Evdo and Alltel works great even on Xbox Live

wireman24 · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 15

Well this is my first week with evdo wireless internet service through Alltel. So far everything has been really smooth. I used to have DSL and i think this is very comperable to the DSL package i used to have.

I have the UM150 modem going into a cradel point ctr350 router and then out to my computer and xbox. I also bought a omni antenna from 3gstore and will be installing that this weekend so I can get a signal down in my basement.

Alot of people are wondering how well this works with xbox live and I also used to wonder that. I can tell you that if you are getting a good signal and your db is low like in the low 80's or 70's it works fine. I have been playing COD4, Gears of War, and Ghost Recon with no problems at all.

My ping rates are around 150 -200 and my upload speed averages around 900 down and 200 up. Sometimes I do get faster like 1.5down but average around 900down.

So if your somebody who can't get DSL or Cable and you can get EVDO service I say do it you wont regret it. Especially if you can get Alltel who have no restrictions like Verizon does.

daverup · EVDO User Joined: 07 Dec 2007 Posts: 45

wireman24 · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 15

I have not seen anything like that. Or read anything to that affect.
But If somebody does not have another option such as DSL or Cable because they are too far out in the middle of nowhere it's a great option.

daverup · EVDO User Joined: 07 Dec 2007 Posts: 45

Under the Alltel EVDO service forum, down the index page.
Read "Forcing downgraded content"

wireman24 · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 15

daverup I did a search and I see what you are talking about.
That will sort of suck if they implement this in my area.
I will keep my fingers crossed that they hold off on that here.

daverup · EVDO User Joined: 07 Dec 2007 Posts: 45

Mine didn't get hosed until this week, the others started having problems a few weeks ago.
I've been on the phone with tech support a few times, they deny the existence of the proxy at first. They then refuse to do anything.
I don't think that this thing is going away!

wireman24 · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 15

I have gone to a few other forums looking into this and I would say almost half the people that started with this problem say that it has cleared up. They are still getting images from the proxy server but the compressed crappy image quality has gone away. It might be that they are in the process of working the kinks out and it will just take some time.

I used to work for an internet provider and every so often when we would implement something new behind the scenes on our network that would have an adverse affect on users. Even if our initial testing in house did not show any problems. Sometimes these things just don't show up so dramatically untill you try it in real world applications. If I had to guess they will clear this up it just might take a little while. But I am sure they will still keep things going through the proxy.

It would be nice if they could confirm the problem but usually it is not the technicians that don't want to tell you it's the execs that have that call.

Trust me their tech support people are probably more frustrated then anybody else because they know about the problem can't do anything about it and they have to take all those calls everyday about this. Untill the Network people figure it out or the execs decide to pull it.

With all that said I do think they should take this feature down for the time being before people start dropping their service. They have had enough time with it now with customers using it that they should be able to troubleshoot and test this out without using us as ginny pigs.

daverup · EVDO User Joined: 07 Dec 2007 Posts: 45

The issue I have is related to the basic fact that it is a caching server.
As long as the sites you are visiting are "popular" the images are available on the server, and are possibly delivered even faster than from the original site.
If you use some rarely visited website in the evening, when things are busy, image downloads take forever. This is totally separate from the speed test sites. It appears that alltel has routed the speed test sites around their proxy servers, so those results are much improved over what they were.
I don't think Alltel is going to take down the proxy, I'm betting for even more interference with internet usage (Like Charter maybe).

jfarris · EVDO Junkie Joined: 10 May 2007 Posts: 182

I think they only thing that they have going through the proxies are images right now, because video, audio, speed tests, and xbox live don't seem affected.

As someone who has has this proxy since the start of the tests, it's improving, but it's still a bit iffy. Sometimes, I see no lag in sites, but sometimes I see a few seconds of lag every several page views (7-10 rough estimate).

I agree, though, I'm not really chipper about being a beta tester and paying full price for it.