Fast download, but very slow upload speeds?

Orion39

Hopefully I'm posting this in the correct forum, as this seemed to be the most relevant place to post my problem.

I have the Wilson omni directional antenna, Wilson 3W amp, Sierra 595 Aircard, Top Global MB6800 router, and a PC (not a laptop). I'm in a rural area surrounded by trees. According to coverage maps I'm in the -71db signal area of the cell tower.

Currently I have the Wilson trucker antenna propped up at a slight angle against my window, about 4' off the ground. The supplied 3 way mount only works if there is a pole attached to the side of the roof, so I was unable to install the antenna higher up-- I'd also need another 12' of cable to reach it.

Sierra 595 Aircard is plugged into the router, since it cannot plug into the PC (no PCMCIA slot). Opening the router's home page it shows WAN signal strength, 4 out of 5 bars. I'm assuming that's the antenna signal. It stays at 4 out of 5 all the time.

My download speeds are usually around 900kbps on average, max 1200kbps. Upload speeds are very, very low. Sometimes less than 20kbps (that's not a typo). Here's some tests made around 4pm CST:

<- latency 1148ms!!

What is the most likely cause of this? Earlier in the afternoon I had poor latency, sometimes becoming so bad that it would take about 10 seconds for an action to be sent or received. I've also had 2 incidents during Saturday night and this morning where my connection was frozen for about 100 seconds and then reconnected.

Is this something I should be prepared to deal with as an EVDO user, or is it a problem that can be fixed? During all periods of lag, my router indicates "4 out of 5" bars for WAN strength. So I'm inclined not to believe it's a signal problem?

Orion39 · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:12 pm Post subject:

I forgot to ask what sort of upload speeds other people are experiencing on Rev 0 or Rev A connections? I find it hard to believe that <100kbps is what I should expect, as I can get faster with my terrible 128K ISDN.

Orion39 · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:23 pm Post subject:

Here's another test I did about 20 mins. later, which showed an improvement. I can get speeds like this occasionally but it seems to dip very low as well. I can't figure out what the cause of this is?

Orion39 · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:32 pm Post subject:

I believe I have fixed the issue. The antenna was at a slight angle and not perfectly vertical. I also installed it higher up on the roof. I'm not getting better speeds than I did previously.

Orion39 · Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:43 pm Post subject:

Update: Still having the same issue. The poor connection speed and frequent disconnects only occur during the weekend, with the connection being totally unusable after 5pm on Friday. I've experienced this on 2 weekends now, and I think it's safe to say that cell phone traffic is much higher on the weekend and is causing these issues (especially at 5pm on Friday when everyone gets off work).

fordrhs41 · EVDO User Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 91

Sierra 595 Aircard is plugged into the router, since it cannot plug into the PC (no PCMCIA slot).

A PCMCIA to PCI adapter will solve that problem. It is nice to be able to use the connection manager t trouble shoot and the adapter will cost you abut $20-$25 from the internet

My download speeds are usually around 900kbps on average, max 1200kbps. Upload speeds are very, very low. Sometimes less than 20kbps (that's not a typo). Here's some tests made around 4pm CST:

My downloads run from about 1100 to 1350 the uploads about 10% to 12% of the downloads
lynksys router and S720 card. Sprint unlimited
I see no real speed difference between the S720 being in the router or in the PCMCIA to PCI adapter in the PC