In my quest for reasonable internet access at my house in the middle of nowhere, this solution seems to be the final chapter.
My first setup was with a Vodafone UMTS Connect card in a PC in the computer. Sadly, the signal strength was just not strong enough to maintain a workable connection.
I picked up a WRT54G3G at the local Media World, and popped in the express card version of the Vodafone connect card. With a quick linksys firmware upgrade, it was up and working, but still week signal strength. I Switched to X-WRT white russian and moved the router to the roof. Mounted in a water tight box with and external wifi antenna, the signal strength was better, but still I was dropping too many connections.
I picked up a new SIM from 3, another Cell carrier in Italy. 3 has built their network in the last few years and focused on data and video, so I reasoned that they should give better data support. I was right. The signal with the 3 SIM in the Vodafone connect card was stronger, and the data transfers were faster with less latency. (~300ms vs ~150ms) Now all I needed to do was get 3 to activate their higher data payment plan on my SIM.
"We can't do that." the store told me. We can only enable the 5Gig a month plan on a SIM purchased with a new modem. The standard plan, the one I used to test the 3 network, only allowed for 50MB a day. That doesn't last very long. So, we bought another 3G modem. This one, a USB model. At the time, I just wanted the SIM with the 5Gig Plan. But I awoke the next morning with an idea. I dug out an old PCMCIA USB 2 card, plugged it into the WRT54G3G, and plugged in the new USB 3G modem. a few quick hacks at the usbserial loading, and I was connected.
Yes, that's Vesuvius in the background. Monte Somma, to be specific, which is the peak on the left in most photos of Vesuvius.
You can see the whole set here.
My first setup was with a Vodafone UMTS Connect card in a PC in the computer. Sadly, the signal strength was just not strong enough to maintain a workable connection.
I picked up a WRT54G3G at the local Media World, and popped in the express card version of the Vodafone connect card. With a quick linksys firmware upgrade, it was up and working, but still week signal strength. I Switched to X-WRT white russian and moved the router to the roof. Mounted in a water tight box with and external wifi antenna, the signal strength was better, but still I was dropping too many connections.
I picked up a new SIM from 3, another Cell carrier in Italy. 3 has built their network in the last few years and focused on data and video, so I reasoned that they should give better data support. I was right. The signal with the 3 SIM in the Vodafone connect card was stronger, and the data transfers were faster with less latency. (~300ms vs ~150ms) Now all I needed to do was get 3 to activate their higher data payment plan on my SIM.
"We can't do that." the store told me. We can only enable the 5Gig a month plan on a SIM purchased with a new modem. The standard plan, the one I used to test the 3 network, only allowed for 50MB a day. That doesn't last very long. So, we bought another 3G modem. This one, a USB model. At the time, I just wanted the SIM with the 5Gig Plan. But I awoke the next morning with an idea. I dug out an old PCMCIA USB 2 card, plugged it into the WRT54G3G, and plugged in the new USB 3G modem. a few quick hacks at the usbserial loading, and I was connected.
Yes, that's Vesuvius in the background. Monte Somma, to be specific, which is the peak on the left in most photos of Vesuvius.
You can see the whole set here.
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