What would cause these speedtest results? 3G wireless ISP provider..

I have a 3G device that I use as it's my only option in my area...

Originally, the closest tower to my location was in the 8 mile range, so the signal varied from good to suspect..

That was solved with a booster antenna kit which kept the signal in usable range.

Pretty much flawless, the only issue was BW cap, but being where I live, accepted the limit and have just kept an eye on usage, and avoid any BW hogging vids, streaming etc.. no biggie.

Starting in Aug.. we noticed a degradation of service, so we made a call...

call #1 response = "we are upgrading the tower"

Where is it? = "2.5 miles from your location"

What! it used to be 8+ miles? = "Not anymore"

Have the address? = shockingly, provided me the address ( which I mapped, and noticed that it is the one I can see across the river.. Good right?)

Not... I had better reception from the tower I couldn't see

I digress...

After numerous other calls with excuses from "towers down in your area, all were redirected to another" to the numerous "we will call you back", to "the field guys are going out to check the tower", etc etc etc....

From my end, (and you would have to be familiar with this otherwise I am about to lose you ) the 3G signal that I have to tune in to is the EVDO Rev A deal... advertised speeds.. max 1.2Mbps DL 0.6Mbps UL ...

For me that is all I need to be able to enjoy the web, I am sure that's slow for most of you living in the civilized world, but hey, not bad for a hillbilly


My issues seem to be with an overloaded tower? I have a fully barred EVDO Rev A signal, no fade.. and can open my browser and it loads perfectly... and will continue to load perfectly if I reload the pages each second to hold the signal.. If I pause and actually get to read what I have opened... that's when the problems start...

Next try to load a page usually ends up with the EVDO signal being kicked out and it reverts to the 1xRTT sgianl which is basically no better than the dial up connections long gone by.. painful.. and that is even if the 1xRTT holds...

Most times I will just completely time out until a usable 1xRTT signal returns.. (popcorn time)

So... I try another route... when this occurs, I will manually break the connection from my device via the connection sofrtware, which also show me the signal (even when not connected), so it breaks off from the tower... wait 1-2 minutes and voila! full barred EVDO Rev A pops back up.. everytime.....

So.. If the tower and device goes dormant if I am reading a page, (which I can understand), I thought.. if I run a streaming page.. radio in this case.. would the signal hold?

Voila!! yes it does... over 3 hours straight no drops, full barred EVDO Rev A no problems... unless you are me with a capped usage plan.. I cannot afford to pull this workaround off as it is only a bandaid, and expensive one but one I can use if I absolutely need to be online.. (think WED +SAT )

It is the tower creating the drops be it through auto switching, overload, who knows, I don't but it is frustrating as all get out.


The below speedtest results are an example of what I have to deal with at the moment...










With the runaround and ALL the different stories being told to me from the provider, I am posting this only in hopes that someone who actually works with these towers can possibly confirm that it is most likely an overloaded tower, because I can't think of any other reason for this strange behavior

Oh, and if anyone just feel like rubbing it in with their HIGH speed fiber optic or cable or 4G speedtest results go right ahead I can take it , I may have ISP issues but I wouldn't trade it for the serenity of living here in the Shenandoah Valley

crickets? I killed my own thread again?

I do not know about your cell phone tethering issue if that's what you are doing actually. When I tether my palm phone I can stream netflix while driving down the freeway. If my phone does not have a 3g connection it drops down in quality considerably.

One way to keep your connection open is to open up a CMD prompt and type:
ping google.com -t

A simple ping should keep your connection open without a streaming service eating your bandwidth. Plus it will give you an idea of your connection speed.