forums.fibble.org

[bflashnick]

I am a T-Mobile USA customer, and I have moved to an area that is 20 miles outside of T-Mobile coverage. I don't want to give up my good rate plans and for the most part great T-Mobile customer service. However now that I have my T-Mobile Blackberry Pearl setup for DUN via my Mac I am seeing really slow... and I mean REALLY SLOW! data speeds. According to the Speakeasy - Speed Test I am getting a Download speed of 162kbps (20.3 kb/s) and an Upload speed of 8kbps (1 kb/s) upload even though my phone says it is receiving EDGE coverage. Is there anything that I need to do to change my settings to compensate for this?

I know that SunCom is a really bad regional carrier, but now I'm stuck... T-Mobile used to roam on Cingular (now AT&T) and when I used to visit here I was getting upload speeds of 50-60kbps when using my Motorola V360. Using Manual Network Selection now it will connect to Cingular/AT&T but I can only get GSM coverage... no data service. This really isn't working. I'm a photographer and I frequently have to FTP 500-600K images to clients on deadline. The 4-5 minutes it was taking at 50-60kbps was acceptable the 8kbps just isn't. Can anyone out there help me out?

[grant]

What firmware version is installed on your phone?

[bflashnick]

I am using v 4.2.0.64 (Platform 2.2.0.37), I noticed on another post/site that there is a newer version available, but I'm not sure how to load it to the Pearl. I'm using Missing Sync for Blackberry, and I can't quite figure it out. On another note, every time I try to FTP a file the connection starts out strong and then falls rapidly to a data rate even slower than the results of the Speakeasy test, and eventually times out and disconnects about half way through the file, usually after approximately 9-11 mins. I love every other aspect of this phone, but I'm getting really frustrated not being able to transmit on deadline from location on deadline. So any help you can offer would be appreciated.

[bflashnick]

Ok, I just updated to v 4.2.1.107 from T-mobile, and now I can't connect at all. I keep getting an error message from internet connect stating "Could not negotiate a connection with the remote PPP server. Please verify your settings and try again."

What is going on here?

I didn't change any of the settings, and no luck. I went through the whole setup process again, and still no luck. My connection log for my most recent attempt reads.

Sat Sep 8 13:55:39 2007 : Connecting via BlackBerry 8100.
Sat Sep 8 13:55:39 2007 : Making EDGE connection.
Sat Sep 8 13:55:42 2007 : Serial connection established.
Sat Sep 8 13:55:42 2007 : Using interface ppp0
Sat Sep 8 13:55:42 2007 : Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/cu.Bluetooth-Modem
Sat Sep 8 13:56:14 2007 : LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests
Sat Sep 8 13:56:14 2007 : Connection terminated.
Sat Sep 8 13:56:37 2007 : disconnect script failed

On the mac side I'm using an iBook G4, with a Dlink DBT-120 bluetooth adapter, on OSX 10.4.10

Any ideas? Any Good Mojo? It would be great to get this working.

[grant]

Actually, 4.2.1.107 has definite issues with tethering. Basically, you have to pull the battery between tethering sessions in order to reconnect successfully. I haven't found a way around it yet, but it does work reliably at least.

4.2.0.64 doesn't have that problem, but suffers from a different issue - severe upload performance problems, as you noticed.

My suggestion would be to update to an OS other than the one from T-Mobile. There are instructions on doing so over at blackberryforums.com - you'll need access to a PC to do the update. The OS I've had the best luck with is the 4.2.1 release for TIM Italy (another carrier). It doesn't suffer from either of the problems mentioned above. Don't worry about putting a non-T-mobile OS on your phone - everything's still in English, and you even get all of the same T-Mobile branding.

[bflashnick]

Grant... you are a genius. I just loaded the TIM - Italy OS to my phone, and data is flying both directions... I hope you understand how happy I am about this... Even did a victory lap around the house... It is actually moving fast enough that I forgot to turn airport back on and I'm writing this post while connected via my Pearl. It turns out the problem wasn't SunCom's network rather my T-mo phone's OS. With the 4.2.1.102 from TIM - Italy my speakeasy speed test results were:

First Result:
Download Speed: 152 kbps (19KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 54 kbps (6.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

Second Result:
Download Speed: 139 kbps (17.4KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 61 kbps (7.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

Third Result:
Download Speed: 146 kbps (18.3KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 71 kbps (8.9 KB/sec transfer rate)

Not to mention that my 2000 pixel jpegs, (saved at 500K) are going up via FTP in less than 2 minutes, with the original setup it was timing out with only 55k of data on the server... This really saves my butt on time sensitive assignments, and saves my wallet from having to pay for a USB/Edge or EV-DO data modem (not to mention the service fee). I can't thank you enough for putting this script together and helping me troubleshoot this. I owe you big time.

-Brett
_________________
Flashnick Visuals
My Blog - The Frame

[yyaayy]

[bflashnick]

firmware is a computer program that is embedded in, and runs your mobile device, digicam, MP3 player, etc... Think of it as the same thing as an operating system on your computer, only very very very device specific.
_________________
Flashnick Visuals
My Blog - The Frame