geobray.com » remote broadband http://geobray.com Letters home from the high bandwidth future Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:14:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Broadband from the Beachhttp://geobray.com/2010/01/19/broadband-3g-from-the-beach/ http://geobray.com/2010/01/19/broadband-3g-from-the-beach/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:01:30 +0000 George Bray http://geobray.com/?p=106

Recipe

 

Commentary

I've used an Optus E169, and Telstra Sierra Wireless 301 USB modems in pre-paid mode to maintain great, permanent 3G connectivity in places where the service is unreliable via a 3G handset.

Both of these dongles have an external antenna connector.

I use an external antenna mounted on a tripod.

3G Long Range Antenna
http://www.broadbandantennas.com.au/

To share the 3G connection I use a Draytek Vigor2820n.  This ADSL/Wifi router also has a USB port and displays the 3G radio reception signal strength in the browser. It redials the 3G connection on demand, if required.

Draytek Vigor2820n
http://www.draytek.com.au/products/Vigor2820.php

This was my setup while travelling recently.  Using it I can scan the horizon for the strongest signal (much like peaking a satellite dish). In some remote places where there is no GSM service on phones I can at least get a GPRS service to the outside world.

If you can get a 3G service, adjusting the directional antenna can optimise it.

There's no webpage on either carrier showing you how much trafficyou've used with prepaid, you have to put the dongle in a laptop and (optus: send an SMS with their software, Telstra: use the connection app to query the balance).

The latency on both 3G services I used was fine for my use.  I conduced multi-party (8) videoconferences with US and EU endpoints. Skype video fine, YouTube fine. No sweat with the 4Mbps connection I'd usually get. As a test, I was watching the recent Broadband Futures event streamed live to my beachside cabin – it worked fine.

<BEWARE>Re-charging a Telstra prepaid connection takes (some time? - 48hrs).  If you use the service before the credit is made to your account, the usage on the re-charge you bought is billed at the maximum price. Only after <some time> does the billing rate adjust to what you've just paid for.</BEWARE>

See Also

Steve Jenkin's Page
http://lab-notes.blogspot.com/2009/12/wireless-broadband-plans.html

 

 

 

 

]]> http://geobray.com/2010/01/19/broadband-3g-from-the-beach/feed/ 0