Friday 21 October 2011

Overheard in the Office


The Chairman has just taken delivery of a new Vodafone data dongle to use while on the move. On trying to use it, it fails to find a Vodafone data connection, despite the Chairman having a Vodafone mobile next to his computer with full signal strength.

After 18 minutes of sitting in a phone queue, a technician answers and enquires as to the problem.

Chairman: I have just taken delivery of one of your data dongles and it can't find a network.

Vodafone: Is the dongle flashing?

Chairman: Yes - two green flashes every 3 seconds.

Vodafone: Then it's working fine and just can't find a 3G connection.

Chairman: But why am I able to use my mobile and connect to the internet on a data channel?

Vodafone: Because your mobile is picking up a 2G signal.

Chairman: So your dongle is worse than using a mobile?

Vodafone: Yes, I'm afraid so. If you move around the building you may pick up a 3G signal.

Chairman: I've been all over the building and can't get a connection. The device is bloody useless - I may as well set my mobile into Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot mode and use it to connect my laptop to the internet. At least that works all the time.


Got home in the evening and tried it again - nothing! I Googled "Vodafone 3G coverage" and it's pitiful. I'm sending the bloody useless heap of junk back to Vodafone. Don't know how they have the gall to sell it.


6 comments:

Ms Scarlet said...

I am glad that I am baffled by dongles and therefore too ignorant to even contemplate buying one.
Sx

Chairman Bill said...

SB: I was under the impression you are intimately familiar with dongles.

Ms Scarlet said...

Tsk!
Sx

Alan Burnett said...

You seem to be under the impression that incremental numbers equate with improvements - thus 3G is going to be better than 2G. Just think of Jaws and Jaws 2 : it is not always the case.

Steve Borthwick said...

I've got one of those, it works great (and abroad)? When it can't find a 3G network it usually drops back to 2G (which just means a slower connection) - I'm surprised at your experience. Sometimes I have to manually get it to hunt for networks and manually choose the one I want (often it picks the slower one), especially abroad, but that's fairly easy to do through the little utility that comes with it.

Obviously there's a joke in here somewhere about comparing dongles, let's just take it as read.

Roger said...

I have one of these from o2 and mine is also useless. I almost never get a 3g signal (I had one in Dublin and one in Hanover). It works on gprs/edge but it is so slow one can hardly download emails. The only time it is uselful is if there is a o2 hotspot in the hotel to which I am allowed free access instead of the usual £5 an hour or whatever. There are 3 of us in our small company and none of them work properly. I know of one person who has a dongle from Orange and that works really well.