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Thread ID: 110637	2010-06-25 06:59:00	XT Mobile Broadband Trial	GordonBennet (13808)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1113565	2010-06-25 06:59:00	Hi All I'd like to offer some observations on my two-day XT Mobile Broadband trail, which ended today, in case it may be of some use . These are my subjective views, with only a little hard data, but they are fresh in my mind and I've been able to go from CDMA to XT and back again in a short period, in the same physical locations (Mt Eden & Manurewa) and on the same computer, so I feel that I've been comparing "apples with apples" . The computer is a 4+ year old Compaq Evo N800V with a Pentium M 1 . 7GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and 40GB hard drive, running XP Pro . I've been using a Sierra AC 595 PCMCIA card on the CDMA (1xEV-DO) network for about two and a half years now, and although it was a bit unreliable in the early days it has settled down and been very reliable and quick for at least the past year . I was a bit leery of XT, but after contacting them and confirming I would be allowed to revert at no cost provided I returned all the gear in good condition, I thought, why not give it a go . I chose the MF636 ( . telecom . co . nz/mobile/pay-monthly/mobilebroadband/telecom-mf636" target="_blank">store . telecom . co . nz) T-STICK which was free with a 24-month contract and had a theoretical performance of 7 . 2Mbps . I was told that realistic average performance would be about 4Mbps . I did a number of SpeedTest . net (http://speedtest . net/) tests over the 48 hours (two work days and two evenings), and they indicated that Telecom was being conservative in its estimate as I frequently scored 5 and 6 Mbps . However I did notice immediately something a bit odd . My old connection had had the same performance all the time - regardless of how much keying you were doing, but the new one seemed reluctant to get going . The first enter would take 3-10 seconds to get a response but if you keyed in a rapid succession of commands, each followed by enter, the response would be almost instantaneous, but if you paused for a while you'd go back to the 3-10 second wait for response . This was true both in Firefox browsing and in terminal emulation over VPN . During the first evening nothing untoward happened, but the next day my computer froze, I lost my VPN sessions and the CPU usage maxed out . I shut everything down except the Telecom software, which I noticed was not showing any "bars" for reception (had been five), but it was still showing as "connected" . Five minutes later with the CPU still running at 100% I closed the wireless manager program and CPU load instantly dropped to zero . I safely removed the t-stick and rebooted, but the same thing happened a few hours later . I wasn't loading the machine particularly hard in other ways - just a typical day's computing: a browser with a few tabs open, a couple of Word documents, a large-ish but not huge spreadsheet, VPN and three terminal emulation sessions . I used Process Explorer to try to pinpoint the problem, but there was nothing obvious - just 'System' running at 90-100% I noticed that even if I closed all the programs, I couldn't get the connection to work unless I rebooted . Later when I described these events to a colleague of mine he said it was very similar to the problems he had had with Vodafone's Vodem . Obviously we work in the same building so the conditions are the same . There were two such failures that day and three the next (today), which was very disruptive as the emulation sessions take a while to terminate on the host and I needed some aspects of those sessions (e . g . SQL history), so each time was a ten minute loss . The terminal emulation is entirely text-based "green screen", so there's very little data volume going back and forth, but still I had this distinct "lag" which began to irritate me intensely . The pace that I was used to keying and getting screens then keying again was noticeably reduced, unless I could run all my requests together rapidly (which wasn't usually possible) . Now that I've had my old CDMA card working again for a couple of hours, the response is as good as I remembered it: sub-second on each keystroke . The host machine is very powerful so there's seldom any performance issue with it, but just to be sure I consulted some other people in the building who were connected by various means and none of them had detected any slowdowns . Another thing I noticed was that at work (where the reception is better), the connection would switch back and forth between UMTS and HSDPA (if I remember the acronym right) whereas at home it was firmly stuck on UMTS all the time . If we take something like the "new" gmail service, XT was noticeably faster to load the screen than EV-DO, but both required watching a "progress bar" for a short time (I still use the "old" interface, not just for speed but I like the colours and layout of the old one better) . As for the buying experience, I would say it was pretty good . I went into a Telecom shop both times as I wanted to deal face-to-face . To take up the trial took about 20 minutes of form filling and discussion (I asked a few questions) . They started the connection process while I was there, and by the time I got home (ten minutes later) the connection was working . The reversion was a little harder, but not that bad . There was a bit of dicking about because they tried to reconnect to the old phone number but it didn't work so they had to start again with a new one . I was there about 30 minutes and I had hoped to actually try the reverted connection while I was in the shop (I was prepared to wait), but eventually I got frustrated and went home . The old connection took about an hour after that to be active . (They say 1/2 hour to 4 hours, so that's reasonable) . My guess (and that's all it is) is that the USB type modems are inferior to the Express/PCMCIA ones, at least if you have older/slower hardware and/or marginal reception . If you're a real download fiend and you don't have any application that requires a lot of quick interactive response, or if you have new/powerful hardware, or if you're sitting under a transmitter, you may have better luck than I did . That's my XT experience, and I've tried to give a true and fair account of it .	GordonBennet (13808)
1113566	2010-06-25 08:37:00	I too have been using XT mobile broadband for the last week. I have been using a pre paid data sim card in my sony XT phone as modem on an aging acer laptop to do basic email and internet surfing, banking etc. Admittedly nothing like the experience above but a really good connection and speed for casual no pressure access away from home.	cowboy stu (7021)
1113567	2010-06-25 21:47:00	That lag seems a little odd - we use XT at work and I spent some time in a 'green screen' environment over the mobile network + VPNs to our office without any problems. I was in the Wellington CBD at the time though, so perhaps coverage there is better?	somebody (208)
1113568	2010-06-25 23:11:00	I've done 3 concurrent VoIP calls over XT just fine, no jitter or latency. I get a solid 7m/bit in most places around Auckland too :D	Chilling_Silence (9)
1113569	2010-06-25 23:28:00	I haven't got nearly as technical as Gordon, but i've set up a heap of XT cards, and have always been very impressed with the ease of use and speed. I despise vodafone's software, seen a lot of their cards fail and their 3g reception around here is worse than pitiful. Telecom ftw.	wratterus (105)
1113570	2010-06-26 00:04:00	I have a few issues with the XT USB modems for awhile when they 1st came out, however dont usually have to use our VPN on the XT, rather just use home ADSL. Some issues have complained on occasion though! I put it down to congestion on the new network	SolMiester (139)
1113571	2010-06-27 06:16:00	wratterus, I'm with you on the Vodafone question. Before the Telecom CDMA I had a Vodafone PCMCIA card and the connection was nothing but trouble.	GordonBennet (13808)
1113572	2010-07-20 21:17:00	I have to say that since I originally posted in this, I've come to bitterly regret doing the trial. Telecom have overcharged me for a "new" service (i.e. reconnecting my old one) and are refusing to correct the mistake. DON'T TRY XT UNLESS YOU ARE CONFIDENT IT WILL BE BETTER!	GordonBennet (13808)
1113573	2010-07-20 23:43:00	Can you explain that a little more?	Chilling_Silence (9)
1113574	2010-07-21 10:21:00	Can you explain that a little more? Certainly . I discovered an $88 charge when I went in to check my usage near the end of the month, which was odd since, a) it wasn't the end of a billing period, b) last time I looked (a few days earlier) it was $11 in credit (refund from the aborted XT experiment I assumed), and c) I wasn't anywhere near having used my allocation . When I queried it I was told it was my "new" open plan, billed in advance and there was some implication of setup costs, although I never sorted out exactly what they were supposed to be . I still can't reconcile the figure of $88, but the upshot is that they're charging me at the higher "no contract" rates, when in fact I was on a contract that had rolled over to open-plan before the XT trial - i . e . the cost is supposed to stay the same as it was during the 24-months of the contract . I had made several approaches before the XT trial and was told each time by different people that I absolutely, positively would not be any worse off for doing the trial, even if I wanted to revert - i . e . that my former status would be restored exactly as it was and that there would be no charge for the trial (as long as I didn't exceed the limit) . What I was being charged before the trial was $49 p . m . for 1GB and $10 for an additional 1GB .	GordonBennet (13808)
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