anyone else getting internet connection probs in ED area?

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

Thank you all for your help

[Penguin68]

1. I assume that you have tried to use the mobile internet web-stick outside ED and it works there? (i.e. you don't have a hardware fault?)

2. Have you installed any new software on your system recently? If you have, try disabling it and see if the stick works - you may have a system conflict. Has your comms software updated itself; sometimes that causes problems as well. Are you running the most up-to-date comms software for your system? (I remember when an i-tunes software update disabled my router).

3. Has the topology around you changed recently (building works, scaffolding etc.) which could be causing interference?

4. Have you checked with T-Mobile to see if there are any issues with their loal cell transmitter (they may even have shifted its location).

5. Do you have good security on your machine; could you have picked up a virus?

Just some suggestions

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

[EDKiwi]

It might be that you are in an area where the cell coverage is a bit marginal, depending on what the stick is showing as signal level it may be a bit misleading, I know my work PDA quite often shows full signal and calls are OK but the data connection can still be crap in different areas.

Planes won't affect the signal, weather can do but usually wet weather (fog is the worst) as the moisture tends to absorb the signal a bit, also groups trees with a lot of leaves can cause issues too.

If you have a laptop I'd suggest trying different areas nearby to see if it is a localised thing, then at least you'd maybe know if it's a T-Mobile problem or a hardware/software issue.

[Penguin68]

Don't worry about routers - they're hardware used for fixed line systems - I was just using this as an example - they do the same job as your web-stick.

Mobile connectivity is a bit of a problem in ED - hills mean that you lose line-of-sight with mobile masts, and increased activity means contention with other users (each cell has a finite number of transactions it can handle, even in the packet-switched data transfer arena). Priority seems sometimes to be given to users who are actually mobile (moving) handing 'calls' over from cell to cell. If you have time-of-day problems it may be about contention - when at times of heavy usage you are competing for signal from your local cell with other users.

It is possible that your new neighbours are using something which is interferring with your signal (they may even be contending for the same signal as you!) If you are aware of when they are in or out you could try to see if that makes a difference. They could also be using some sorts of wireless technologies themselves which is causing interference and drop-outs.

If your system is portable (i.e. a laptop) it would be a good idea to try it somewhere else entirely - that way, if it does work, you can rule out hardware or software problems of your own.

[Lu]

Hi

I too have a T-Mobile dongle and have had problems, I live in New Cross. Usually the signal is 'low' but it still connects and is just a bit slow. Often the signal then drops to 'very low'and I lose the connection completely. I've had the dongle a year and the signal has only been 'good'a handful of times and 'excellent' once!

Sometimes it goes through a phase of not connecting at all for about a week or two. When I phoned T-Mobile about this they checked the coverage from my postcode and said there's 90% coverage in my area which would suggest that on average 1 try in 10 it wouldn't work. With mine it seems loss of connectivity comes in phases, then it will work fine for a couple more months with no problems.

Very frustrating indeed, don't even bother trying to download music or a TV programme. It took me 12 hours over 3 days to download a 60 min programme from BBC i Player! I'm in the same boat, I don't have a landline so this is the only option. Only good for emails and light internet usage in my experience.

[ironjawcannon]

I am on talktalk and I thought my recent slow and difficult connections were due to lots of people being online because of the football..........

[Cora]

The last four of five evenings I have had problems with my Talk Talk wireless connection between about 7 and 8 pm. Spoke to them tonight.....hoping they will have logged the problem?!

[sallyann1234]

I had rubbish service with Talk Talk - bad or no connection on and off every evening - and ended up changing to O2 which has been brilliant.

[chez]

Re: anyone else getting internet connection probs in ED area?

Potentially many people who are therefore unable to reply to this thread

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

[Chase Dulwit]

Interesting what you say about planes not affecting signal, as I can only get a signal on O2 when outside my flat (in the garden) and that drops every time a plane goes over. Also when I hear a plane overhead I just know that my Freeview is going to pixelate or squelch. Happens every time. What happened to the EMC regulations in the 90s where I had to ensure That any electronic device I sold (security) did not interfere with anything else?

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

[Otto]

Hi -

I posted something regarding this a while back and it got lounged. Yes - we are still having problems. We are on virgin. We seem to have a conflict with a neighbor - when two of our neighbors are on (and one is on BT/one virgin), we are knocked off. The service guys came out to fix it 10 or so days ago - it seemed to work all last week, but, as soon as my neighbor returned from holiday, we are getting knocked out again. Service guy coming again on Friday. I'm not feeling optimistic.

I did read somewhere in another forum there was an local lack of infrastructure to handle the demands of the area.

Otto

[Otto]

just recieved - it is possible the fault affects services other than virgin acc. To my tech friend -/

Dear customer,

You recently called to book a technician due to a problem with your Virgin Media Services.

There is an issue in your area which is affecting your services.

Your technician has been cancelled and we aim to have your service restored within 8 hours.

Virgin Media

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

[stevebailey]

This isn't really going to help but............

I live on East Dulwich Road, opposite Goose Green and have been with BT for over a year, I have never had any issues with the broadband, they recently upgraded us from up to 8mb (2.5mb actual) to up to 20mb (5.5mb actual) for free.

All of these talk talk and the like all piggy back the BT infrastructure so if other services are having issues, it's going to be their kit, not the underlying routing.

I know BT is not as cheap a deal as some, I pay ?40 a month for phone line rental, free any time calls to all numbers bar mobile and unlimited Broadband, but it is VERY much a case of you pay for what you get.

Just my thoughts people.

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

[stevebailey]

I know what you're saying Karrie, when I moved to ED i was gutted to find out that you couldn't get Virgin Fibre, I left 50mb Fibre behind in Forest Hill to 2.5mb (at first) in ED.

And lets face it, ED is lovely, Forest Hill is a hole!

It doesn't make sense!

[EDKiwi]

Chase Dulwit Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Interesting what you say about planes not

> affecting signal, as I can only get a signal on O2

> when outside my flat (in the garden) and that

> drops every time a plane goes over. Also when I

> hear a plane overhead I just know that my Freeview

> is going to pixelate or squelch. Happens every

> time. What happened to the EMC regulations in the

> 90s where I had to ensure That any electronic

> device I sold (security) did not interfere with

> anything else?

Well I'm quite happy to be corrected on this, but I'd be very surprised if planes did affect the cell phone signals, they?d have to be putting out a lot of electrical noise to do so I'd thought and considering how high up they are if they did so they would affect huge areas of the city, but who knows?

I do know weak freeview signals can be knocked out by noisy (electrically that is) engines, we used to live in a flat where we'd lose signal every time a scooter went past.

Anyways I see there's another thread about poor Orange coverage and someone has found there are quite a few cell sites down around ED at the moment due to upgrade work as Orange and T-Mobile merge their networks, could be something to do with it.

Orange Mobile Problems

[bonaome]

Yes. If you're trying to get Internet through a t-mobile USB dongle (or an Orange dongle), you're relying on the very same masts that are out/being reconfigured to share the t-mobile/Orange traffic. Thread.

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

[Cora]

Just spoke again to Talk Talk to say I cannot get on the internet in the evenings and that it seems to be an area wide problem but they insist it's just my equipment......so frustrating....wasting my time..

[wee quinnie]

Cora I am having exactly the same prob as you. Argh!

[evildrwallace]

Just so everyone's clear here - this thread is covering two distinct problems. Karrie's original post is about mobile phone type connection to the web whereas Ironjawcannon, Cora and the beautiful wee quinnie are talking about ADSL landline connection. Both real issues but extremely unlikely to be connected (so to speak). We'll probably be speaking to TalkTalk again tonight about the landline problem so I'll update in the unlikely event that we get anywhere with them.