GPRS & EDGE II - This time it's a summary

[TimandPatAllen]

As far as I know I did as nothing had changed from last November when it worked fine. How woudl I be able to find out and if I didn't, how would I activate it?

Tim

[NickZ]

You could check with your provider. IIRC the TIM plan requires you to pay every month. The price is for 30 days used or not.

[TimandPatAllen]

It is a Vodaphone Italy SIM. Any idea how I find out if it is necessary to activate it for data use? My Italian is not up to finding out from their website unfortunately.

[pigro]

Was tryng to stay out of this one as I'm with WIND in Italy using a data card, so don't really know what I'm talking about with regard to Voda Italia & phone connection ... but as you're still having trouble I'll give it a go. Please take the following with a large pinch of salt though, and do find out how to explicitly enable your Voda Italia SIM for data before proceeding further as that may do the trick.

AFAIK once data is enabled on any SIM, it "stays" enabled until you explicitly disable it again. The Italian prepay data plans (that bundle "X" GB for "Y" euro in a 30 day period) may be the issue - the WIND one automatically renews every 30 days unless cancelled - maybe the Voda one automatically expires unless renewed?

Also, the WIND one is only "released" in 6 month promos - so WIND can revise T's & C's easily for all customers each time a 6 month promo expires. Maybe Voda is the same?

However, from your initial description, my view is that if you got a connection and it showed a data transfer speed (i.e. "connected at 57 KBit/s" or whatever) then its more likely to have been an intermittant problem on the mobile network or with your own hardware.

A few diagnostic questions:

1) Were you connecting by clicking the "connect" icon within the Vodafone application or have you set it to automatically go online when you launch an application that requires it?

2) had you disabled any other networking (fixed wireless LAN connections on your laptop) via conrol panel prior to connecting - shouldn't really matter, but worth eliminating if you have problems. Right click all network connections that you don't need & select disable.

3) did you have any other "internet aware" application open when you tried to connect - browser etc. Best avoided if you're having problems as this may contribute.

4) When you got connected, did you actually get any data (even a few bytes successfully transferred in either direction), or did you just get the popup telling you the data rate? If the former, your data setup is OK, even if you couldn't go on to browse etc.

All that is a bit moot now you're no longer in Italy, but heres what I suggest to try & move forward:

Try the identical setup now you are back in UK (i.e. use your Italian SIM) to see whether you can get online via a roaming connection. You just need to connect long enough to load up a web page other than your home page. Then get off line PDQ to avoid racking up roaming data charges. Before trying, make sure to disable any automatic software updates etc. that may unexpectedly start downloading windows patches, virus definitions etc. (if you've got that set up). If you can surf OK, your h/w setup is fine & the problems were due to temporary network issues in Italy.

If you can't connect while roaming, it suggests either your h/w or the data facility on your SIM may be wrong. Have you installed any other new h/w on your laptop meantime?

ps Voda Italia has an english version of its website Vodafone that may help you find out how to enable data on your SIM

[TimandPatAllen]

Many thanks for that, Graeme.

1. I was using the connectivity suite that comes with the Nokia to connect via Bluetooth (which all worked perfectly in November) as it has all the info on passwords etc built in for all sorts of different networks.

2. I think all the other networking was disabled but I'll check next time.

3. It made no difference whether the browser was open or not.

4. I didn't get any data tranferred as far as I could see, just the pop up saying what the data transfer rate was, then it closed down.

I suspect you may be right about the data facility being time limited in some way. Unfortunately, the English version of the Vodafone site refers you back to the Italian version if you want to contact them by e-mail. You also have to register so I think I will have to get the dictionary out this evening and have a go at getting them to answer the question. I'll also have a go at using the Nokia here with the Italian SIM and see if I can get it to work on a different laptop.

Many thanks for your very helpful suggestions. I'll post anything I find out.

Tim

[SicilyNewbie]

Hi there,

After our three "no shows" from Telecom Italia (and nearly £ 100 of payments to a translator for her to spend endless hours on the phone to Telecom Italia) I'm thinking of going down the GSM HSDPA data route as this seems my only hope!!

I'm back in Sicily in December and this time I really need an internet connection to carry on my work at home as I'm going to be away for a few months.

I know we have "three" in range (or is it "3"?) in Sicily as my niece annoyed me greatly by having fantastic connectivity and watching "free of charge" UK TV on her "three" mobile phone at Easter (whilst I wasted yet another day staying in waiting for Telecom Italia not to arrive whilst staring at my useless still unconnected laptop!!!)

I now plan to connect a "3" Sim card (via a USB data modem) to a Draytek Vigor 2910. This "always on" modem/router supports GSM data cards via a USB connection and this (newish) Draytek product also means I can set up an automatic Virtual Private Network to my "SOHO" office at home in the UK).

My questions............

1.........if one has a data card enabled all of the time (but it is not sending data) do you pay for the connection time or is it only the data that is sent?

2....... On a normal adsl connection, your IP address is usually renewed every 24 hours. How often do IP addresses change on HSDPA if you stay connected all of the time? I need to know as I also need to connect to Sicily to set up a VPN to monitor the IP cameras and the alarm system. I tend to use a service callled dyndns.org to find the remote service. IP addresses can be Dynamic but need to only change once in every 24 hours. This is fine on adsl but GSM HSDPA is completely new to me. How often do IP addresses change on GSM type services?

Any comments or help please?

Thanks - SicilyNewbie

[pigro]

Originally Posted by SicilyNewbie

1.........if one has a data card enabled all of the time (but it is not sending data) do you pay for the connection time or is it only the data that is sent?

Just the data (unless you have a really weird tariff/provider!

Originally Posted by SicilyNewbie

2....... On a normal adsl connection, your IP address is usually renewed every 24 hours. How often do IP addresses change on HSDPA if you stay connected all of the time?

there is no definitive answer. All ISP's (fixed/mobile) will change IP's periodically; the period is not stated or guaranteed, although for any individual ISP it will (usually) be farly predictable. My advice is as follows:

firstly, suck it & see with the 3 SIM (if you can afford the chance that it won't work) I guess you'll get 24H I as long as you initiate an HSDPA connection and can sustain it continuously. In reality thats a bit optomistic (the connection will not likely stay up indefinitely, whether you are using it or not). AFAIK, each time you reauthenticate you'll get a new dynamic IP.

If IP refresh or stability of connection prove to be unreliable for your purposes then either pay "3" for a static IP (I know cellco's can technically provide these if you're willing to shell out ... tho' probably only on a monthly contract) ... OR look at using an internet proxy service (i.e. one whch routes your nternet IP traffic via its own proxy server and forwards a different, static, IP.

However, there may be significant issues runnng a VPN over such a prox. Like anything else, its doable given enough time & perseverance - but that's way beyond the scope of an Italy Mag forum ... google will get you the answers if you're up for the struggle!!

[NickZ]

Originally Posted by SicilyNewbie

I now plan to connect a "3" Sim card (via a USB data modem) to a Draytek Vigor 2910. This "always on" modem/router supports GSM data cards via a USB connection and this (newish) Draytek product also means I can set up an automatic Virtual Private Network to my "SOHO" office at home in Jersey).

My questions............

1.........if one has a data card enabled all of the time (but it is not sending data) do you pay for the connection time or is it only the data that is sent?

2....... On a normal adsl connection, your IP address is usually renewed every 24 hours. How often do IP addresses change on HSDPA if you stay connected all of the time? I need to know as I also need to connect from Jersey to Sicily to set up a VPN to monitor the IP cameras and the alarm system. I tend to use a service callled dyndns.org to find the remote service. IP addresses can be Dynamic but need to only change once in every 24 hours. This is fine on adsl but GSM HSDPA is completely new to me. How often do IP addresses change on GSM type services?

This one?

Vigor 2910 / 2901VG Router, Firewall and VPN Device

You'll notice they say

"Dynamic DNS Posting, compatible with popular services"

If that means what I think it means If you register a domain name and get yourself a dynamic DNS account you won't need to worry about your IP # changing. What will happen is you'll point to the domain name and not to the IP #. The system should automatically update your IP#. Big caveat this assumes everything works right with that box. Also depends on how quickly the DNS updates.

On the fee bit. Check your agreement carefully. It may include a time online bit.

[SicilyNewbie]

Dear All

Thanks for all of your detailed replies. Yes, I have set up my existing Draytek boxes to use Dyndns service. The only issue is that the free dyndns service only allows one update every 24 hours.

In some ways I'd prefer ADSL as that's what I'm used to, plus I already have my second Draytek box waiting in Sicily ready to go........ however, if I wait for Telecom Italia I may never have an internet connection!

The final factor is that I was planning on using my "slingbox" to watch TV etc so that'll probably consume a lot of Mb of data.

I think both options are quite viable - just pondering which to go for at the moment!

Regards - SicilyNewbie

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by TimandPatAllen

It is a Vodaphone Italy SIM. Any idea how I find out if it is necessary to activate it for data use? My Italian is not up to finding out from their website unfortunately.

Tim & Pat,
We use Vodafone with a Samsung cell connection and have had UMTS issues for a couple weeks. We found out that at least in the Ascoli Piceno area, Vodafone has an equipment problem and the UMTS is not working and we had to reset our connectivity to a slower dial-up speed. It works consistently now, though much slower.

We only found this out after going to several stores and found an independent sales/service store who told us this and showed us how to change the setting. The people at the Vodafone stores had no idea what the problem was and were trying to say the phone was broken.