Hi,

ok, I admit this thread is not related to Maemo but I expect to find some people with UMTS / mobile internet expertise here.

I have an o2 Germany UMTS unlimited data plan (internet pack L - 5GB full speed, after that reduced speed).

For the record, I have a Dell 5530 UMTS modem in my laptop and a Nokia 5800 but they both show the same behavior so I assume it's a network/carrier related issue.

My problem:

On an available 3.6 MBit/s HSDPA connection with good reception!

HTTP download in Firefox:
- with download manager (using multiple connections), full speed around 350 kb/s
- "builtin" Firefox download, only 2(!)-50kb/s

Any kind of streaming (webradio, youtube, napster):
Caching of the first few seconds of clip, stream etc. seams to work, connection manager is showing apropriate transfer speeds (e.g. around 128 kbit/s for webradio) but after a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes the transfer speed drops to nearly zero (around 2-5 kbit/s) and the streaming stops (though it states "buffering" in some applications but it doesn't speed up any more on the connection manager). With a working HTTP download in the background using a download manager (full speed) streaming is fine!

Web browsing:
"Feels" slow. Even for UMTS.

ICQ:
Is working fine, messages arrive instantly.

Artificial speed tests:
Show very slow rates, around 0.2 MBit/s where 3.6 MBit/s network is available.

I find the situation a little bit weired. The connection is working, I'm "always on" what ICQ is showing. But if "speed" is requested it is only working if you force it by using multiple connections. When I stream webradio I would expect the connection to stay open because there is constant data transfer but it virtually just stops shortly after the beginning. Constantly downloading something in the background is not a solution because it would use up my full speed traffic contingent.

I know a little about the workings of UMTS, ramp up time -> idle connections going to sleep when not used, available channels/slot in the current cell effecting transfer speeds, so I would "understand" limiting a single connection like a HTTP download to "protect" the carrier network but practically interrupting a data transfer is not what I expect from mobile broadband connection.

Any ideas or perhaps some germans with o2 who could share their experiences?

Daniel

I have similar problems with my O2 connection. I have a N900 and ordered the "Internet Pack M" data flat. After dialing in I opened a terminal and did a ping to www.google.de. Before executing the ping the signal strength bar in the upper left corner shows "3G". Just in the moment when the first ping answer arrives, the signal strength bar shows "3.5G". So this is a fine behaviour. After a while I stopped the ping and the signal strength bar shows "3G" again. So I wait about 10 seconds and started the ping command again. Now it seems that a new dial in is going on in the background. Sometimes I get the ping answers after about 30 seconds (the signal strength bar goes up to "3.5G" again). Sometimes nothing happens and I get no answers. All other applications (like the email client or the browser) also have no connection to the internet at this moment. After a manual reconnect and executing the ping command I often get the ping answers quick. I tried to find some logs where I can see what is going on but I can't find anything which shows some logs from the "icd2" daemon. Does anybody had the same problem or even found a solution? Is this a cellular problem with my provider or is this a problem with the n900? I could imagine that the connection is disconnected if it is not in use to save some power.

Nick