Thread: to improve internet speed using laptop and Edge modem 'aircard' - advice/tips

no option here but wireless - rural.

1. am using an Edge modem thru AIS/12call on unlimited 700 baht/month
2. new laptop came preloaded with Internet Explorer

Would welcome any advice on improving my internet download speeds, I am on the fringe of the signal area it seems - shows 2 'bars' of the 5 for signal strength. Slower than dial-up in the slow dial-up days. 40km north in Sa Kaeo I get 4 from 5.

1. Right now shows it shows 'sent' 4.4kbps, received 16.1kbps. A friend suggested an aerial/antennae - is this an option or just plain silly? How much influence do atmospherics have on signal strength?

2. I had Firefox on previous (stolen) laptop when in Phuket but didn't notice a difference from IE as had a reasonable adsl connection there. Should I change to Firefox or Google Chrome?

3. If I stay with IE, or even a change of browser, what functions should I disable? I don't let it open videos automatically on news sites such as BBC/CNN, otherwise have default settings.

thanks

Sorry to agree with above same for me
Only surefire upgrade in the boonies is satelite very expensive
You may wish to limit no of applications running

Delete the freaking IE and use Chrome. That would be the first thing I'd do.

There are a few things that you can do:

- The last step of your internet connection is coming via 'radio' (from the cell tower). So it is important to have a decent signal, or the connection speed will certainly be affected. So by all means use an external antenna (if you can locate a shop that sells them). Years ago in the UK, I used an external antenna that looked like a miniature TV antenna. mounted outside of my office, and that improved signal strength by a huge amount.

- Each cell tower only allocates a certain bandwidth to data (internet connections). This means that if you have neighbours who are also connecting to the same cell tower for their internet, then you are all going to be sharing the same bandwidth => reduced download speed. Solution is either to kill all your internet neighbours, or experiment pointing your antenna in different directions to connect to a different cell tower that maybe has no other data users.

- Use an efficient browser such as Google Chrome or Opera.

- Change the settings in your browser options so that you are caching web pages to the maximum amount. This will reduce the amount of data that has to be downloaded each time.

- If download speeds are really slow, change your browser settings so that you do not download pictures or flash or java (or whatever). This will change the appearance of the webpage (in many cases), but the text information will still be there.

- If all that fails, sell up and move to the smoke...

Simon

Use an efficient browser such as Google Chrome or Opera

What exactly is an "efficient" browser?

Get Firefox and apply the tweaks that can be found all over the place, e.g.:


The 12 Best Firefox About:Config Performance Tweaks

GPRS/Edge is shit.

Suitable for email as a last resort, that's about it. Browsing is hopeless.

My EDGE is ok.
I am the only person using it on this cell.

I originally had a TOT land line at my house and used a dial up internet connection, I was too far from the TOT exchange to be able to get an ADSL connection, so I set out to try an EDGE internet connection using a my mobile phone , the problem came when I realized that the signal to my mobile phone using Dtac was just to low ( Two bars showing on the signal strength ) to enable an EDGE connection . So I went looking for an external roof antenna that was suitable to use on the Dtac system, I eventually found one is a small village mobile phone shop , at 450 Baht
including the coaxial cable. The next problem to over come was to connect the external antenna coaxial cable to my mobile phone, but there was no external antenna connector on the mobile phone , so the next best thing was to but a passive antenna connector . When the external roof antenna was connected to the passive adapter the signal improved by One bar, not much really , so as I wanted to get the external roof antenna directly connected to a mobile phone , I went looking for a new phone that all ready had an external antenna connection socket on it, I could not find a new model mobile phone with the external antenna connection on it , the only thing I did find was a second hand Sony K790i that does have the antenna connector, so I bought a sceond hand one, and connected the external roof antenna to it , and it gave me a full signal, so I started to use the EDGE internet connection and found the speeds all thought not great , they were better that the TOT land line dial up connection, the problem as I see it is , does your EDGE modem have an external antenna connection ? .


I used the EDGE internet connection for some Months, until I read about the CAT CDMA USB Modem so I decided to go and see my local CAT office and ask a few questions , as a note I was using an Apple 24 inch iMac at the time I wrote the following on my experiences at my local CAT office .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ........

For some time now I have been thinking of trying the CAT CDMA system , so after talking to the nearest CAT office to confirm that if I took my Apple Mac to them , could they set up a MC727 modem on it , so I could see and test it on my iMac , to which they said yes , so I arrived at the CAT office and spoke to the manageress who had originally confirmed that yes they could set up a MC727 modem on my Mac


I then ask if an Engineer could set up a MC727 modem on my Mac, which I had took with me , Sorry but the engineer has not come to work to day, he is sick said the manageress. As its a long way to the CAT office I was not too pleased and asked if another engineer was available to set up the modem on my Mac, no sorry only one engineer knows how to set up a Mac computer. The manageress then said go and get your Mac and I can try and set the modem up for you , what do I have to loose I thought , so off to the pickup and back to the CAT office carrying a huge box containing the iMac 24 inch , well the whole office went quiet when the Mac was taken out of its box and placed on the manageress desk, I could tell by her look and the large crowd gathering around the Mac , that things were going to get interesting from this point on. I booted up the Mac and loaded the MC727 software CD , it was recognized ok, and the manageress followed the on screen setup , at first the iMac would not connect to the internet, I then thought does the modem have to be activated on the CAT system to allow the internet connection?, I pointed this out to the manageress who gave the normal Thai smile , and she went over to a computer and activated the Modem connection number. Well after trying for 10 minuets to no avail. the manageress picked up her mobile phone and called some one in Bangkok, who talked her through the connection settings , and finally the internet connection was made via the MC727 USB modem. I then ask if I could do a internet connection speed test .. Ok no problem , so these are the results of the MC727 modem connected to an iMac 2.8 24 inch running 10.5.5 situated at a main CAT office ( with a very large Tower at the back )

1st test = Down 1049

Up 273

2nd test = Down 1358

Up = 257

3rd test = Down = 1422

Up = 306

4th test = Down 1180

Up = 280

5th test = Down 1371

Up = 281

So I packed up the Mac , and told the manageress that I would now pay for antenna ( 1,800 Baht ) and return home and install it on my roof , and then return a few days later to collect the MC727 modem for one days try test ( as previously agreed ) , if the modem did not produce good results over the day’s test period I would return it and be given my money back . The manageress knowing I have to do a long round trip to the CAT office , then offered a new option, I pay for the MC727 modem , pay for the antenna , take the modem home , install the roof antenna and test out the modem , and if it does not give good results return the modem and the antenna to the CAT office for a full refund and I had ” 5 ” days to test every thing out , I agreed to this offer

Now ive been trying out the MC727 modem on my iMac 2.8 Intel 10.5.5 , the modem is connected to the new external roof antenna , purchased from the CAT office . The roof antenna is well above the roof height of my house and pointing in the general direction of the nearest CAT tower which is I would guess about 5-6 Km away. I booted up the Mac and then plugged in the modem , remembering to use the same USB point on the iMac as the modem was originally set up at the CAT office, then as arranged I called the CAT manageress to let her know I was ready to try the new modem, She then activated it and asked I telephone her back later to let her know how things were going.

The iMac recognized the MC727 modem settings that had been previously set up in the CAT office, and connected
to the internet with no problem and I did some surfing.

I then decided to shut down the iMac and re boot again , to see if the modem would connect again a second time, this time the Mac again recognized the modem setting , but would not connect to the internet , as I knew that the modem settings were ok , and as I did not want to re set any thing, I thought there must be something else not allowing the modem to connect to the internet other than the set up , so I decided to shut down the Mac again and re boot it , this time the again the modem was recognized by the Mac , but it would not connect to the internet .

so this time before re booting the Mac I un plugged the modem , and then re booted up. I let the Mac start up with out the modem being connected , then once the Mac was up and running I inserted the modem into the same USB socket and tried to connect to the internet , this time the connection was made ok, so it seems at this stage I have to remove the modem from the Mac when its been shut down, and then the next time I re boot the Mac I just let it run , then insert the modem , which then connects to the internet every time, with out a problem.

After working out how to connect to the internet every time , I then decided to do some internet connection speed tests using several international test web sites , this is the results over a 24 hour period , the tests were made through out the day .

Download / Upload

1951 / 297
1827 / 195
1780 / 253
1626 / 266
1559 / 260
1541 / 239
1518 / 247
1513 / 276
1505 / 251
1501 / 277
1453 / 282
1452 / 251
1438 / 247
1429 / 291
1420 / 247
1397 /248
1387 / 320
1351 / 317
1348 / 238
1334 / 225
1025 / 266

giving an average of 1461 / 253

I have tested downloading some large files, and viewing Youtube videos etc with very good results, but not as yet done any Uploading.

I have Tweaked the roof antenna by altering the direction it points to in a 30˚ angled arch , this movement did seem to fine the best position .
and changed the size and type of the supplied coaxial cable to a better one.

At the moment The modem has been connected to the internet continually over 24 hours , and its not as yet disconnected it self in any way, and the speeds have been fairly constant .

So far my only complaint is I will have to un plug the modem every time I switch off my iMac, there may be a fix some where for this problem, but I really don’t want to up set the current settings that seem to be doing so well .

The CAT office offers a Month Un limited option , ( No contract ) at 790 Baht + Tax , the bill is sent to your house and you can pay at most banks or post offices. to stop using the service they require you tell them One month in advance
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .....................

The report above was written over a year ago and the MC727 has been generally performing well and ive tweaked the antenna even more and ive sorted out the problem about un plugging the modem, and it now stays plugged in all the time .

I am now use the MC727 USB modem on an iMac - Acre E500 desktop PC - Asus N10J Netbook - Asus X701J Laptop - Asus Eee
PC 701 Netbook , Running Windows XP Media Centrer , Windows 7 ultimate and of course Apple Snow Leopard , all with out a problem



Here's a few shots ...

This shot below shows the Dtac external antenna ( lower one ) and the CAT CDMA external antenna ( Higher one )



This shot below shows the passive external antenna adaptor ( bought from the local IT Mall 600 Baht )



This shot below shows the external antenna connection to my MC727 modem..



Sorry about the rambling on , but hopefully there may be some thing useful some where

Get a dtac tower in your back yard.
Alot easier.

thanks for all the above tips - am in KL till next week and will make more changes on later - will try here re antenna plenty of tech shops about

I have switched to Google Chrome - do I need to seek and destroy IE or can it just be left where it is?

cheers

Originally Posted by genghis61

thanks for all the above tips - am in KL till next week and will make more changes on later - will try here re antenna plenty of tech shops about

I have switched to Google Chrome - do I need to seek and destroy IE or can it just be left where it is?

cheers

I would leave it, as it is part of a fair few dependencies.