Inexcusably slow mobile broadband speeds

[joule]

Hello, everyone. I recently bought a new laptop, the Dell Inspiron 1720, customized online to fit my needs. I included the Sprint mobile broadband card with this. After I received the laptop, I went ahead and activated the card via calling the appropriate number. Within minutes I was able to connect to the internet. No problem there.

Though, after connecting to the internet, I noticed extremely low d/l and u/l speeds - dialup-like. Nowhere near broadband or even DSL for that matter. e.g., I was downloading Adaware 2007 last night and my maximum download speed was 22.4Kbps. Ugh.

Before you ask, I have called Sprint's tech support but their service is just completely shit. I am sorry to say that, but it is. Their "techs" have no idea what they are talking about. Not to mention how many times I was "accidentally" hung up on. Just the primitive response of "delete your cookies and restart". :|

So here I am, asking any and all for your help. I am just about fed up with this. I should be getting speeds of 350Kbps and upwards. My Sprint icon in the taskbar usually indicates 2 bars - Very Good, sometimes 3 bars. I should be getting 4 bars of signal strength. So something is very wrong.

Computer specifications:

Windows Vista Premium 32-bit
Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz
2GB DDR2 RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8600m GT
Dell Wireless 5720 Sprint Mobile Broadband (EVDO Rev-A) Minicard

Latest Windows and updated drivers. No detected malware, spyware, viruses, or adware.

Possible causes: Unnecessary conflicting network services running? Closed ports? Someone stealing my bandwidth?

Screenshots:

http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/5716/mobile3ds2.jpg
http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/4066/mobile5sg1.jpg

 

[Laivasse]

What's the supposed speed of your package? Try this speedtest - it's a British site, so it might show you a trifle slower than you really are, but it will give you a clue as to your real speeds, especially if you try it at different times of the day. Other speedtests should be easy enough to google for.

Get Netmeter to monitor your bandwidth usage and see a netgraph of your network activity.

And get TCP View from Sysinternals to monitor port activity and traffic.

I suspect you're just falling victim to traffic shaping on the part of your ISP - basically many ISP's now try to screw over any P2P traffic by crippling and throttling it, because P2P users commit the outrageous crime of actually using a lot of the bandwidth that they're paying for. This would not affect web-based downloads from sites though, so you need to clarify where the slow speeds are happening.

It's unlikely that someone started leeching off your wireless from the very moment you got it. Firewall or router port forwarding shouldn't make a different for HTTP downloads since port 80 should be automatically be forwarded in any sane router or firewall (correct me someone?). Malware is unlikely, since your task list doesn't look especially suspect and scans turn up nothing.

What's also quite likely is this 'Sprint' wireless adapter is a POS.

 

[Asus]

If you are supposed to be getting ~350 KByte/s download speeds then I assume your package has 2.8 Mbit or more for rated bandwidth. Right?
If it's the other way around, 350 Kbit being bandwidth then your download speeds would be <40 KByte/s.
Do the bandwidth test at speakeasy, speedtest or thinkbroadband.

I hate calling tech support. hehe
But a lot of times they need you to go through the real basics before they get anywhere relevant. Just don't hang up or hope they don't hang up on you. :x

I'm not sure how anyone could be stealing your bandwidth. It isn't the same tech nor as wide spread as WiFi. Closing ports would only stop people from the outside starting a connection with you, not if a program on your PC tries to connect somewhere.

 

[joule]

What's the supposed speed of your package? Try this speedtest - it's a British site, so it might show you a trifle slower than you really are, but it will give you a clue as to your real speeds, especially if you try it at different times of the day. Other speedtests should be easy enough to google for.

Get Netmeter to monitor your bandwidth usage and see a netgraph of your network activity.

And get TCP View from Sysinternals to monitor port activity and traffic.

I suspect you're just falling victim to traffic shaping on the part of your ISP - basically many ISP's now try to screw over any P2P traffic by crippling and throttling it, because P2P users commit the outrageous crime of actually using a lot of the bandwidth that they're paying for. This would not affect web-based downloads from sites though, so you need to clarify where the slow speeds are happening.

It's unlikely that someone started leeching off your wireless from the very moment you got it. Firewall or router port forwarding shouldn't make a different for HTTP downloads since port 80 should be automatically be forwarded in any sane router or firewall (correct me someone?). Malware is unlikely, since your task list doesn't look especially suspect and scans turn up nothing.

What's also quite likely is this 'Sprint' wireless adapter is a POS.

The supposed speed of my package is 3.1Mbps. Though I should expect speeds anywhere from 350KBps to 1.4Mbps.

I've downloaded NetMeter and TCPView.

Here is how they look:
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/8830/mobile6id9.jpg

If you are supposed to be getting ~350 KByte/s download speeds then I assume your package has 2.8 Mbit or more for rated bandwidth. Right?
If it's the other way around, 350 Kbit being bandwidth then your download speeds would be <40 KByte/s.
Do the bandwidth test at speakeasy, speedtest or thinkbroadband.

I hate calling tech support. hehe
But a lot of times they need you to go through the real basics before they get anywhere relevant. Just don't hang up or hope they don't hang up on you. :x

I'm not sure how anyone could be stealing your bandwidth. It isn't the same tech nor as wide spread as WiFi. Closing ports would only stop people from the outside starting a connection with you, not if a program on your PC tries to connect somewhere.

Yes, you are right on the first part.
I already have done the bandwidth tests, several times. It's brought back shitty results each time.

I'm not talking about closing ports. I'm talking about opening closed ones.

 

[Laivasse]

Ah, I didn't understand that this wasn't normal WiFi.

If you are supposed to be getting ~350 KByte/s download speeds then I assume your package has 2.8 Mbit or more for rated bandwidth. Right?
If it's the other way around, 350 Kbit being bandwidth then your download speeds would be <40 KByte/s.
Do the bandwidth test at speakeasy, speedtest or thinkbroadband.

This is a good point that I just realised. A bit of reading on Sprint reveals that average bandwidth is expected to be 400-700kbps, or 1.4Mbps in certain areas.

Perhaps this new tech really is alien to me, but I understand a 1.4Mbps bb service to be one that gives you maximum download speeds of 140-ishkb/sec. If I'm understanding this right then, with a 350kbps service, dl speeds of 22kb/s are really not too far off what you should expect, allowing for slow speeds from some servers, wireless interference, etc...

edit: as for that screenshot, it just shows that your connection is idling. Not much info there... those programs are more of an info tool for you if you suspect suspicious port or network activity. I don't think that's the case here though.