TSTT EV-DO... Have you tried it?

[Hidden]

So now i'm independant of phone line cutters...
IT's very sensitive to notebook positioning...
What devices may interfere with this?

Speed max so far=619 kps

[mojo]

OK so I decided to try tstt's EV-DO internet service to see how it performs. I got the router version this morning and tried it out on campus(UWI). The following were my findings:

Test location: UWI St Augustine.
Average Download speed: 800kbps
Average Upload Speed: 115kbps
Average latency within T&T:200ms

I did a tracert to many different websites, and monitored the latencies between each stop. Outside of T&T is just as fast as dsl (after it leaves T&T of course). However, you have to add that 200ms+200ms for send and receive within T&T. So expect 500ms outside of T&T.

This is pretty sad considering that dsl is capable of 20ms within T&T and on average we experience latencies of 32ms. However, the download bandwidth is quite nice for leeching.

I then decided to conduct a real world test. DotA of course... using the gamers pvpgn server.

Config: 2 laptops, router, patch cable
one laptop was connected to the router via the ethernet port and the wireless NIC was set to "router mode" Both connections were bridged and the bridge was configured with the EV-DO router as default gateway.

the second laptop was connected via the wireless NIC to the other laptop, and configured to use the EV-DO device as default gateway as well.


During the course of today, many games were played simultaneously on both machines either in separate games, or both machines in the same game, and guess what....

THEY DID NOT LAG!!!

I was pretty amazed at what I saw. That's not the word I was looking for, CONFUSED!!!.... ahh that's more like it. The latency (when in game and you type /p) was going crazy!!! but no lag... we talking low latencies of 45ms and high latencies over 1000ms.

I still haven't tested the edvice in CHaguanas where I live. If i get similar results I will keep it. If not, fiyah bun

[Paradoxxx]

Was it in an open area on campus? and can you give me an idea of how many bars your cell phone had in this area.

Doesn't UWI have a cell site nearby (mostly likely a source for internet)?

[mojo]

Yes, Yes, amd Yes.

The test was done in an open area, the Quadrangle.

My cell phone had full reception.

There was a cell tower in visible range to the west of the Quadrangle. (looking quite close to Engineering...SCARY!!!)

[Paradoxxx]

:(
I await the result of the bush test..

[androsovic]

meep.
Salt for chaguanas people then,i tested in chag and my dls only maxed out at around 200k, and someone else living in chag said they got that too.. :(

[Paradoxxx]

200k connection seems to be the norm based on the results of 2 other reliable sources.

[SPK]

Well once I get some cash on hand, I will be signing up as well to connect to my PC here in Grande...so once I get it, I will post up recorded speeds as well....

[opium]

so what is the price for this?? i tink my sister already made the switch and started to used dsl home, but i am not sure if we have switch to ev-do, i got a fricking tstt antenna next to my house so i always get full signal

[mojo]

Still havent gotten the chance to game in de bush yet, but I did leave some isos to dl overnight using a dl manager.

When I woke up this morning, i studied the bandwidth usage graph I got from flashget.

Average download bandwidth: 600kbps (75KBps)
Spikes were maintained for 30 minutes @ 888kbps (111KBps)
Bandwidth fluctuated for no apparent reason, and there were times when the download bandwidth was as low as 400kbps for up to 5 minutes. Still a lot more bandwidth than dsl.


As for a bonafide bush test, I would probably go with Andro results, since his area is a lot bushier than where I live. My signal strength as indicated by a coloured LED was always excellent. Probably due to the population of the village which I live in.

[Paradoxxx]

This is available to anyone?

[opium]

i just vaildated with spoilt seems that i am using ev-do home

and the connections is fricking amazing, we get 2.5mbps connections, and since i have no signal flux, i stay that way all the time

[mojo]

i thought that the maximum was 2.4Mbps...

Yes it is available to anyone, but uwi students egt special prices of course

[Hidden]

Damn .
Up in mausica it varies from 7 kilobytes all the way up to 120 with frequent timeouts.

Doesn't bug me though, I have both landline dsl and the Ev-DO running as a backup...but still..
I have a novatel Merlin 620v ,and I see there is a connector at the end for an external antennae...I wonder if that'll help alot?

[androsovic]

Still havent gotten the chance to game in de bush yet, but I did leave some isos to dl overnight using a dl manager.

When I woke up this morning, i studied the bandwidth usage graph I got from flashget.

Average download bandwidth: 600kbps (75KBps)
Spikes were maintained for 30 minutes @ 888kbps (111KBps)
Bandwidth fluctuated for no apparent reason, and there were times when the download bandwidth was as low as 400kbps for up to 5 minutes. Still a lot more bandwidth than dsl.


As for a bonafide bush test, I would probably go with Andro results, since his area is a lot bushier than where I live. My signal strength as indicated by a coloured LED was always excellent. Probably due to the population of the village which I live in.

grrr..i dont live in the bush!
anyways,i didnt test this at home (men dont lend their routers out,lol)it was tested by my friend who lives about a minute off the southern main road in chag. also, we played a game of warhammer when he was on his evdo and i was at home on dialup, 0 lag iwmc. The dialogue box didnt even pop up once,however he said that he tried a game of normal and it lagged like a mc,same with fps games...maybe it sometime-ish?

[Hidden]

It like a woman ...sometimes it does work nice, and if u doh play around with it enuff......sometimes it lazy.

[opium]

rts yuh feel de lag, but for fps u will loose really really bad because every little ms counts, this is why some ppl who have lower pings on fps generally get better scores.

btw dinesh wah u was doing in de back ah mausica?

[Hidden]

Living.

[SPK]

So where in UWI do I hadda check to do the signup for student special for the EV-DO?

[Hidden]

You can goto ANY Tstt centre and they can sign you up.
UWI id needed.

Btw: IF i have my wireless connection on(from my router) AND the evdo...which one does it use?:S

[mojo]

Windoes automatically chooses one of the devices as the default gateway.

You can do an ipconfig in th command prompt to see a list of network adapters and their default gateways.

Then do a tracert to any website and follow the hops to see which one Windows is routing through.

e.g. tracert www.trinigamers.com

[LARUTO]

i should see about signing up later this month, so people would know how well it works in areas surrounded by canefields.

[Paradoxxx]

Arite here is the para run down on EVDO, I got a router in under an hour from TSTT St Aug. Speeds in java were varied from 200-400k, signal strength was green throughout.

Its a pretty random service and depends on the number of persons connected to that cell site. Rural areas would beniefit from this alot. I have a friend who is within line of sight of the main cell tower in grande and he downloads betweek 50k - 80k.

Using the service in grande I get an orange signal (not as good as green) and get about 200kish connection, it varies.

I let the vlad meister check out the latency, he said the latency its 1.5s in warcraft where as with dialup its 2. He said that a perfect dialup is better than this as its more constant, during gameplay the lag would change with evdo.

As mojo mentioned the pings do fluctuate between a nice 100ms to 300ms when pinging LOCAL DSL hosts, which isn't bad but isn't 15ms :)

I havn't been able to test the device during rainy/overcast or any odd weather patterns. Its quite sunny outside in grande and the same can be said for java yesterday.

It is my opinion that EVDO is a super dialup and depending on your distance from the cell tower that is CDMA enabled you may get slightly better latencies than dialup but not as good as wired DSL (forget playing CSS on this). It does however provide alot more bandwidth than dialup and thats its advantage. I believe you can always fall back to dialup, using the creds from this account.

Yes you can play wow with it..
__________________________

Service is only available to UWI Students OR Businesses
Salt for residents for the while.

[piglet]

Anyone tested using the usb version? I heard the gateway version is out of stock...

How do the different evdo devices compare in terms of bandwidth/latency ?

[Paradoxxx]

get the gateway if possible, the USB thingy SUX!! the attenna portion of it is 2 weak and will give you a weak higher latency lower bandwidth connection. Practical for a laptop, dumb for a PC.

[Crixx_Creww]

we use these in carapal ridge in central and the speeds are fairly constant.
In the maraval road area of POS and pretty much anywhere in POS the cell sites are bogged and speeds drop to as low as 32k and simmer at about 56 k downloads for most of the time.

Diego martin is a different story where the cdma sites arent bogged and we have gotten as high as 112k downloads, constant for many many hours. great stuff.

Maracas test has been done and it is good. Downloading on laptop whilst driving to couva has been done and it is also good.

Driving to maracas and downloading had its dips but it was fairly constant and once on the beach, you may be surprised to know that it worked flawlessly with speeds at about 65 to 80 k downloads even when i couldnt get any mc reception on my mc bmobile fone (but digi fones had signal, go figure)
Black berry data was working from maracas as well.

[SPK]

Well I have been trying to get the service for the past couple of weeks, but apparently they are out of stock for all except the PC card devices...and the offer is essentially expiring tomorrow, so unless I get some form of luck and they manage to restock, then no special offer for me.

Although, did they even have the special with the gateway device? Cuz they only mentioned about the USB and PC card connections... :s

[Hidden]

My gf loves gilmore girls , and since she's out of the country I now have to download and send it to her.

I got 110K constant yesterday morning on a torrent..so all I can say is...EV-DO i love you ;)

[Paradoxxx]

Just now its going to be made public to everyone, when that happens PRESSURE!!! every man jack sucking up that bandwidth.

[cereal_killer]

/me hopes dinesh not pulling a queer as folk as a certain other forum member did

[eddoes]

i live in d bush where there is almost always no signal on my phone. I have recently obtained the tstt evdo and it is working wonderfully both here at home ( bush fields and cane fields area of gasparillo ) and in my apartment in st augustine. I have not experianced any lag whith my evdo in either location. For once i must say that tstt has done a good job..( knock on wood )

i was told by tstt customer representitives that the evdo is only available to uwi students and business customers only. The have not released it to the public as of date. In any case the only branch offering the deal is the center on the eastern main road and they and no more of the usb , pcmcia or gateway evdo modems in stock.

[Paradoxxx]

boy evdo is the ultimate way to get around a firewall :)
i hadda talk my boss into allowing SSH oui, with SSH and tunneling ANYTHING is possible.

[LARUTO]

i finally got my EVDO unit, connected at 230 k... feels good to be back.

[Hidden]

That had better be kilobytes?

I get a decent connection these days, 60kilobytes a sec for the least...mornings I get 120 constant.

[Paradoxxx]

Yep its a leechers friend!
Latency isn't as good though

[LARUTO]

i not getting DSL in my area any time soon, so this is exactly what i need at the moment

[Paradoxxx]

aye it can play dota :)
and you can download those kewl thingys from youtube

[Hidden]

porn?:):):):):):):):):):)

[LARUTO]

DOTA.... maybe one of these days, but not right away, i only started playing Frozen Throne this week so i will try DOTA in a month i guess.

just did a bandwidth test and i got 467 kb

[Paradoxxx]

it gets much higher trust me :)
i hit 1mbit already and ppl have been rumoured to get 2mbits

Its short lived though,

[LARUTO]

sweet, a colleague of mine used his is TSTT jerningham Avenue branch and got 800 kb

[mojo]

when i now get mine i was crossing 1mbit frequently... but it kinda slow down recently.

I gave it to a friend to try for this weekend, and he getting over 1mbit as well... interesting stuff.

[phoenix31tt]

this is going over 1mb doing exactly what? banwidth tests etc? or actually dl of files... and what programs/protocols... http/ftp/bittorrents? lemme get some details... cuz the 1 i have in work... max i get was say 156k dl for a http site.... and about 65k ftpin from my brother who is on a 2mb/s dsl

[Paradoxxx]

interesting enough I am getting over 1.3 mbit in multiple tests with the max reaching 1.54mbs odd.

Phoenix your downloads are accurate. Your connection and your downloads are measured in 2 different units, 1 being mega bits and the other mega bytes.

To convert between the 2 divide by 8000.

1.54 mbits/s = 1 540 000 bits/s
dividing by 8000
1.54 mbits/s = 192.5kbytes/s (thats your download)

Ususally upload speeds and download speeds are not syncronus, your upload may be less than half your download. I assume thats the case with your brother, he can't send(upload) at 2mbits and probably has a 512k upload.

To do a bandwidth test, we all adhere to the TSTT standard
bandwidthtest.tstt.net.tt

[phoenix31tt]

interesting enough I am getting over 1.3 mbit in multiple tests with the max reaching 1.54mbs odd.

Phoenix your downloads are accurate. Your connection and your downloads are measured in 2 different units, 1 being mega bits and the other mega bytes.



yeah my bad i thought i was readin mB... which i usually use to rate dls... ok well i guess u guys are well within the range of what i've seen with the evdo

[phoenix31tt]

1.54 mbits/s = 1 540 000 bits/s
dividing by 8000
1.54 mbits/s = 192.5kbytes/s (thats your download)


and para inst more like 1.54mbits/s = 1540 kbits/s (i.e. 1 mb = 1kb)

and then you jus divide by 8 (because 8 bits = 1byte :))

giving u

1540/8 = 192

same answer but ur conversion from mb to kb was wrong

[Paradoxxx]

Oops the kilo should have been dropped. Atleast you have an idea of whats going on.

[phoenix31tt]

lol yay i not totally n00b :)

[Hidden]

isn't it 1024kb = 1mb :)

[trinithemc]

My brother scored a box from work , we got some time to play around with it : Bandwidth fluctuates between 600k and 1.5 mbits , i guess each tower is hooked up to a T1 line and everyone in your area shares the bandwidth . So while its the sh!t now , in places like POS and westmoorings where everyone will want to get it, it will get slow .
Pings are 300ms + so it wouldn't be any better for gaming than dialup , DOTA on local server should play good though.
We can only get the full bandwidth from FTP and HTTP sources , P2P in most cases can't go past 40-50k , TSTT may have capped it somehow, or we need more upload to search for sources and que etc.

[LARUTO]

it small and neat too!

[androsovic]

isn't it 1024kb = 1mb :)

1024 Kilobytes = 1 MegaByte

Data is transferred in bits. 8 bits = 1byte

Therefore, 1000Kilobits = 1 Megabit

[mojo]

actually andro may have made a typo there, not sure id he noticed. The following applies:

8b=1B
1024kB=1MB
1024kb=1Mb
1000kbps=1Mbps


b=bit
B=Byte
k=kilo
M=Mega

[lithium]

Can anyone tell meh any type of internet service in TRINIDAD that can make me get at least 90 ms in source? dis muder**** 256k shit is rel shit

[xecutive_mc]

Well I've been using the ev-do connection for quite some while and the average bandwidth for me approximates 500k. I took the router rather than the USB device and I didn't get any lag while playing dotA, whereas it wasn't too favorable with q3. As for downloads, speeds vary between 50-80kbps. Initially, when i signed up there were exceptional speeds between 100-200kbps (max download speed was 210kbps) but it's TSTT which is self-explanatory. Service is only satisfying for the first couple of weeks, but this could be as a result of congestion as well. All in all, i have to say in MY opinion the ev-do worked better than dial-up for ME.
Note: PC isn't on a network.

[Hidden]

Mines is running pretty shitty ATM. Mc uwi students
mcmcmcmc

Good thing I still have a landline dsl...