Why does my internet suck worse than yours?

[terroir]

You could always give them a ring and talk to them about your service and that problem.

Their customer service is in India and their people are hard to understand, plus reviews say they're not very good at what they do.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Huh? What are you talking about? I don't know of ANY USB internet devices that "do the typical wireless connect like Wifi". You are talking about 2 completely different USB devices. One is a USB Wifi adapter that allows you to connect to a Wifi hotpsot, the other is a cellular modem that dials in and connects to a cellular network to provide internet access. The OP has the latter which is what I was referring to.

So, you think 3G and 4G dial up too? LMFAO, dude, they don't dial up, and are a wireless form of internet. I was only referencing WiFi because they are more similar in nature to each other than the cheaper/slower style that literally does a dial out.

 

[strollin]

Not sure what 3G/4G modems you have used but the ones i have used on the Verizon and Sprint cellular networks do indeed "dial" in. I don't recall the number for Sprint but the Verizon number was #777. Of course, it's not the same dial in sequence as a dialup modem with the dial tone, then the squeeks and squeels while the 2 modems connect, but it dials in regardless.

A 3G/4G Smartphone doesn't dial in but the cellular modems do.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Well, most Cricket ones do an actual dial out to a server like dialup, the only difference is you go through a tower instead of a land line. If you ever look at the stream for the interface, it's not very different from very low quality DSL, it's more like a typical 56k modem, but, digital instead of analog, that's why I said it's vastly different from 3g/4g. 3g/4g do a different form of dial out entirely though, they are more like a wifi device, being purely digital from my understanding, hence the reason I mentioned Wifi earlier compared to what really cheap services offer.

 

[terroir]

So I'm wondering why my connection often goes dormant (no transfer in either direction), sometimes for minutes at a time.

Since they're piggybacking, are they using excess (leftover) capacity, with the dormancy representing the intermittent times when there is no excess capacity available for Cricket users?

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Most likely.

They purchase potential bandwidth from different higher tier carriers, if that carrier can't supply enough bandwidth to a lower tier carrier, they will delay that carrier till the congestion goes down. That's the way it is most the time. About the only way to get decent wireless internet is to go for 3/4g, and live in an area where you have good coverage, with a better carrier.

It is very likely though, that the signal dropped out, got terminated, and the device is dialing back up, representing a time period that it is dormant.

 

[strollin]

Well, most Cricket ones do an actual dial out to a server like dialup, the only difference is you go through a tower instead of a land line. If you ever look at the stream for the interface, it's not very different from very low quality DSL, it's more like a typical 56k modem, but, digital instead of analog, that's why I said it's vastly different from 3g/4g. 3g/4g do a different form of dial out entirely though, they are more like a wifi device, being purely digital from my understanding, hence the reason I mentioned Wifi earlier compared to what really cheap services offer.

So you are saying Cricket is lying on their website when they say their USB devices are 3G? Since I doubt Cricket develops their own hardware and they don't have their own network since they piggyback on other carrier's, how is it possible that they use something so different from the rest of the industry? I think not.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Strollin, try Cricket here, virtually no 3g, and the 3g devices here wont work. If you wish to argue with me further, I shall, and I will win this little debate with you, as Cricket in Non-3G/4G areas uses different devices entirely. It his device is 3g capable, then it may be different, but they DO, or at least, 2 years ago had actual modems that acted 100% like a cell phone dialing out to an actual dial up server that even land lines could hit, they also did not offer a 3g device that would work what so ever in this area when I last played with their products.

Do you REALLY want me to have to hunt down the stupid modem, billing papers and contract along with all the tests I had to do? There is a reason I am paid to test wireless products from VSAT and SATS along with several sister companies.

 

[KSoD]

So you are saying Cricket is lying on their website when they say their USB devices are 3G? Since I doubt Cricket develops their own hardware and they don't have their own network since they piggyback on other carrier's, how is it possible that they use something so different from the rest of the industry? I think not.

Just cause something is stated on a website that makes it true? In that case KSoD is everyone's ruler and you must obey his every command. Hey it is on a website so it might be true, at least from what your saying.

The availability of 3G and the connection to the 3G network is something that is entirely dependent on the area you are in and the service that they piggy back off of.

Cricket in NY alone is junk. In the area I live you can only get 3G in Downtown Buffalo. Even though they boast service out to Niagara Falls and beyond, you only get 3G in downtown. I have yet to have a customer come in and tell me anything good about the Cricket coverage in the Falls.

So stating what the hardware can do, and what truly happens are 2 very different things. T-Mobile has claimed for the longest time that they had unlimited data, until recently it was only unlimited 2G data and only 2GB of 4G. That is something that Trotter can confirm as he works for them. So while the website may have stated unlimited, they didnt tell you that it wasnt on the 3G/4G networks.

So yes Cricket is lying. Cause if they told the truth, that their service under performs and that it doesnt give you anything near the speeds you expect, how many people would sign up for their service and how long before they went under? Advertising is nothing more than a group of lies with maybe 5% truth in them.

Remember this commercial?



How much truth was really in that video? Exactly. While the virus total for Mac may not have been that high in 06 when this aired, there is no proof that getting a virus will cause your system to crash as they claim. But yet people believe it. It is all about getting the common person to believe what your trying to sell.

 

[strollin]

Now you guys are talking about something totally different. It may be true that a modem can't connect at 3G speeds and needs to drop back down to 1xRTT but it doesn't mean it isn't the same type of hardware used by the other carriers.

Even my 4G smartphone sometimes can only connect at 1xRTT but that doesn't change it to a different piece of hardware.

Corrosive was originally disagreeing with me that a typical 3G modem doesn't "dial in" to connect to the network, so how we got to whether Cricket supports 3G or not is beyond me.