Travel Technology - Cingular Aircard 860 users, a fix is at hand!

I'm not sure if I posted this earlier; I've run across many of the problems previously reported here with the U860. Namely, the card being braindead when searching for networks, refusing to lock to 3G, etc. The problem isn't the card, it's the idiotic Cingular software! Naturally, Cingular doesn't offer an update yet. :mad: The fix? Use Sierra Wireless' Watcher client! You can download (http://www.sierrawireless.com/resources/software/8x0/U4.4.1-Build-0799/AC8XX_NB_ENU.msi?carrier=cingular) it here. It allows you to force the card onto specific networks and solves 100% of the issues I was having.

The card now connects more quickly and reliably than any EVDO card I've ever used and the weak signal performance is PHENOMENAL! I'm sitting in my room at the San Francisco St. Regis with an observed field strength of -106dBm. Data rates?? ~800Kbps downstream and ~300Kbps UPstream. Latency? Pinging Google I'm getting 168-180ms. For a mobile card, that's phenomenal. And this is at what is almost NO signal.

Thanks for the hot tip! I couldn't use it in 3G mode at home for some reason (I'm also in SF) but using this manager instead of the Cingular one, it works!

I also noticed that uploads are a lot faster than with the Cingular app. The only reason to use the Cingular app would be if you were using a cell phone to connect using Edge or something.

Thanks for the hot tip!

--Doug