3 internet dongles?

[The Natural Philosopher]

It even talks modem command set, although to be fair, a grossly modified set..

[Andy Burns]

But speaking the Hayes protocol is hardly the defining characteristic of a modem ...

[R D S]

It's a standalone modem, the dongle plugs into it, stick it anywhere in the house then you connect by wifi or network cable.

[R D S]

Sorry, I meant router.

>

[The Natural Philosopher]

never said it was, just that its another little bit of evidence that it is a kind of modem..

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:16:08 +0100 someone who may be "Roger Mills" wrote this:-

Historically, a 'conventional' modem takes digital signals and converts them to analogue sounds which are suitable for transfer over the 'classic' telephone system. A FAX machine, remember them, includes a modem inside it the digital signals coming from the scanner. A 'conventional' telephone takes analogue speech and transfers it in analogue form over the 'classic' telephone system. There are still some of both left.

Things are now different. Mobile telephones take analogue sounds and convert them into digital radio signals which are transferred over digital radio networks. ISDN telephones take analogue sounds, convert these to digital signals and transmit them over a digital line. Other telephones increasingly do this, for example VOIP uses either a digital line (cable) or a hybrid digital/analogue line (an ADSL or SDSL line).

The telephone system is no longer 'classic', other than the first part of a route, but is instead a computer network sending digital signals around. Even back in the 1930s the telephone system no longer consisted entirely of 'simple' lines, several conversations were multiplexed along one line in places even then.

A 3G dongle takes digital signals and transfers them over digital radio networks. The nearest equivalent 'old fashioned' bit of equipment is not a modem but rather a line driver (not that many have heard of line drivers).

[chunkyoldcortina]

Yes but a modem converts digital signals to analogue and back again. A 3G data dongle doesn't do that as the mobile phone network is digital. It is definitely not a modem (even if it gets called that).

It's just an adaptor.

[chunkyoldcortina]

Not really. Line drivers were used to drive bare copper pairs. The nearest equivalent to a 3G data dongle is an ISDN adapter.

[Andy Dingley]

Some more obscure modems used for instrumentation purposes even had analogue inputs (and usually several inputs). They'd take these inputs as voltage or current levels, then modulate them onto audio frequencies that could be transmitted by the phone lines. No computers involved, no digital signalling at all.

The biggest local users of such things were perhaps the various water boards, monitoring river flood levels and sluice positions. The CEGB had a few too, controlling remote power stations such as the Proteus gas turbine:

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its a very precsise definition that you are adopting, that at some level there must be an analog component to make it a modem.

Off hand I cant think of any communication channel that actually isn't at some level or other, analogue at the bottom..;-)

A DSL modem is definitely a modem, and what comes out of a 3G dongle is a spread spectrum radio signal. That's analogue to the nth degree. Even if it happens at the next level up to be transmitting packets that might contain voice, or digital, data, digitally encoded.

Looked at in that way, a mobile phone is also a modem.

[dennis]

You do understand that the radio bit is analogue. Its not actually possible to do digital radio, even morse had to be analogue for the radio. The encoding may be digital.

[Dave Liquorice]

And where can you find *real* (not marketing puff) about this "internet daily" tarrif? No obvious "search" on the three website not that the site has any real tarrif information on it anyway...

[gazz]

i'm replying to this using a t-mobile dongle, parked in my motorhome half way up the cairngorm mountians in scotland.

bought the t-mobile payg usb broadband dongle for 20 quid from currys a few months ago, you had to put 20 quid's credit on it for that price, otherwise it was 30 quid, and add your own credit.

you basicaly add credit, then select how to spend it, if you just connect to the net as and when, it's £2 a day, or you can buy a 7 day pass for 7 quid, or a 30 day pass for £15.

i'm on my 2nd 30 day pass since we came upto scotland, if we are anywhere near a big town or city, we get at least a 3G signal, hsdpa signals are more common than we imagined too,

up in the mountians we drop back to a gprs signal, but the net is still useable if a bit slow.

theres a 3 gig a month limit, but t-mobile say they will let you go over occasionaly, if you constiantly take the pee tho they will restrict your speed.

As i'm in a motorhome, plugging the dongle into the laptop dosent get me the best signal, i'm sat in a pretty good fariday cage... alli body and the window blinds have a metalic insulating layer on them, so i ran a 5 meter usb extension lead from the roof window to where i sit on the pooter, dongle is up high and out of the metal of the van, even when i get no signal on the phones, i can get a signal on the dongle, and i havent even tried the external antenna port on the dongle yet, i have a rooftop carphone antenna, i just need the fly lead with the right connector to fit the dongle, but having got good signals without an external antenna, i'm in no hurry to get one.

[John Stumbles]

I'm even more confused now. Are you saying you now have a router into which your wireless dongle plugs, and that you get better throughput from this combination than from the wireless dongle alone? Are you using the same wireless dongle as you were getting poor performance from when it was plugged directly into your PC's USB port? In which case it sounds as if the problem was a bottleneck between the PC and the dongle, rather than the wireless performance of the dongle itself. Whether it would be possible to get better performance from the PC dongle connection is another question, of course.

[Tim Downie]

I could work better if the router can be placed where reception is best (eg. upstairs windowsill rather than on your lap in the middle of the house).

Tim

[Pete Zahut]

Here's a bit of text from a posting in the uk.telecom.mobile ng:

and here's a link to the info:

[Dave Liquorice]

"internet

information. The 50p/daily seems reasonable but can you use/get that on a dongle rather than a phone as implied by the T&Cs.

Maybe a trip to a 3 shop might be in order.

[Pete Zahut]

Officially, no, I don't think you can. Some people though, including meself, do it and it works. I just got a free SIM from them and it worked straight away although some people have had to "activate" the SIM in a 3 phone first and then use it in the dongle.

You'll find much more info in news:uk.telecom.mobile especially from a guy called Steve Terry.

[R D S]

Yes, yes and yes.

That is what I am assuming, when it was swinging about hanging over the chair arm (mine is on a lead) reception was variable, if I tried to have it higher up by lopping it over the monitor it as worse, could there be interference from the laptop?

Now it is on the side of the house where I am certain the transmitters will be (other side is moorland) and high up in a window. I regularly get speeds better than 2 meg.