Horrible Verizon AirCard Speed

[John Hilley]

We are in Tempe, AZ. The Verizon AirCard connection here is terrible. I am some times getting 100 Kbs, most of the time less. I have an EVDO link with good signal strength. Running TRACERT to Google I get 9 hops through myvzw.com before it hits the Internet. I have updated the PRL ith no change. In the desert north of Yuma we were getting over 1 Mbs and at Quartzsite close to 2 Mbs. Using my BlackBerry browser I am getting good performance.

[paz]

We follow an RV blog, and the writer recently spent time in that area. They were told the reason everything was so slow was because of all the snowbirds in the Phoenix area for the winter. All the towers are overloaded. In other areas, you can pick up a broadband signal from a tower that has less use.

[two2go]

I am curious if newer modems give better speeds? Some folks report download rates up to 2 Mbps. I rarely see over 1 Mbps and that is my experience from Minnesota to Arizona and at home in Colorado. Typically, I get 500-700K. Today, I got 880 Kbps measured on speedtest.net. I am using an older Pantech UM150 USB modem on Verizon. I agree that user loading affects speed.

[K-Star]

i recently upgrade to the USB720. The Verizon person told me that the newer modems will not give any more speed. BUT. I was getting 1.5MB download with the old one. I am getting 2MB now with the new one.

I do use an external antenna with my modem

[Bill Adams]

The newer Rev. A cards do give faster speeds than the Rev. 0 cards but otherwise getting better speeds is more about location than anything else.

[John Hilley]

It has been better the last two days. We are getting 500 Kbs down and 200 Kbs up. At Imperial Dam we were getting 1100 Kbs down and 300 - 400 Kbs up. At Quartzsite we could get up to 2 Mbs down and close to 500 Kbs up. Ping times today are good. We are using a USB720 with external antenna and a Cradle Point CT-350 router. I updated the PRL two days ago.

[Bill Adams]

John,
I think that's a pretty good example of what you can expect from any of the wireless carriers as you move around. Even moving a 1000 feet or less can make a difference. We were in San Diego in one park and our AT&T card was mostly unusable (pretty standard for AT&T). We move to another park and with a sling-shot I could have hit RV's at the park we left. In our new location the AT&T card was getting about 1600K down and was faster than either Sprint or Verizon.

[John Hilley]

I am back in Yuma for a couple of days, Verizon much better than Tempe

[Bill Adams]

I am always amazed that people are surprised that speeds in one place are faster (or slower) than another. Just as you can get into areas where the cell phone signal is stronger or weaker you can get into areas where the data transfer rates are faster and slower. By example, we were in Mission Bay, CA and there were 2 camprounds on the bay and less than a few hundred yards apart. One I got almost no service and the other I had some of the fastest speeds we had seen.

[RJay]

I've been getting pretty good speed in Loisiana.

[jackrobinryan]

"The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents."---Carl Jung


That Carl Jung......always the funniest guy in the bar. (did hate his kids that much?)

[John Hilley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Adams I am always amazed that people are surprised that speeds in one place are faster (or slower) than another. Just as you can get into areas where the cell phone signal is stronger or weaker you can get into areas where the data transfer rates are faster and slower. By example, we were in Mission Bay, CA and there were 2 camprounds on the bay and less than a few hundred yards apart. One I got almost no service and the other I had some of the fastest speeds we had seen.

That is why I always make my comparisons with full signal strength or make allowances when the signal is weaker. What irritates me is being in an urban area, full signal strength and slow speeds. If it was bursty I could understand that certain times of the day they have more traffic. When it is consistently bad for weeks 24 hrs per day, it means they aren't allocating the resources they need to. They don't give me a discount for poor speed, why should they get premium prices for poor service. Being locked in with contracts doesn't give us the option to take our business elsewhere.

[John Hilley]

Saw RJays speeds and was impressed, just tested again here in Yuma

[Bill Adams]

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Hilley That is why I always make my comparisons with full signal strength or make allowances when the signal is weaker. What irritates me is being in an urban area, full signal strength and slow speeds. If it was bursty I could understand that certain times of the day they have more traffic. When it is consistently bad for weeks 24 hrs per day, it means they aren't allocating the resources they need to. They don't give me a discount for poor speed, why should they get premium prices for poor service. Being locked in with contracts doesn't give us the option to take our business elsewhere.

That's all I am saying....Why does this surprise you? The more people, the less likely you are to get good speeds. The less people, the less likely you are to get good speeds. If you can find a medium population density with a medium number of people and a medium number of users you are more likely to get good speeds.
There is no service from any provider that is going to give you the best "up to" speeds everywhere you go. Hum, sounds like we are talking about Hughesnet again, doesn't it?