O2 3G HSDPA 7.2Mbps HSUPA 2.1Mbps,

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Level 4

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O2 3G HSDPA 7.2Mbps HSUPA 2.1Mbps,

Hi

I wasn't sure where best to post this but decided to do it here given O2 supplies the UK iPhone. I'm still holding out for a 3G iphone before purchasing but decided to give the above mentioned service a go as it will be, no doubt, the same service extended to the 3G iPhone. Of the 7.2Mbps down, 1Mbps seems to be the norm and from 2.1Mbps upstream, just 400kbps. What bothers me the most though is the poor quality of images displayed on web pages - for instance, iTunes looks awful on O2 3G due to compression. When i asked O2 about it, i was told it's down to browser preferences (I'm using Safari) which at first sounded ridiculous until I considered that perhaps Apple web pages detect the 3G connection, classify it as Mobile and then deliver compressed, low res images to the web page. What do you think?

MacPro 3.2Ghz 2GB RAM, Macbook Pro 15" 2.2Ghz 2GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.5.2), Be* Pro 24576/2560kbps on Netgear DG834GT and AEBSn

Posted on Apr 24, 2008 9:21 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 24, 2008 9:37 AM in response to ibosie

What are you using it on, what 3G modem, and what driver? The standard drivers that come with 3G aircards enable compression (which they call "acceleration") by default. If you turn off this "feature" it makes a big difference.

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Answer 2

ibosie Author

Level 4

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Apr 24, 2008 11:45 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Hi,

It's a Novatel Wireless, USB stick.

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Answer 3

Apr 24, 2008 2:12 PM in response to ibosie

You need to go into the network settings and disable acceleration. I don't know how to do it for that model; you may have to (gasp!) read the manual 😉

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Answer 4

ibosie Author

Level 4

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Apr 24, 2008 11:09 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Hi, that sounds promising - O2 do not supply a manual of any sort unfortunately. I don't see anything in Network settings though?

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Answer 5

Apr 25, 2008 8:32 AM in response to ibosie

I don't know where you can find it in the setup, but the synptom is lossy data compression. You can try rooting around in all of the settings, or try the forums at www.novatelwireless.com.

Sorry I can't be more help.

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Answer 6

ibosie Author

Level 4

1,122 points

Apr 25, 2008 8:37 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks - O2 confirmed the compression can not be switched off. If the same applies to 3G iPhone in the UK there will be a lot of disappointed customers out there.

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Answer 7

Apr 25, 2008 8:41 AM in response to ibosie

That's not good; the AT&T drivers give you control over compression.

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Answer 8

ibosie Author

Level 4

1,122 points

Apr 25, 2008 9:15 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

That's better, hopefully Apple will pick up on it and insist O2 facilitates the same as in the US. Fewer people will want a 3G iPhone with compressed web images - at least that's my take.

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Answer 9

Apr 25, 2008 10:52 PM in response to ibosie

I think you can bet on Apple to challenge that. They want to deliver the "Full" internet, compression isn't exactly the full internet. Plus, if anything, you need compression on EDGE to speed it up. 🙂

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Answer 10

ibosie Author

Level 4

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Apr 26, 2008 1:05 AM in response to Seth Amott

I agree - that was one of my reasons for posting on here since I can't reach Apple directly they might just hear about it from this site assuming a level 3/4 user has the option to escalate it 🙂

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Answer 11

ibosie Author

Level 4

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Apr 26, 2008 5:21 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Allegedly if i create a ssh tunnel or socks i might be able to bypass the compression technology. Problem is, O2 does not provide an external IP to the Mac:

WAN IP: 82.132.136.195
Local IP: 10.95.188.233
Remote IP: 10.64.64.64

ssh -D 9999 me@82.132.136.195
ssh: connect to host 82.132.136.195 port 22: Operation timed out

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Answer 12

ibosie Author

Level 4

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Apr 26, 2008 5:58 AM in response to ibosie

So back on the phone to O2 technical department I had great difficultly explaining what is remote login. I tried windows speak - "think of it as timbuktu" - no luck, the guy said he's only trained to help with installing the modem and he didn't have much of a clue. So what's the point of staffing a technical department with non-technical staff?!

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Answer 13

ibosie Author

Level 4

1,122 points

Apr 27, 2008 2:36 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

I found a solution which seems to work well bypassing O2's compression completely. Unfortunately it means having one of my Macs at home up and running so that the 3G connected Mac can direct web traffic through Socks running on the home Mac.

On the 3G connected Mac:
1) open a socks tunnel to the home Mac:
ssh me@home.ip -D 9999

2) in Network settings for the Novatel set Socks proxy server to:
localhost, port 9999 using authentication (my home Mac user:pass)

My 3G browsing is now just like it is at home without compression and just to check it's working, whatismyip.com returns the IP address at home instead of the 3G one.

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Answer 14

ibosie Author

Level 4

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May 2, 2008 9:24 AM in response to ibosie

I received a delayed response from O2 tech on some questions I had - it's too late for me now; i cancelled, but for research purposes here it is:

By default 3G users receive a local IP address however setting the APN to vpn.o2.co.uk instead of mobile.o2.co.uk should allocate a public one. Alternatively, customers who already own a public IP could potentially have it hosted by O2 using a bearer APN. The firewall, though, blocks certain types of incoming connections, including ssh - which O2 see as an 'open' IEFT protocol like telnet - because sessions initiated from outside the network bypass the charging model for bandwidth. The suggestion for connecting remotely to a 3G laptop was to initiate an application layer session from inside the subnet out to the server (reverse tunnel? i'm not sure what is meant by this). Allegedly, web compression can be circumvented with the username "bypass".

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Answer 15

May 6, 2008 8:25 AM in response to ibosie

I cannot comment on the compression issues in relation to O2 as I use a Vodafone datacard, but might be able to shed some light on the general speed issue.

The hardware you have seems to be a HSUPA capable device which means from a hardware point of view it should also support the higher speed version of HSDPA. However it is likely that some or all of the following apply.

i. O2 might not support HSUPA on their network
ii. O2 might currently only support the original lower speed version of HSDPA
iii. the particular tower you were connected to may have been an older slower one (even if other parts of the O2 network do support HSUPA).
iv. the bandwidth of the tower is shared, other users might have slowed you down
v. the link from the tower to the rest of the network may be the bottleneck (it might only be an ordinary ADSL circuit itself, and thus not as fast as HSUPA can be)
vi. a weak signal affects speed

For what it's worth, the speed you describe getting is about the same I got using a version 1 HSDPA USB modem from Vodafone. Neither I, or other users in my company (using the same Vodafone devices) have described seeing poor quality images.

PS. While O2 (after launching the iPhone) finally did commit to rolling out a 3G data network, I have not seen an official statements as to whether they would go straight to supporting HSDPA let alone HSUPA. If you know of a webpage I would be interested in reading it. The reason we chose Vodafone was because at that point O2's data network was the worst.

PPS. I have O2's broadband ADSL2+ at home and it works great.

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