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Virgin3GFaster

Making Virgin 3G Faster

Virgin Broadband uses mobile phone networks to provide users with an Internet connection and the equivalent of a land-line phone number. One feature of the service is that, depending on the strength of the signal in the user's area, the modem will switch between three different mobile standards -- GPRS, UMTS and HSDPA.

GPRS is technically 2.5G and offers an experience similar to dial-up. UMTS is starter 3G, providing a slight step up with downlinks of 384Kbps while HSDPA, known as 3.5G, is the most desirable, with a current potential download speed of 3.6Mbps.

This switching feature does have its uses when you are in an area outside 3G coverage, the service will drop down to GPRS and still remain connected to the Internet. However, one issue is that the 3G signal is relatively weak inside buildings, causing the modem to stick with a "safe" GPRS link instead of risking a more challenging 3G connection, which makes downloading security patches painful and I struggled even using Web sites like Gmail and Facebook -- YouTube was impossible.

An important fact is that a very weak 3G connection is still about six times faster than GPRS, so in most cases it is better to kill the GPRS altogether and force the modem to stick with 3G and Virgin's modems can be set to do just that.

Follow the steps below and see how you go:

• Connect to the modem management console (192.168.1.1) and log in.
• Make sure the Internet is not currently connected (either press the connect button on the top of the modem or click the disconnect button in the console).
• Click on the Connection Settings icon.
• Click Network Connections.
• Click WAN Cellular.
• Click on the Settings button.
• Scroll down to "Network Type" and select "UMTS only".
• Click the Apply button. When the page reloads press OK.

Your modem will now ignore the GPRS signal so you have to beware of two things:

1. Because your modem is now set to ignore GPRS, it will only connect in 3G, which means if your 3G signal is extremely weak, instead of switching to dial-up speeds, the connection will cut out completely.
2. Watch download limits. When my signal was mainly GPRS the amount of bandwidth being used was minimal and it seemed I would never be able to use up my 4GB limit. But with a continuous 3G connection, download limitations are easily breached

References

zdnet-blogs - Retrieved on 8 September 2007

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