Following Hong Kong’s PCCW switching on their dual carrier 3G HSPDA+ last week, Telstra has switched on their HSPDA+ NextG system this week allowing theoretical download speeds of 42Mbps.

The service is presently available in all capital city CBD areas, selected metropolitan areas, associated airports and in more than 100 regional locations.

Telstra is quoting “typical” wireless broadband download speeds in the range of 1.Mbps to 20Mbps. They have released a new high speed modem and new business plans for this service.

Utilising dual carrier HSPDA+ 3G will serve Telstra for a number of years, while it continues testing 4G LTE system which are expected to be rolled out sometime around 2013.

For more information:-

• Telstra’s 42Mbps Next G broadband goes live – ITWire
• Telstra Unveils Ultimate Wireless USB – Gizmodo

Updated:- 4:30pm – Arriving back from a business trip overseas, I see Telstra have applied an update to their NextG (3G) wireless broadband system that has crippled Far North Queensland wireless broadband speeds.

The Symptoms

I arrived back from an overseas trip on Sunday. Wireless broadband performance was OK when I passed through Sydney, but flying into Cairns for an overnight stay I started noticing problems with slow connection speeds. My Bigpond Connection Manager had 5 bars of signal, but was extremely slow loading pages. (You know there is a problem when it takes over a minute to load Google’s home page.)

The speeds were so slow, many of the programs on my machine (such as email) failed to connect.

Trying to connect multiple times, I would occasionally get a fast connection for a few minutes, before it reverted back to the low data speed.

If I stayed connected continuously, the connection would occasionally speed up for a minute or so, and then slow back down again for a long period of time.

I did some testing using the speedtest.net site. My typical wireless download speed on a 7 Mbps (Mega bits per second) NextG wireless modem is 1-1.5 Mbps, occasionally getting up to 3 Mbps, but this new issue is causing speeds of 20-50 kbps speeds, (which is less than dial-up), and is crippling on a computer system. To the average user, this would give a similar experience to exceeding your monthly allowance, but slower.

Finally arriving at home in Port Douglas on Monday, I was having the same connection problems.

Further investigation has showed the same effect also happening with my iPhone 3GS.

Others Affected

Sitting in a local phone service business today to do some work using their high speed internet connection, 3 people have come in over the period of an hour complaining of slow speed problems on the NextG system. Several other people around town mentioned they have also experienced problems for the last 2 days.

The Problem

I first came across this problem with a computer system in remote central Victoria two months ago, and at the time put it down to signal issues, but now with three devices with different modems having problems it’s becoming obvious the source is a Telstra NextG system software update that is throttling speeds.

I expect the software update was first applied in Victoria, and has only recently been applied here.

Having seen this sort of thing happen before while working with cellular operators overseas, I thought it may be an issue with a software update (such as a HSPDA+ or database upgrade) being applied and effecting older modems (I use the Sierra Wireless AC875 wireless card, and my remote computer uses the blue Maxon BXP3-EXT modem), but that would not explain issues with the iPhone 3Gs.

The Solution

I have gone through the process of talking with Telstra technical support today. After many calls being diverted to the Philippines, I finally reached someone with some technical knowledge, and the issue has been escalated to level 3 support. I was informed the issue would be given a ticket number within 6 hours, and am waiting on an answer.

However, knowing the problem has been around for several months in Victoria (and is still there), I have little confidence in it being resolved any time soon.

A Bigpond wireless user for 3 years (without too many issues), I rely on the internet for business, but having no connection will eventually force me to change providers.

I searched around town today for an OPTUS modem, but they are all sold-out. (Not sure if the shortage is normal, or brought on by the current issue). Vodafone and Virgin Mobile modems were available, but they often piggy-back on the bigger networks in remote areas, so I would have seen no improvement.

Interesting other info

• While talking with an Australian based technical support person this morning, I mentioned being routed to the Philippines a number of times, and they had not been able to solve the problem. I was informed that all technical support for Telstra/Bigpond broadband is now provided from the Philippines. CEO David Thodey has been talking recently about Telstra’s poor customer service, saying how he wants to improve it, but I do not see how moving everything to the Philippines improves things. The quality of the VOIP connection used is typically very poor (ironic for a telecom company), and the different accents can be difficult to follow at times.
• I tried to do some system testing on using my iPhone in field test mode, but it looks like the latest Apple update has disabled the field test mode following the “antennagate” issues with the iPhone4. This stops the users looking at the actual signal strengths in dBm, therefore not being able to prove Apple wrong.
• Shortcut the convoluted Telstra telephone system by calling Technical Support directly on 133933.

Is your Telstra iPhone 3Gs having problems accessing the Settings/Phone/Telstra Services/Bigpond mobile for iPhone option?  Can’t access the internet?  The reason may be the applications setting has been incorrectly configured by Telstra.

Since I purchased my phone last week, I had been wondering why my iPhone could not connect to the bigpond network when I chose the Bigpond for iPhone option. The browser would load with the URL wap.telstra.com/wap, but it would eventually time out as it could not connect to the server.

Digging around in the iPhone apps store today I found a solution.

The default Telstra setting for General/Network/Cellular Data Network/APN is “telstra.internet”. This needs to be changed to “telstra.iph”.

If I make the change, I can load the Settings/Phone/Telstra Services/Bigpond mobile for iPhone option, it links to the URL wap.telstra.com/wap, and forwards to m.bigpond.com, where the screen is displayed correctly.

Alternatively call Telstra’s dedicated iPhone support line on 1800 iPhone (1800 474 663), but do it during Oz work hours so your call is not routed overseas to India or the Philippines where it will be lost in the ether.

Hope this helps.