Hardware :: Using 3G Modems And Mobile Broadband - Best For Mac?
Mar 16, 2009
I've been using 3 (UK) mobile broadband for about the last year now, paired with a Huawei E220 USB dongle. At times this has worked well, but it quite often has unexplainable issues which I'm growing tired of.
I'm wondering what experience others have had with 3G modems for the Mac. Are there any particular modems that worked especially well for you?
Likewise with UK providers - is there anyone in particular you've found to work well? For reference I'm looking at general use in and around London where the 3G coverage is pretty good.
I'm leaning toward the Vodafone USB Modem Stick 'Pro' on a 24 month package for �15 per month. Their network appears to be one of the fastest (7.2mb), Voda's coverage is generally good, and the modem has the bonus of doubling as a USB drive with the addition of a microSD card.
i have a Three Mobile Broadband dongle and am looking for an alternative way of connecting to 3g from it rather then use the 3 Connect software ?on my MBP i was getting kernal panics due to the software - plug in, use broadband , close connection and then the system will crash with a kernal panic.anyone elese have the same issue? any workaround or other software ?great deal on it BTW 3GB pack on a PAYG for ?49
I've just received my dongle and having set it up noticed that the internet manager application uses about 20% of my CPU causing my fan to ramp up all the while I'm using the internet.I was just wondering if anyone is having similar issues and knows of a way to make it more efficient.
What O2 settings I need to enter into my macbook to get my mobile broadband working? The O2 manual doesn't make sense and on the O2 website it says the mac will walk me through it but nothing comes up. I guess I need to enter the settings in manually but I dont know what they are and where to put them.
have just gone onto an 18 month contract with tmobile, and it is working fine - speed and connection wise.
Now I have the aluminium macbook (if that makes a difference...) and for some reason, whenever I go onto a webpage, 90% if not all the images dont load.
For example on this forum, the mac rumors: forums logo comes up, but when looking at smilies and stuff in the thread they do not.
They have blue boxes with ? marks in them.
This happens on every website I go onto. I have tried safari and firefox and the same thing happens in both.
I have windows 7 on here aswell that I boot into using boot camp, and it works perfectly fine on there - so its definitly a mac related issue.
The stick I am using is the 530 stick from tmobile.
so I dont know why, but I have recently purchased a tmobile mobile broadband stick on an 18 month contract, but for some reason the pictures are not showing up.
For example , when making a thread, all the smilies and stuff have those white question marks in blue boxes.
Apparently the dongle just makes the mac all messed up and go crazy, and is reversible - have had a look on the web , but to no avail.
I currently need to replace my mobile broadband and dongle as my existing one with Virgin media in a pain in the ass. From day one it has never worked and I have to constantly work around the software to get it to work on my Mac Book Pro.So my question is, can anyone recommend a mobile broadband provider which will allow a dongle to be plugged into my Mac Book Pro running Snow Leopard without ay issues at all.
I've just bought a new MacBook Pro, it came last week (or perhaps the week before) with 10.5.7 and I immediately bought the upgrade to 10.6. It seemed a little buggy, but nothing I could put my finger on, but this morning I couldn't start - just the apple and spinning wheel. The only thing I've done since my last restart is install software for mobile broadband usb.
I can't reinstall my system software because it's "old" (ie 10.5.7 and I've installed 10.6).
I just used Chax to combine my AIM and Facebook accounts in iChat, but I just realized how many of my friends use the stupid mobile feature for AIM, so they all show up in my buddy list when they really arent available. Is there anyway I can hide those mobile accounts in iChat?
I just realized my iMacs have no internal modems, previously my only option to send faxes. How many others have realized this after the fact? Nothing to shed tears over, an external fax machine can fill the gap, I suppose.
They'll pay most of that for the time being BUT in this economy and speeds getting faster almost every year, I'd be stuck with it. MOST I'd want to go is a year(carrier doesn't matter we get $50/mo. but goes to a person not a business) in case there's any changes in staff and being stuck paying it or having a 5 G or something a year in and pay to break it off.Basically it's to show off to clients how ads work at our company and how they can see there's other clients of ours have work for them that they can submit bids on. Usage is very light. Not a replacement for my broadband only on the road type of things. Questions:1. Is there reliable pre-paid 3G usb modems out there?2. Is there a cheaper way of doing this say, change out my sim card to the device from my Iphone? We're all ATT I know first gen (what I have) iphone allows me to use a crappy older cell when I go to the beach or anywhere it's too bulky or easier to break.
this noob understand what the differences will be in terms of pros/cons and overall performance. What about if Apple keeps everything else the same and just upgrades the processors, how would that affect things (hypothetically)?
how connect my MacBook directly to my DSL cable modem bypassing my wireless connection?Â
(the Maverick upload that was pushed out last month will not load for me -- keeps starting and stopping. just read a review with same issue and once they bypassed their wireless connection, it worked just fine.)
I recently changed from an AT&T DSL modem to a Knology Cable Modem to improve speed and overall network capablity. However, ever since I have changed I have had problems with Safary lagging or not loading the websites. It doesn't do it all the time, but periodically.Sometimes it is worse than others.
Basic issue: When using Safari, it stalls when loading a website. Sometimes it will load, other times it will say that Safari cannot load the website.If you wait a while and retry loading it, it may then load it.
I've reloaded OS9 on my G3 400 iMac, with the intention of bringing it back up to 10.3 after a 7 pass HD clean. Last night I downloaded the firmware upgrade on my current iMac and transferred it via USB flash pen, but it's unable to read it, presumably as it was written with an Intel OS and it appears with a PC icon. I don't know if downloading it via the original iMac would make any difference. However, as it can only has dialup internet access, that's out of the question with my broadband connection.
While I'm at it, I may a well ask, what is the fastest way to get to 10.3 Panther? I've seen another site, but can't locate it again, where it said 9.1 would have to be installed before then installing 10.2 Jaguar. Is this correct?
I have a slow broadband connection with iMac, My wireless router is connected at 4Mbs but my imac only gets download speeds on usually around 0.5Mbs. My daughters laptop running Windows 7 will connect at about 2 Mbs at the same location as the iMac. Is there any thing I can do to improve the speed ? My imac is a 27" c2d with Snow Leopard & using Safari & connected wireless.
I'm currently on Satellite broadband (unfortunately no other option where I live) and the latency is, as expected, very high. While downloading files is no problem, loading pages like NZHerald and using Google is awful. Generally it takes forever (slower than dial up) and often Google fails to load.
Can someone suggest some third-party software so that I can make this bearable?
I've heard of using software to somehow optimise broadband so that it requests sites differently.
i have got already a time capsule 500g and now i move to sweden i just wonder is it possible to use time capsule as wireless modem for broadband or not by other words is it necessary to buy a modem or can i just connect time cap to?
got my mbp 15 i5 last week, ive been testing my battery, already recalibrated and all that.. i get 8+ hours on full charge on idle.. pretty average on normal use, around 5-6 hours. anyways so while i was testing my battery, i decided to unplug my usb broadband modem to see how much battery it's draining from my laptop. but to my surprise my battery life went down from approximately 3 hours left, to 2 and half ! i even waited 5 minutes so it can properly calculate it, but it didnt increase. so my question is wuzzup widat?! shouldnt it be the other way around? i was planning on canceling my wireless broadband contract when it expires and just wirelessly tether my newly jailbroken iphone via mywi for internet access, but its seems like wifi is a minus on the battery, but usb modems are actually a plus.
I bought a Power Mac G4 (version=3.3) second hand from my company. It is running Mac OS 10.2.8 and Microsoft Office X. I wish to connect it to my BT broadband hub. However, it does not appear to have an AirPort card and even if it did I was told that the BT hub mainly works with Microsoft rather than apple products. Can anyone advise me how I can connect and what products I need to buy?Â
I have recently moved house and no longer have access to a DSL / ADSL line but have successfully plugged a wireless USB modem (ZTE MF688+) into my desktop PC. I have a mac book pro and a time capsule which were previously networked but I don't know how to access the internet as there is no DSL cable to plug into the time capsule. Is there any way to use the Time Capsule to access the internet without plugging a DSL / ADSL cable in?
why my Imac looses connection with my tele2 broadband. It does not find the airport after a few minutes run. And when I do a diagnostics it findes it again and says "it seems to work normally" and then after a few minutes again it fails.
I'm looking into purchasing a modem through our phone carrier that will allow me to use internet at my house (much cheaper than the monopoly of cable internet). I was wondering if I can somehow make that 3g network modem wireless with my airport express so that I can use the internet wirelessly on multiple computers throughout the house (including appletv).
I am finally jumping on the WiFi bandwagon at home - I know my macs pretty well but need advice at this wireless stuff...
1) I currently have a broadband modem that came with my BT broadband account - am I right I do not need to change this - just add an airport extreme/express to it?
2) What should I be considering when I am choosing between express/extreme? is extreme just longer range? I live in a 2 bed flat on 1 floor..
3) I would like to add some storage to this airport so I can store my itunes music on it and have it accessible to my laptop when I come in the house with it - I see airport extreme has a usb port - but is this USB2? if only usb1 then that would be very slow - what's the best way of adding wireless network storage (something like a firewire/usb2 drive like the drobo) to my wireless network?
4) - I am thinking about getting an apple tv - does extreme/express decision make any difference in this regard?
5) - If I want to run itunes through my main stereo - do I need to get a separate airport express for that? (Stereo and broadband modem are in different rooms in the flat) and does my laptop then work as itunes server, sending music from the storage attached to the airport extreme, to the express attached to the stereo?
6) - I see many people use a mac mini in systems like this - what are the advantages of having a separate mac mini added to the system to act as a media server as opposed to just using my laptop?
7) - If am am attaching media storage to a WiFi network - how do I make sure it is secure?
I have a home network where all devices (various Macbook pros, xbox, ps3, pc's, etc.) connect wirelessly via airport extreme: works great. I am trying to connect an ipod touch from a distance of about 75 feet, and although it will connect, it drops the signal now and again (signal strength goes from 1 bar to no bars). I have this older dell "Wireless 2350 Broadband Router" and I am wondering if I could add this either in a wired or wireless configuration to repeat the base station signal (i.e., to extend the range of the network). I know that I could just run out and buy an airport express to accomplish this, but I'd like to see if I could "recycle" the dell router first. Whatever I do, I don't want to muck up the primary network in the process.
