Anybody using t-mobile's hotspot at home service?
Preacher
Logan Shaw
> I'm wondering how well this works -- anyone got a perosnal experience?
I just got it Saturday. It seems to work pretty well so far. Sound
quality seems pretty good, not as good as a landline, but better than
a cell phone by a lot. It's hard to be 100% sure because I've only
used it for maybe 2 hours so far and all the calls I've made have been
to cell phones. I've heard a few drop-outs but couldn't tell if those
were because of the other person's cell or what.
I did try one hand-off from wi-fi to GSM, and it worked fine. In fact,
I think I know when it did the hand off (there was a very slight
interruption in service) but I'm not really positive that I do know.
With wi-fi networks, I've noticed that if it has consistently 2 bars of
signal (out of 4) or less, it will often fall back to the GSM mode.
The wi-fi router they gave me covers my apartment well enough that so
far it never needs to fall back to GSM within my apartment, even though
the wi-fi access point is at the far corner of the apartment.
An unexpected side benefit is that the phone fills the role of one of
those devices you carry around to scan for wi-fi networks. I basically
always have my phone with me, so wherever I am, I can check network
availability for future reference (should I ever splurge and buy a
laptop).
I was already a T-Mobile customer but my contract had ended several
months ago. For starting up a new 2-year contract, this is what I
got:
(1) Nokia 6086 phone for $50 after discounts.
(2) Linksys WRT54G-TM wi-fi router for free after rebate.
(3) Unlimited wi-fi calling time for $10/month.
(4) 1000 any-time minutes per month for $40/month.
I am going to wait for a week or so, and if I see no obvious problems,
I'm going to proceed with my plan and cancel my land line. I've never
not had a land line before, but $50/month for unlimited calling at home
*and* 1000 minutes peak time (plus unlimited nights and weekend) when
not at home seems like it should cover my needs pretty well.
I may post an update in a week or two if I have any further insights
or interesting experiences. :-)
- Logan
vancem...@yahoo.com
Mobile WiFi Hotspot@home? T-mobile blames Qwest (my Megabit broadband
provider) and Qwest blames T-mobile. The ping time to Google is 84
milliseconds. The ping time to T-mobile is double that - could Qwest
be intentionally degrading T-mobile's packets? My Qwest connection
rates "97% service" using speed-rating programs. My Wifi phone is the
Samsung one and it works great on the regular network. All my
computers are off the internet and I still get the half-second delay
between talkers. I am pretty stupid so please forgive me if part or
all of this makes no sense. -Vance in Denver
Logan Shaw
> Does anyone else get a half-second delay between talkers when using T-
> Mobile WiFi Hotspot@home? T-mobile blames Qwest (my Megabit broadband
> provider) and Qwest blames T-mobile. The ping time to Google is 84
> milliseconds. The ping time to T-mobile is double that - could Qwest
> be intentionally degrading T-mobile's packets
I also have the T-Mobile Hotspot@home service, although I have internet
access through Time-Warner Cable.
I do experience a delay, but I haven't tried to measure it. To me, it
doesn't seem like as bad as 1/2 second, but it is noticeable and I have
felt myself having to compensate for it during conversations. That's a
little disappoint, because otherwise the quality is great.
If it were me, I would try doing a traceroute ('tracert' on Windows) instead
of just a ping and see where the delay is. It should show you the delay
to every hop along the way, so you can see which hop is adding the most
delay (if any). I haven't done tests to observe what the network traffic
looks like for Hotspot@home, but if it's using UDP, you could probably
use the same UDP port that it does, which would be a better test (if your
ISP is 'shaping' the traffic).
One thing worth noting is that Google has a truly massive number of
servers all over the planet, so ping times to a Google machine are
likely to be somewhat better.
> My Wifi phone is the
> Samsung one and it works great on the regular network.
While we're on the subject of the phones they off for use with Hotspot@home,
I have the Nokia 6086, and the phone works well overall, but the Bluetooth
performance is TERRIBLE. When I use my Bluetooth earphone, everyone says
it sounds like I'm on a train. It's especially bad when the phone is linked
up over wi-fi. I've heard the Samsung phone does not have this problem
at all (even when on wi-fk).
- Logan
vance...@gmail.com
that T-mobile has to change the software on the nearest cell tower to
make it work right - I guess they finally got around to it.
Different question: Will t-mobile let me buy an unlocked Samsung wi-
fi phone (t409) on Ebay and just swap the SIM chip for my wife and
daughter's t-mobile phones so they can do wifi too? I don't want to
extend our contracts 2 years if I can avoid it.
--Vance in Denver
On Sep 19, 7:54 am, Logan Shaw <lshaw-use...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> vancemaso...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > Does anyone else get a half-second delay between talkers when usingT-> MobileWiFiHotspot@home? T-mobileblames Qwest (my Megabit broadband
> > provider) and Qwest blamesT-mobile. The ping time to Google is 84
> > milliseconds. The ping time toT-mobileis double that - could Qwest
> > be intentionally degradingT-mobile'spackets
>
> I also have theT-MobileHotspot@homeservice, although I have internet
> access through Time-Warner Cable.
>
> I do experience a delay, but I haven't tried to measure it. To me, it
> doesn't seem like as bad as 1/2 second, but it is noticeable and I have
> felt myself having to compensate for it during conversations. That's a
> little disappoint, because otherwise the quality is great.
>
> If it were me, I would try doing a traceroute ('tracert' on Windows) instead
> of just a ping and see where the delay is. It should show you the delay
> to every hop along the way, so you can see which hop is adding the most
> delay (if any). I haven't done tests to observe what the network traffic
> looks like forHotspot@home, but if it's using UDP, you could probably
vance...@gmail.com
I tried "tmobile.com" and got the following:
Tracing route to tmobile.com [65.161.188.152]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms 1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 41 ms 40 ms 39 ms hlrn-dsl-gw34-226.hlrn.qwest.net
[207.225.112.226]
3 40 ms 40 ms 39 ms hlrn-agw1.inet.qwest.net
[71.217.189.9]
4 * * 40 ms hlr-core-01.inet.qwest.net
[205.171.253.97]
5 61 ms 62 ms 62 ms dal-core-02.inet.qwest.net
[67.14.2.18]
6 62 ms 62 ms 62 ms dap-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net
[205.171.225.53]
7 62 ms 62 ms 62 ms sl-st21-dal-15-1.sprintlink.net
[144.232.8.137]
8 64 ms 63 ms 63 ms sl-bb20-fw-6-0.sprintlink.net
[144.232.20.80]
9 65 ms 64 ms 65 ms sl-crs1-fw-0-0-0-0.sprintlink.net
[144.232.11.142]
10 76 ms 76 ms 76 ms sl-bb20-kc-13-0-0.sprintlink.net
[144.232.20.57]
11 76 ms 76 ms 76 ms sl-bb25-chi-9-0.sprintlink.net
[144.232.20.109]
12 101 ms 100 ms 100 ms sl-bb21-sea-1-0.sprintlink.net
[144.232.20.156]
13 107 ms 107 ms 107 ms sl-bb20-tac-6-0.sprintlink.net
[144.232.8.61]
14 107 ms 107 ms 106 ms 144.232.17.54
15 109 ms 109 ms 109 ms sl-voice-100840-0.sprintlink.net
[160.81.243.38]
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
Looks to me like it stalled somewhere on "sprintlink.net".
-Vance (I don't know much about this stuff) in Denver
Jeff
> What URL would I "tracert" for t-mobile hospot@home?
>
> I tried "tmobile.com" and got the following:
You'll see a lot of time outs on tracert that are on working
connections. You may wish to just ping it.
Jeff
Logan Shaw
> What URL would I "tracert" for t-mobile hospot@home?
You can't traceroute to a URL, only to an IP address (or hostname).
But what I would do is one of two things:
(1) Snoop the traffic over the wire to see where it's actually
going, and then traceroute to there. This requires that
the traffic gets routed through something you have control
over (like a Linux machine acting as a router) or that it's
visible to a machine you have control over (like a Linux
machine using Ethernet in 'promiscuous' mode on a non-switched
segment that the traffic is going through).
(2) Look at the configuration of the phone and see what hostname
or IP address it connects to, and traceroute to that.
#2 seems like the easiest one, but I dug through the settings
and found nothing. :-(
- Logan