Broken promises of wireless internet.
Back again. I just spent $160 on a Cingular pc card made by Sony Ericson. The new technology is called EDGE and it's faster than dial up, which I've been relegated to since moving to the country. Edge averages 100 to 130 Kbps downloads and has bursts over 200Kbps so I figured, what the hell, three times faster than dial up, give or take. That's all well and good...or so I thought.
Well, the unlimited service, and trust me, you want unlimited access, costs $79 per month plus a buck or so in usage fees passed on to the consumer by regulations imposed per our great government so poor fucks in poor towns in poor states can afford phone service. Still, I figured, more than worth the price of admission, especially since the card has a rebate for $150.
Well, to start with, on my new Toshiba, when the card gets a signal, it disables my touchpad mouse, which means a USB mouse is required. Now, I spent over two hours on the phone with tech support at Cingular AND Toshiba. The guys at Cingular were clueless and eventually, when everything else failed, they said my bios had to be upgraded. The problem was clearly related to the signal because the mouse locked up at the exact second I received a signal, EVERY time. MY bios had nothing to do with it.
In essence, Cingular said that even though I had bought a new computer--and the pc card was older than my laptop--that my bios was still at fault rather than the card? And I'm the only one who has had this problem? This was the first thing 4 (four) specialists had heard of it after reading "articles" on issues for two hours. Shit.
Finally, after hours and hours of frustration, I plugged in an external mouse and it worked. Yee-fucking-haw! Once I got an external mouse to work, I got online finally and did a mobile speed check. 125Kbps. Not bad but that was with a 100k file size and the bigger the file, the more accurate the speed test. 200k file? 137Kbps. SWEET! Then I tried to check my email. It wouldn't go anywhere. Anywhere at all. Nothing. Did I lose the signal?
No, I had four signal bars, with five being the most possible, and my Connection Manager showed I had Edge service coverage. So what was the problem? I don't know. I did finally discover that you angle the antenna on the wireless card to be parallel with the keyboard of your laptop and then crank down the sensitivity of your touchpad--and have to use a heavy hand on the touchpad--but you can actually use the touchpad . Then, all transmission stopped as if it had never been.
Now, I'm not an idiot and had done everything the Cingular guys told me to do before calling them and it still didn't work when they had me repeat it. And they didn't know about the trick with angling the antenna, I got that from a manager at one of the nearby stores...
The bottom line is, the card isn't working at all--much less as advertised at 100 to 130K--and in the morning, I'm going to call Cingular and ask them what the deal is. I mean, I'm not paying $79 a month for a service that I can't use. The only reason I went with it is because the guarantee 100 to 130K in their entire EDGE coverage area, which covers all of Arkansas and because after buying AT&T, they will be offerring UMTS, which will actually be true broadband for wireless data at 700Kbps up to 2Mbps. But that's a long way off and I signed a 2 year contract with Cingular at $79 a month and can't even use the service.
"Wait," you say, shouldn't I reserve judgement? Unfortunately, the longer you wait in something like this, the less likely you are to get a full refund. It looks like my options are:
1. Keep the device and always keep a USB mouse handy with my laptop just in case the card locks up my mouse and I can't reboot at that time, hoping against hope that the network actually works.
2. Cancel the service, return the card, and save that $80 a month for seven months and purchase a satellite system, once I put in a post and dig a trench from behind my barn to my house so that hideous dish isn't a eyesore for everyone who drives by my home and so that I can build a deck without worry about cancer from RF signals being beamed into outer space from near me.
Otherwise, I'm stuck with dial up until SBC offers cable internet (they are my only cable provider), until SBC gets DSL in my neighborhood (they're the only line holders in my area as far as I know), or until UMTS takes off and that will be least 2006 at the earliest, more than a year away.
What a bunch of bullshit. All I want is a fast, dependable internet connection that can go faster than dial up. I don't need 400Kbps but something better than 49Kbps is going to be required.
Well, I don't know what I'll decide, I only know that I'm tired and that the whole mess is a lot of hassle and time on the phone for something that's looking more and more like it's going to be a collossal waste of my time and money.
If you don't live in a major city you can't get WiFi and if you don't live within so many feet (I forget how many) of a switch or a hub or something, you can't get DSL and until cable modem moves into the country, I'm screwed. What sucks is there are people who less than two miles from me who have DSL.
I spit on their high speed access!
Well, the unlimited service, and trust me, you want unlimited access, costs $79 per month plus a buck or so in usage fees passed on to the consumer by regulations imposed per our great government so poor fucks in poor towns in poor states can afford phone service. Still, I figured, more than worth the price of admission, especially since the card has a rebate for $150.
Well, to start with, on my new Toshiba, when the card gets a signal, it disables my touchpad mouse, which means a USB mouse is required. Now, I spent over two hours on the phone with tech support at Cingular AND Toshiba. The guys at Cingular were clueless and eventually, when everything else failed, they said my bios had to be upgraded. The problem was clearly related to the signal because the mouse locked up at the exact second I received a signal, EVERY time. MY bios had nothing to do with it.
In essence, Cingular said that even though I had bought a new computer--and the pc card was older than my laptop--that my bios was still at fault rather than the card? And I'm the only one who has had this problem? This was the first thing 4 (four) specialists had heard of it after reading "articles" on issues for two hours. Shit.
Finally, after hours and hours of frustration, I plugged in an external mouse and it worked. Yee-fucking-haw! Once I got an external mouse to work, I got online finally and did a mobile speed check. 125Kbps. Not bad but that was with a 100k file size and the bigger the file, the more accurate the speed test. 200k file? 137Kbps. SWEET! Then I tried to check my email. It wouldn't go anywhere. Anywhere at all. Nothing. Did I lose the signal?
No, I had four signal bars, with five being the most possible, and my Connection Manager showed I had Edge service coverage. So what was the problem? I don't know. I did finally discover that you angle the antenna on the wireless card to be parallel with the keyboard of your laptop and then crank down the sensitivity of your touchpad--and have to use a heavy hand on the touchpad--but you can actually use the touchpad . Then, all transmission stopped as if it had never been.
Now, I'm not an idiot and had done everything the Cingular guys told me to do before calling them and it still didn't work when they had me repeat it. And they didn't know about the trick with angling the antenna, I got that from a manager at one of the nearby stores...
The bottom line is, the card isn't working at all--much less as advertised at 100 to 130K--and in the morning, I'm going to call Cingular and ask them what the deal is. I mean, I'm not paying $79 a month for a service that I can't use. The only reason I went with it is because the guarantee 100 to 130K in their entire EDGE coverage area, which covers all of Arkansas and because after buying AT&T, they will be offerring UMTS, which will actually be true broadband for wireless data at 700Kbps up to 2Mbps. But that's a long way off and I signed a 2 year contract with Cingular at $79 a month and can't even use the service.
"Wait," you say, shouldn't I reserve judgement? Unfortunately, the longer you wait in something like this, the less likely you are to get a full refund. It looks like my options are:
1. Keep the device and always keep a USB mouse handy with my laptop just in case the card locks up my mouse and I can't reboot at that time, hoping against hope that the network actually works.
2. Cancel the service, return the card, and save that $80 a month for seven months and purchase a satellite system, once I put in a post and dig a trench from behind my barn to my house so that hideous dish isn't a eyesore for everyone who drives by my home and so that I can build a deck without worry about cancer from RF signals being beamed into outer space from near me.
Otherwise, I'm stuck with dial up until SBC offers cable internet (they are my only cable provider), until SBC gets DSL in my neighborhood (they're the only line holders in my area as far as I know), or until UMTS takes off and that will be least 2006 at the earliest, more than a year away.
What a bunch of bullshit. All I want is a fast, dependable internet connection that can go faster than dial up. I don't need 400Kbps but something better than 49Kbps is going to be required.
Well, I don't know what I'll decide, I only know that I'm tired and that the whole mess is a lot of hassle and time on the phone for something that's looking more and more like it's going to be a collossal waste of my time and money.
If you don't live in a major city you can't get WiFi and if you don't live within so many feet (I forget how many) of a switch or a hub or something, you can't get DSL and until cable modem moves into the country, I'm screwed. What sucks is there are people who less than two miles from me who have DSL.
I spit on their high speed access!
posted by benaires at 7/26/2005 11:57:00 PM
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