HSDPA Internet... Jus' plain crazy

Wooohhaa .... it works :-) While in the last few I had to travel through -100°C (felt coldness) weather jus' to access Internet in my "private Internet café" (a WLAN I'm allowed to participate in), I have now again my own Internet access. Nothing to be that enthusiastic about? Well, wrong ;-) I'm using a new technology, and that's always reason enough for a technophile to be enthusiastic (for a short time).

The day before yesterday, I  ordered a Option GT 3G+ EMEA ("Option Globetrotter 3G+") PC-Card from eBay, for 59 EUR (immediate buy, new ... you pay less if you have time, but I had not). And before half an hour it arrived, and I configured it, and was connected to the Internet at first try. Using Linux!!! I'm speechless ... . I also ordered the relatively new "Simyo Internetpaket 1GB", which means you pay 9,90 EUR for each 1GB of Internet traffic that you can consume in up to 30 days. That's, probably by far, the best offer for non-contracted spontaneous mobile Internet use currently. The Simyo card is not yet there, so I used my O2 UMTS SIM card with Homezone Surf Option to connect (which is rated at 0,03 EUR/min). And, according to kppp, I got connected with 1,8 MBit, that is, HSDPA at full speed (see screenshot below). Though, I don't know if that's the actual speed I can use ... I'll see ... but the 8Kbit/s in the kppp statistic window seem to be not correct either.

Here are the screenshots of my first HSDPA session ever ... it worked like a charm :-)

 

  

Ok, now we have three days later, and I'm more sober instead of THAT enthusiastic about the whole matter :-) It turned out that the 8kbit/s were the correct value ... shame on me, that I cannot subjectively feel the speed difference of 8 kbit/s to 1800 kbit/s Internet ... . The 8 kbit/s connection was due to the datacard being in GPRS mode. I finally found the comgt utility to set it to "3G preferred" mode, and then finally made my first UMTS Internet connection ever. After some testing, the speed turned out to be about 386 kbit/s, the typical UMTS rate (no HSDPA in my small town here ... how did I dare to expect that ...).

Ok, and here's the real real real screenshot of my first UMTS internet connection ever ;-)

 

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Start date: 2009-01-07
Post date: 2009-01-10
Version date: 2009-01-10 (for last meaningful change)