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Old 07-20-2007, 05:22 AM   #1
tbhd
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More Air card questions?????

We have Cingular service (the new AT&T ha ha)for our phones so we just purchased the AT&T air card. I'm really disappointed with how long it takes to do anything. Dennis is up in West Branch, Mi right now and we were talking on the cell phone last night (phone worked just fine). He was trying to get the laptop to work. It had between 3 and 4 signal bars but it just wouldn't do anything. Once it said we were connected but it wouldn't even bring up internet explorer, so I had him reboot and then that worked slowly. Then he tried to sign on to Yahoo so he could send me a e-mail. That took about twenty minutes before he could get through all the steps just to compose the e-mail. I have cable here at the stick house and I know I'm spoiled with the speed of the cable. Am I asking to much of the air card? Is this typical of the air cards? We had understood that Cingular had improved their's and was suppose to be as good as Verizon now. I think someone told us a fib!!

We have 30 days to decide whether we like it or not. So far, not very happy.
 
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Old 07-20-2007, 05:50 AM   #2
Mrs. CountryGuy
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Sharon,

Al is the computer geru, but, I do know this, (I think)

A lot of this depends on where you are located, and how well supported the card is in that area.

My Sprint card, much to the surprise of EVERYONE, is working quite well here at the stick built. It is about 4 times faster than our Hughesnet satellite was. Ping times and all that techy stuff are much better (faster) for the air card.

My Sprint card, at the lake, on west side of state, was not as good, a step above marginal, and I think the only reason I got on at all is we had a lot on the end of the campground, facing the lake, if we had a site back further, there would have been NO surfing!

Our phones, both Sprint now, would lose the signal in that campground, so you have a pretty good indication that the air card would have too.

Love my air card and my phones, but there are times! GRRR

OHHHH, external antennas help!!
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Old 07-20-2007, 10:32 AM   #3
pooch
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My cingular air card works fine if I have 4 0r 5 bars with a noticeable difference at 5 bars. It has never been as fast as cable but is faster than dial up. I purchased a Wilson booster with an outside antenna and it is a big help. 3 bars or less is difference between walking and running compared to 5.
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Old 07-20-2007, 11:31 AM   #4
boylanag
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Dennis and Sharon, we have the Verizon air card and it works great most of the time. We have camped in West Branch and it works there but slowly. I could not enter photographs on our blog from there but was able to check e-mail and get on the web. We camp at Lake of the North OAI park in West Branch. That is a relatively remote region of Northern Michigan and may explain the problems incurred with the air cards.
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Old 07-20-2007, 12:50 PM   #5
Driftwoodgal
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I am on an ATT aircard right now with only three bars. I am not having any problem with speed at all. I haven't used it at a five bar setting yet, but I am so used to dial-up at home everthing seems faster. We use AOL so I am not sure if that makes a difference.

Colleen

PS it just took .44 seconds to post this message the first time.
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Old 07-20-2007, 06:16 PM   #6
Verle and Sue
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We're on the Cingular/ATT Air Card and like it so much I use it even at home on the laptop while Verle still uses Hughesnet Satellite on his PC. We are networked together, so I could use either on the laptop, but the Cingular/ATT Air Card works as well, if not better than the Satellite. We did have some trouble in New Castle, IN (at the campground) but we were way down in a "valley/dip/hollow" and our cell phones didn't do a very good job either, so that was obviously a location/lack of signal strength problem. Overall, ours is very fast and we're happy with it. Sue and Verle
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Old 07-21-2007, 02:54 AM   #7
Dustytuu
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Our sprint phone card works fine. But there are places it is slower. Only one campground didn't work but no ones cell phone worked there either. None of the cell phone companies. Our sprint phones worked there sometimes if there was not a storm brewing. No one could believe we had cell service but the air card didn't.
We are very happy with our air card. So much that we canceled our DSL at home and use this. We use air card with a router so we can use all our computers at same time.
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Old 07-21-2007, 03:02 AM   #8
trukdoc
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I tether to my Cingular phone to my desk top or laptop. Much faster than dial up. Bad thing about Cingular is that they are the only ones that use GSM technology. That makes tower compatibility an issue.
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Old 07-21-2007, 03:51 AM   #9
richfaa
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The number of bars you have (signal strength) and the speed of your connection are two different things. Signal strength is dependent on the distance you are from the tower..speed is dependent on the quality of the software the provider is using. Here in southern ohio our speed is 600KBPS..at home it is @ 750KBPS..it can be faster or slower dependent on the provider.. Download "speedtest to determine the Speed of you connection

http://www.myspeed.com/pe/index.html
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Old 07-21-2007, 04:29 AM   #10
pooch
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I have an old Sierra 775 air card that has never got over 220 KBPS. If I drop the antenna to lower the bars to 3 , good instead of an excellent signal, it is slower even at 220. Beats me why, but it is.
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Old 07-21-2007, 05:18 PM   #11
tbhd
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Thank you everyone for helping me understand how these air cards work. I've since talked to Dennis again and he said everyone is having a problem in the campground getting a signal with their phones. We need to check the laptop out in some different locations before me make a final decision. We don't have a real strong signal here at the stick house so I guess we're just going to take the laptop around town.

Rich thanks for the link. I'm going to download it as soon as Dennis gets home.

Pooch where did you purchase your Wilson booster? Maybe something like that would help.

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Old 07-21-2007, 05:55 PM   #12
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I bought it from Prime Cellular. They are on the web. Nice people to deal with.
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Old 07-22-2007, 04:54 AM   #13
HomeOnTheRoad
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Quote:
quote:Originally posted by pooch

I have an old Sierra 775 air card that has never got over 220 KBPS. If I drop the antenna to lower the bars to 3 , good instead of an excellent signal, it is slower even at 220. Beats me why, but it is.
When the signal is weaker there are more transmission errors. More of your data has to be retransmitted. Your connection speed is not less but the effective throughput is reduced because of the errors and having to retransmit. So it seems slower because to you it is slower.
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