The great 3G data card road test

Scenario 1: Driving through central London.
3G coverage may be limited in the rest of the country but driving through the capital should be a good opportunity to see it at its best.

T-Mobile
This card picked up a 3G signal through the London traffic, and managed to retain it, with intermittent outages when it switched to GPRS. On 3G it offered a connection speed of 160Kbps. By the A4 it was on GPRS, sometimes in excess of 50Kbps.

One problem with the T-Mobile card was its inability to establish a VPN connection, with neither IPSec nor SSL VPNs working at all. Both were fine over Wi-Fi, even when using the T-Mobile client software, but as soon as we switched to GPRS or 3G our VPN servers didn't want to know us.

Orange
Due to circumstances beyond our control and unlike the other cards which were already installed and running on the test machines, we had to install Orange's offering in the car shortly after leaving. But despite assurances that the device and accompanying software were easy to set up, things proved otherwise. This is unlikely to be a hardware issue as Orange uses the same Novatel U530 UMTS card as O2 and T-Mobile. We found we could ping remote computers, so there was obviously a network connection, but no browser or IM client could find the Internet. Having tried everything to get the card working in transit, we decided a more thorough attempt would have to wait until the next service station.

Vodafone
Just before conducting the test we received a new version of Vodafone's client software which included Wi-Fi support. In the spirit of adventure, we decided to update on the move. The operation proved fiddly as the original software proved reluctant to relinquish control. But after two attempts we'd managed it.

The Vodafone card then maintained a constant connection to the Internet. Occasionally, especially when we passed through built-up areas, it would drop down to GPRS. For example, around Hammersmith the connection-speed suddenly dropped to just 7Kbps, before recovering to 50Kbps, hitting the heights of 106Kbps and settling back around the 100Kbps mark (according to its own client).

As we left London via the M4, the Vodafone card maintained a 3G connection, often as high as five bars on the signal meter.

O2
Even at this early point in the trial, we were warming to O2's client software compared to the others. 3G connectivity was good too, although at one point it appeared to have dropped down to GPRS (shown by a green flashing light), when it then claimed to offer 50Kbps. It was soon back to 3G, offering the theoretical maximum speed.