should at&t usbconnect mercury be slow?

17 years ago

I finally got dsl for my desktop, and a usb wireless thing for my laptop. The desktop is an older HP Pavilion with XP and a slow Celeron processor. The laptop is a Compaq Presario F500 with AMD Athlon X2 and Vista, less than 2 years old. With dialup, the laptop was faster than the desktop. I think the dsl on the desktop is pretty fast. But it seems like on the laptop with the AT&T USBConnect Mercury wireless thing, it is almost as slow as dialup was. I clicked on a youtube video on the desktop and it played right through. I tried the same video on this laptop, and it plays a few seconds, stops and loads some more, plays a few seconds, loads again, all the way through the video. Is that normal? This thing is kind of pricey ($59 per month) to be as slow as it is on this laptop, I think. Also, on the laptop, I will click on a web page and it will open, but won't show the content until I click refresh. It does that a lot now but didn't with the dialup.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (6)

owbist
17 years ago
Try using the speed test offered free by dslreports. If you are refused try returning at a different time because in busy times they restrict non member's use to allow members full benefits. You could join of course, it is free much like here.

Remember too that at different times of the day useage is different. Perhaps you tried a very popular item at a busy time

Do you have a short video stored on either machine or CD you could use to see if either machine is slow watching that?

Here is a link that might be useful: dslReports speed test site
big_al_41
17 years ago
try this speed test...it give quite a bit of info

http://www.speedtest.net/

Big Al

Here is a link that might be useful: Speed test
PKponder TX Z7B
17 years ago
I have the Sierra USB Connect 881. It's faster than dial up, but I have to mute the speakers and hit replay to watch YouTube videos.

Pam
grandms
17 years ago
I'm wondering why you chose the USB wireless aircard for your laptop instead of just networking it with your desktop. With a regular wireless router, your laptop will be connecting wirelessly with the DSL service and you'll have the same speed as on the desktop. Unless there is another reason for using the USB modem, such as travel, I'd return it---hopefully you have a trial period---and set up a LAN to network your two computers.
irislover7b
Original Author
17 years ago
On the second suggestion above, speedtest.net, it said "InstallAware Wizard cannot start setup....". So I tried the dslreports site. I wasn't sure what to click on, so I tried "Simple Mobile Speed Test". It said 147 kbit/sec, 0.646s latency, 11.512s d/l time. I tried it again, a few minutes later, and it said 90 kbit/sec, 3.43s latency, 5.16s d/l time. That was around 10 am eastern time this morning. I use the laptop around that time of the morning and also around midnight for a few hours. I couldn't use a regular wireless router because one computer is at home and the other is at work. I also go out of town some, so I decided to get the USB wireless thing instead of paying for a dsl line on my business phone. I didn't know it would be slower than dsl.
grandms
17 years ago
Cellular wireless is faster than dialup and satellite, but is not as fast as DSL. Are you receiving a strong ATT signal? Where I live I can only use Verizon and have a good, strong signal. Still debating whether to go that route and give up my satellite service. Both are expensive, with the wireless being $10 more per month than my satellite service. My neighbor uses the Verizon wireless and claims it is much faster than her satellite was.

But the final answer is that cellular wireless will NOT be as fast as DSL at most times.