Mobile Broadband

[Chezdon]

Hi guys,

I'm a Brit here in Oz for a year. 

I'm currently using the $30 a month $450 credit offer, and have been for the last two months.

My phone is a Sony Ericsson W995 (ancient) and I've never used it for the internet. My friend here recently gave me a Telstra dongle, with a Telstra sim in it already. I've been using that for my internet, but figured why not use the Vodafone credit I have.

I tried putting the Vodafone sim from my phone in to the dongle, but it said SIM locked. 

What's the easiest or cheapest way to access this 500mb monthly allowance of downloads? I've already lost 1gb over two months because I've not bothered to use it, but now that I'm paying $100 every three months for 6 gigs from Telstra, I figured I'd use up that 500mb too.

Is it best to unlock the dongle, or just buy a Vodafone dongle? What would you recommend?

I'm based in Karratha if that makes a difference - no Vodafone shop here either.

Thanks in advance.

[zabzabcanfly69]

Hey your best bet is to tether your phone.. And i know what everyone else is gunna say. But yes you can tether... 

What you'll need to do is have the pc suite for your w995. In the pc suite their should be an option to use the internet through your phone..

If thats not the option you wanna do you can buy a Vodafone Usb Dongle or Wifi... Umm you could unlock the Telstra USB internet... but that might be a little costly like 25-100 bucks .. 

[Chezdon]

I'm pretty sure I have PC suite. If it's as easy as that then that's awesome! I'll give it a go.

If I have to buy a dongle, is it just a case of sticking the sim card in? Do I need any passwords or anything? The Telstra one I'm using had the password inside the case already so I'm assuming the Vodafone one would too.

Sorry for the stupid questions, but this dongle business is all new to me.

Thanks a lot.

[Chezdon]

Well predictably that didn't work. Gives me two options in "mange my connections". 3G or GPRS. Tried both but failed to establish a connection.

Might try ringing Vodafone or just buying a dongle.

[zabzabcanfly69]

Does the internet work on your phone ?? can you try getting on the internet on your phone?? Cause it may be as simple as not having the APN set up on your phone...

[Chezdon]

Yes, that was the problem.

All working now. 

Only problem now is that the internet speed is unusably slow. Ah well, guess I won't be using that 500mb then.

I think it's because I'm in a town in the middle of nowhere - the fact they don't even have a Vodafone shop in this town says a lot.

The guy at Vodafone was really helpful though, which was refreshing. 

[Nick]

Hey Chezdon,

Chezdon wrote:

Yes, that was the problem.

All working now. 

Good to hear that zabzabcanfly was able to help you get your phone tethered to your computer. If he hadn't beaten me to it, I would have suggested the same method of getting online.

Chezdon wrote:

Only problem now is that the internet speed is unusably slow. Ah well, guess I won't be using that 500mb then.

I think it's because I'm in a town in the middle of nowhere - the fact they don't even have a Vodafone shop in this town says a lot.

Whereabouts in the middle of nowhere are you? I'd like to have a look at the network in your area on our Coverage Checker, here. The Coverage Checker will show us 2 things-

1. The sort of coverage you should expect to receive in your area;
2. Which network frequency is strongest in your area.

If the Coverage Checker shows that the signal is strong in your area, it may be that your phone is not compatible with the frequencies, which would cause the slower than expected speeds.

A quick look in to the phone shows that it's compatible with 900MHz and 2100MHz 3G networks, but this can vary depending on where you bought the phone and who you bought it from. Your best bet is to contact the carrier you purchased the phone from to confirm which frequencies.

Let me know how you go. I'm keen to help work out what's going on with your data speeds.

Cheers,

Nick

[Chezdon]

Cheers, Nick.

It's a W995 and I'm in Karratha. 

The internet seems fine on my phone, quite usable speeds (not that I can do much on it in terms of viewing videos etc) but when I connect it to my laptop it slowly grinds to a halt until it just stops working.

Any idea what that could be? 

[zabzabcanfly69]

hahaha i can give you a hint haha.. m.facebook.com takes 25kb to load ...WWW.facebook.com takes lets say 4x as much.. those are just rough estimates...  but yea.. ummm well i looked at your phone specs and to be honest their not half bad as far as data speed is concerned...

hey if you dont mind going to speedtest.net and telling me your Ping Up and Down

[Chezdon]

Telstra Dongle : 181ms ping, 0.57mbps d/l and 0.45 u/l

Vodafone through phone: page won't even load, lol. Tried 3g and GPRS or whatever it is. 

Weird though because other people's phones here seem to be having no problem connecting to Vodafone internet here in this town.

Shame, as my 500mb runs out in 4 hours