Getting better speeds from your Cellular broadband!

Paul3 Replies

If your like me and you want to get better than expected speeds from web pages loading.  It sometimes frustrates people that the speed of web page loading is slow to some people others like me always expect it to be slow.   This is the downside of having a mobile internet, because of the locations of the cell towers and if there is any interference to or from the tower.  This is always going to be a problem with this technology, if something is going on the network it will undoubtedly slow you down.    So what can you do to speed up the web page loading and other web site functions.   Here are some great list of available ways to get a little more speed from your modem:

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  • Google Gears — This is one of those little extensions that will Run JavaScript in the background to improve performance.  Although this is something you can use on all your website but if you like to go to certain websites alot for games or online interactions, who use JavaScrip will speed up your internet experience.

  • FasterFox —  This is for Firefox only.  What it does is : Prefetch Links, Page Load Timer, and Block Popups. This starts caching some of the pages to better help with web browsing.  Although this is good by itself.  I find that it is better to use this with some of the other programs.

  • RabbIT—  is a web proxy that speeds up web surfing over slow links by doing: Compress text pages to gzip streams. This reduces size by up to 75%, Compress images to 10% jpeg. This reduces size by up to 95%, Remove advertising, Remove background images, and Cache filtered pages and images.  This is pretty good for web access and seems to work well with Broad Band modem.

[ad#tmi-left-1]These are a few that I found to better help people who have cellular broadband to get a boost of speed from there service.  Although this might not work on all networks due to the restrictions of some of the network policies this will at least help out with some.  I’ll be trying this out on my Cricket modem later this month to see if it is good for that service.

Cricket Broad Band Modem Extended Review 12/23/08

Paul

The UM100c is No Longer Available, Please check out the Cricket [intlink id=”3059″ type=”post”]A600 Modem Review[/intlink] Or the [intlink id=”4523″ type=”post”]UM185 Broadband modem[/intlink]. The UM185 modem might be a replacement to the UM100.

after the last fiasco of the troubles, I had with Cricket.  I wanted to talk about some of the performance of the Broad band that I experienced going from one City to another major City.   I thought I’d explain how well this went from one City to another.  While on the road we had to watch for sleet and ice conditions of the surrounding area.

I had the system going through the whole part of this travel and thought I’d share my impression of the speed and reliability of the service.  This is my expressions:

  • A few times I’ve had to activate the modem — During the trip I had to activate at least twice from once city to the other but that created no major problems and took relatively short time to activate.

  • Got comparative speeds all on highway —  This is due to distances and where the cellular towers are and how they respond to incoming and outgoing request.  Although there were many hills it seemed to keep about the same all through the drive.

  • Connected until I got out of Coverage area — This was due to us traveling outside of the coverage area and ended my use of the modem, but until that time it seemed to be very good at keeping me up to date on current weather conditions and other important information during the drive.

Update 12/26/2008

travel-highway1

As you can see, On my way home, I decided to run the test to show you how different it can be on parts of the highway.  These show you just how much of a difference you will experience on different areas of any given city.  You see it all comes down to Hills and Valleys and also the location the tower.  You will never be able to get the best speed possible while driving but you will of course be able to surf the web and check email.   I also was able to use Twitter with this to test that feature out.  It seemed to work well with Twitter web update with out much trouble.  Please see below to see how you can get this service for yourself.   If you like this service, please recommend my review to others so they can determine if this is available in there area.   Please remember this will only work if you are in the coverage area.   This was done on the way home once I got into the Cricket Service area and you can see what type of speeds I got.

travel-highway3To see my other review of this modem you can click here.  I had problems with speed until after I did the activation of the modem the first time around.   After I activated the modem, the speed really increased to what it should be.  When it comes to the reliability of the modem and the ease of use, I’d give it a 4 out of 5 stars due to the problems and understanding of the problems associated with a broad band modem.  I will for the time recommend this to friends and family because after the activation of the modem, I’ve had really good speeds and want to remind people that the modem is only as good as the source, so you must remember where the towers are to better help you get the speed you want.

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New Vulnebility in the SQL Server

Paul

Microsoft as Issued a warning on a new Vulnerability for:

Microsoft Security Advisory (KB961040)

[ad#ad2-right]Vulnerability in SQL Server Could Allow Remote Code Execution

Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution on systems with supported editions of Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000), Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (WMSDE), and Windows Internal Database (WYukon). Systems with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are not affected by this issue.

[Via Technet]

[ad#ad2-left]The workaround for the people who use the servers are to deny access to  sp_replwritetovarbin and only should be done by system admins.   Microsoft will probably issue a patch on the next coming next Patch Tuesday unless they hear of anything in the wild.  This does not look to affect anyone who uses Windows XP Home edition or Vista Home  edition just people who has a Microsoft server and use SQL.  It also seem to be CVE-2008-4270 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure database.  If I find out more I’ll let you know.

Understanding a Cellular Modems

Paul

So you bought a modem, and you’re not getting the speed you expected.

Yep it is unavoidable to not get that broad band speed you expected from buying a Cellular Modem and you want to learn more about what can affect your upload/download speed on the modem.   Each carrier has there own specific speeds or usage.  We will go through each and everyone one them talking about the kinds of speeds:

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  • EVDO — is known as Evolution-Data Optimized and is most commonly around the major city areas. It is sometimes consider 3G and is considered the fastest in the industry. Although there are always going to be debates on who is the fastest, it really doesn’t matter because of the limitations of the networks.

  • GPRS — General Packet Radio Service and is also part of the 3G network but requires different frequency to acquire the signals from the tower. This is used in lower end of companies due to the fact it is easier to maintain than EVDO, but the speed is still comparable to all the other 3G family because of the interdependency of the connectivity.

  • WiMAX — Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access and The technology provides up to 75 Mb/s symmetric broadband speed without the need for cables. The technology is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard (also called Broadband Wireless Access).

[ad#cricket-1-1]There are so many of them to talk but each of these can help you understand what the differences of these are and what do they mean.  My cellular modem is using EVDO from Cricket Wireless and have not had any major problems yet.   Others would use GPRS or WiMax or even the others, but it still is important in understanding each has its own speed and flaws.

So does it matter if I am I’m close to the tower?

In short yes but as long as you have a couple towers in the are it shouldn’t really matter.  You should still get the speed you thought you were going to get when need it.

Is Cellular modems really Broad band?

In truthfulness the true broad band speed is actually FIOS and Cable right now because they can handle he download and upload speed.  Most companies consider broad band to be something faster than dial-up.

So How do you get better speeds?

Each network is different, it can vary from time to time due to network congestion or if they are having problems with the network.   Some things to consider when you are getting bad speeds are updating your modem in one way or another.   You might also consider checking out your area to find all the cellular towers are and to be able to direct the modem in the right way.  You can also try to purchase a cellular antenna to better get what speeds your looking for.  That might get you some better speeds than what you were getting.

These tips and tricks will better get your speeds up on your modem.   This should also help you understand the truth behind broad band.

You tracking Santa, here’s how!

Paul

So as Christmas is almost upon us we are faced with the problem of tracking Santa.
Norad decided to start tracking Santa Clause, Here’s the Wikipedia information from the site:
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In 1955, a Colorado Springs-based Sears store ran an advertisement encouraging children to call Santa Claus on a special telephone hotline. Due to a printing error, the phone number that was printed was the hotline for the Director of Operations at the Continental Air Defense (CONAD). Colonel Harry Shoup took the first Santa call on Christmas Eve of 1955 from a six-year old boy who began reciting his Christmas list. Shoup didn’t find the call funny, but after asking the mother of the second caller what was happening, then realizing the mistake that occurred, he instructed his staff to give Santa’s position to any child who called in.
[Via Wikipedia]

So how can you track Santa, here are a few ways to keep up to date on where he is around the world:

These are just a few good website to watch him travel around the world.   Are you tracking Santa?  Because I am!!