More three mobile broadband problems
So... I've been noticing more and more frequently an issue with my Three modem, where it will randomly disconnect and refuse to start again. I've noticed this in both Windoze and Ubuntu, on two different machines - so four environments. This led me to be 95% sure that it was some sort of hardware fault - Ubuntu had been throwing out device read errors and device refusing address errors, and windoze's device manager had been saying that the device failed to start.
I went to my local Three store to enquire about a replacement. They told me to phone technical support as they couldn't deal with it. So I did. Despite saying that I had a reasonably high level of computer expertise and had done some fault finding of my own, the (presumably Indian, going by his name which I won't publicly announce) tech support guy talked me through uninstalling and reinstalling the software (even to the point of telling me how to get to Add/Remove programs) and firing it up again. Of course, sods law would have it that through the remainder of the phone call the intermittent problem never resurfaced, although I'm wondering how long it'll take now.
We then moved onto my second issue, which was that all text messages were blank and dated in August. Presumably this was when the modem was manufactured. He told me that this was a known issue and that he would provide me with a download link to fix it. At this point, while I was on hold, I ran out of credit. Not being on a Three mobile phone, it was costing a bomb. So I topped up and called back, working through the menu with the long, pointless pauses in it, just to make you stay on the line longer and waste more money.
I got through to a different guy and explained my situation. He told me the address of the download, which I tried and promptly got a 404. He also had one at his end too. He then asked me to wait while he tried to find it, but I managed to persuade him to ring me back when he did. I'd had enough of wasting my money.
After about 10mins he did phone back, but only to say that he couldn't find the link, and as a temporary measure, to go to my local Three store and put my sim card into one of their handsets to view my messages. Fuuuuuuuuuuun
What I have gained out of this experience: Very little
What it cost me: £3.70 bus fare to town and £10 in phone calls
:(
Written by dezza on 2009-01-09 11:18:07.
Reply 1
Update
Just a quick update to let people know that I've not had the same frequency of disconnects. I don't know if reinstalling the drivers fixed it (doubtful) or whether it was because I changed the USB port it was plugged into and not using USB extension cables anymore.
Either way I've not had to reboot the server every 15mins, but my connection is still pathetically slow.
Posted by dezza on 2009-01-23 04:14:42.
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