[3GScottishUser]

One of my work contacts bought a brand new Dell laptop and went to Vodafone and got themselves a Huawei USB dongle on the £15 a month 3GB plan.

The box proclaimed it was as simple as plug in and you are on the Internet.

No Chance!!

I tried numerous times to plug this device into the laptop (Windows Vista Home Premium) and instead of recognising it as a modem device and installing the software it simplay added it as a USB storage device! It did this probably because it has some storage on it for the on-board software driver etc.

I took the ting out of the dell and put it into my HP laptop and it seemed to manage to display the 'install modem software' dialogue box. Put the thing back in the Dell and hey presto it worked!!

All of that messing around took about 1/2 an hour and was somewhat bewildering for someone watching who had read just how 'simple' the installation was on the box!

Happily this glitch was solved but I suspect staff in Vodafone stores will be spending some time assisting the many elderly and non tekkie folks who are being attracted to Mobile Broadband becasue of the advertised simplicity of the installation.

[Ben]

Sounds like a random glitch with that specific laptop. Hopefully it's not a wider problem with that version of Windows Vista. The OS should see the storage area where the drivers are stored and the modem, but it's entirely possible that the latter was lost in the bloat of Vista for a little while.

All the networks are using essentially the same thing, so I doubt the experience would have been any different on another network. An interesting glitch all the same, though.

Us OS X users don't have the pleasure of auto install. We have to use the CD anyway.

[Nero]

Happily this glitch was solved but I suspect staff in Vodafone stores will be spending some time assisting the many elderly and non tekkie folks

A tad unnecessary there, age (or lack of it) isn't a prerequisite to being capable.

[miffed]

I have a promotion team at the Gym at the moment , and their IT dept has issued them with an e220 on Vodafone
Installed fine - with a pants connection speed - (about 28kbps ! ) for the first couple of days, then the thing totally stopped working
They removed all traces from the computer and tried to install again , and it seems to install , then comes up with an Error along the lines of "Unable to connect to the remote server ...." every time
I thought this was to do with Vista , and tried to install it on my XP laptop - and exactly the same error occoured
My 3 e220 worked fine on both machines - So my conclusion is that the Vodafone software is pretty unstable !

[Ben]

A tad unnecessary there, age (or lack of it) isn't a prerequisite to being capable.
Perhaps, but being elderly normally implies only a basic knowledge of computers. They missed the PC by, quite literally, generations.

I have a promotion team at the Gym at the moment , and their IT dept has issued them with an e220 on Vodafone
Installed fine - with a pants connection speed - (about 28kbps ! ) for the first couple of days, then the thing totally stopped working
They removed all traces from the computer and tried to install again , and it seems to install , then comes up with an Error along the lines of "Unable to connect to the remote server ...." every time
I thought this was to do with Vista , and tried to install it on my XP laptop - and exactly the same error occoured
My 3 e220 worked fine on both machines - So my conclusion is that the Vodafone software is pretty unstable !
Sounds like the modem has died to me... the drivers for these things are going to be coming from the manufacturers, not the networks.

I don't want to sound too defensive, here, but Windows PC's (note the careful use of language) are a pile of crap, in general, IMHO, and we're going to see a lot of issues cropping up that are entirely to do with various Windows and PC issues and not the dongles themselves. Weeding out genuine dongle issues will be difficult.

Vodafone's software in particular has been very good historically.

[chaslam]

I have to admit, coming from someone who uses VMC day in day out, it does get a bit of a pain to use. I have alot of customers coming in saying it doesnt work when they plug it in, and its just a case of clicking auto run on the app, as it sometimes doesnt do it (Which is more windows fault then vodafones).

I have to admit, I like the 3 one more, despite people saying its crap. Its just, well, simple to use. Plug it in, click connect, and thats it. No options to limit your useage, just one sceen with one tab etc.

With the message "Unable to connect to the remote server" it sounds like a problem with the network not the modem. It happened down here all along the south coast a couple of weekends back where they were updating the network, and the whole of the 3G network went down, and we had a long line of people with this message.

[Hands0n]

The dongle thing with Windows Vista - I hold no surprise at that kind of behavior at all. Autorun in XP was always a bit flaky and could be killed outright by something or someone fiddling with the Registry. Vista takes that kind of thing to new heady heights completely.

For the record - the Huawei USB Stick (and other dongles) have a small area of flash memory that is set up with the Autorun file - that should cause the installer app to run as soon as the flash memory filesystem is recognised in Windows. If that does not run the next thing to do is open My Computer, check to see if there is a new drive appearing in the display and if so navigate to it and double-click the Autorun file (or Setup file if one is there).

But then again - I never, ever do that. For best practise I always got to the operator's website and grab the latest on-line copy of the installer just to make sure that I am getting the latest and greatest. The software on the USB dongle is factory installed and could be out of date by the time you purhcase it.



Perhaps, but being elderly normally implies only a basic knowledge of computers. They missed the PC by, quite literally, generations.


Errr, point of order Mr Chairman :) I think you will find that so-called "Silver Surfers" account for significant growth in PC usage (http://www.bizreport.com/2007/05/silver_surfer_numbers_increase_online.html). Age is not at all a limiter, the implication being that beyond a certain age learning is not achievable.


A year ago the silver surfer category, those over 55 years of age, accounted for 15.7 percent of UK internet users. Recent statistics from Hitwise UK has found an increase this year to 22 percent, just slightly behind the most active age group of 35 – 44 year olds.

Not quite time to write us oldies off

I'm not dead yet ......... [Monty Python, Holy Grail]

[3GScottishUser]

The lady I set the dongle up for was indeed a 'silver-surfer' and like many has a very limited experience with PCs.

The point is that the simplicity described on the box did not turn out to be quite as stated and without some experience and assistance the problem would have ended up back at the Vodafone shop.

there appears to be quite a few folks now buying these mobile broadband devices in preference to having their phone lines upgraded to broadband as its easier to simply buy a box and plug something into a PC.

Its quite amazing just how many of these things are now turning up and its not just 3 who are signing up customers as I have now seen Vodafone and T-Mobile dongles being used.

Perhaps 3G has now found its 'killer application'. Pity it took 5 years to emerge!!

[Hands0n]

Perhaps 3G has now found its 'killer application'. Pity it took 5 years to emerge!!

Have I not been banging on about this for a few years myself? I really should charge out for my services :D

[Ben]

I think it's only with the dawn of HSDPA and better backhaul technologies/capacities that 3G Broadband has become a reality. Could we have had it sooner? Maybe, but not 5 years sooner.