Vodafone PocketWifi Trouble
Ever since I got the PocketWifi after falling for the Vodafone advertisements to extract 3 Mobile broadband users, I’ve had internet access troubles. Either doesn’t connect or connects without internet access which is absolutely useless!!! Power off then power on the PocketWifi didn’t help. Trying to get help from the Queen Street mall was absolutely useless, so turned to Google.
On the Vodafone support forum I was joined by fellow PocketWifi sufferers. There was a posting by M7D Vodafone advisor to load the normally automatic network values with some hard coded values:
Gateway = 192.168.1.1
Netmask = 255.255.255.0
DNS #1 = 203.21.113.40
DNS#2 = 203.21.112.40
Amazingly the hard coded values worked much better. The PocketWifi tended to connect successfully most times, but often I was getting the connection without internet access. Really pissed off, I phoned the Vodafone support. On their terminals the consultant said all should be good. I’d wasted close to an hour turning PocketWifi on and off. The consultant then said I should “reset” the unit. Take the battery cover off and find a sharp pencil to reset the PocketWifi.
With this knowledge, I found that I could fix the internet connection until 5/05/2012 when nothing would help as shown below.
PocketWifi reports no internet access
Next day after moving from East Brisbane to Hawthorne at around 11:45am, trying access Google or Yahoo mail using either Chrome or FireFox browsers failed dismally!!!
The signal level was still 5 bars as I’d had in East Brisbane earlier.
PocketWifi access reports time out
To get a local Wifi connection working, I had to remove the M7D Vodafone advisor hard coded values.
This Optus Wifi works all the time 24/7 without any worries much like the Amaysim broadband driving my Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tablet broadband.
Reboot and disable the PocketWifi, the local Wifi connection works as expected.
Fine, take a drive back down to East Brisbane with the notebook, the PocketWifi connects but doesn’t connect the Internet!
Bugger, drive back to Hawthorne and try again. Everything works just fine.
Either the PocketWifi or local Wifi work without any worries!!!
Why didn’t Vodafone reply to to my forum message where I specifically said the Vodafone network is stuffed?
Why hasn’t Vodafone addressed the PocketWifi trouble at http://www.productreview.com.au/p/vodafone-pocket-wi-fi.html .
So now I just have to figure out how to get rid of my dodgy Vodafone PocketWifi contract.
Dropping the internet has already cost be two $42 online test fees. Brainbench and IKM don’t accept broadband connection dropping so often. They see this and an attempt to cheat the test.
AVOID VODAFONE BROADBAND !!!
I will definitely get an Optus or Telstra broadband connection next.
