by Hyper-V and VMWare Workstation
Laptop: HP dv7-3004TX Entertainment Notebook PC | HP Touchsmart tx2 1119au - Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Mac: iMac 21.5" Snow Leopard
Mobile : iPhone 3GS

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