[Ben]

I've been using my HSDPA connection quite a bit, I do like to put these things through their paces, but noticed something strange today that hasn't happened before.

Randomly I'd visit a page and be presented with just blank, white space - even though loading was done. Refreshing would usually fix this. Other times I received messages along the lines of access to the page being forbidden by the server. Again, refreshes fixed this.

Seems like Vodafone's proxy/cache/whatever is interfering more than usual!

Oh, btw, wrt latency it looks like a full 100ms is just from the first hop, ie the air interface I assume. Once you're into Vodafone's network there's hardly any latency added at all...

[Ben]

I've emailed Vodafone Business Teams again about this. Hopefully someone will get back to me...

I'm actually directing the brunt of my office web usage at Vodafone 3G Broadband right now, to get a real, complete picture of how capable the service is for professional business usage. Other than the blank pages, we're doing pretty well so far - but there's another 'bug' when it comes to messages received via eFax.

eFax (from efax.com) files, .efx, don't download properly through the browser when opened while connected to Vodafone 3G Broadband. Instead, I get a web page full of gibberish. Vodafone's meddling proxy/cache/whatever would appear to be messing up the MIME type?

[Hands0n]

It will be interesting to find out what exactly Vodafone's proxy server is doing to the data and, more importantly, why. Its hardly oozing quality of service if they are breaking the Internet.

[Ben]

It's driving me up the wall. I'll call them in the morning if it's still bad. The problem has only been introduced since a few days after the HSDPA upgrade.

Sometimes you'll visit a page and it wont get the stylesheet, sometimes it wont get any of the images, and sometimes you just get near-instant white space!

[Ben]

Just to update you all on my Vodafone HSDPA adventure:

(Linksys have new firmware out for the WRT54G3G. It's dated November, I have no idea if it has actually been there that long... I doubt it. The new version is v2.00.22 and is the first update since the initial version. There's a heap of bugfixes listed so you are strongly advised to upgrade.)

The blank pages problem is fixed! Touch wood. Latency isn't great though, at up to 270ms to www.google.co.uk. One thing is clear - it's going to take time for these new high speed mobile networks to bed in, and that's understandable given that a few years ago these sorts of mobile speeds were still a pipedream.

Downloads of eFax files still don't work in Camino so the MIME type must still be getting screwed up. Vodafone Business Teams seem to have given up on emailing me for the time being, so I didn't expect them to be fixed.

For anyone who has cash to burn, I found this on Vodafone's site: http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=template09&pageID=BS_0202&tabIndex=2

Yep, a mere £175/month for 10GB and your WRT54G3G. Bargain :p