How-To Geek

I recently got a TP-Link TL-MR3220 Router. Every 30 minutes or so, with the dongle in, it keeps dropping the connection. With the dongle directly in the laptop the connection is stable and long-lasting...hours. the router is only 2 meters or so from the laptop and the signal is excellent...Tx is on high and I've tried different channels. The 3G base station is in line of sight and only a couple of hundred meters away at most...75+% signal strength, 6-10Mbits/sec D/L and 2-3Mbits U/L.

I've extended or removed idle times to no avail. There's quite a few parameters to alter in the router settings but I'm dumb in this area.

I bought the 3G router because having the dongle sticking out the side of the laptop has caused me to break a dongle and two usb ports. I'm down to one usable port.

In laptop

In 3G router

Rick

Think of a regular wireless telephone router (which it can also do but not connected here in wired mode...that's a mains cable you can see)) but it has a usb port to run a 3G dongle. The 3G signal is picked up by the dongle which is then relayed wirelessly via the router to the laptop as normal via the upright antenna for the wireless home network. This way also allows to share a 3G signal between devices.

You need the 3G dongle to connect to the telephone network which in this case is 3UK. The ideal solution would have been for laptop manufacturers to integrate a broadband network sim slot into the laptop but as far as I know they are very rare....mine certainly hasn't got one.

Yes. 3.75G actually. :) It averages 6Mbits bandwidth but I have tested 17Mbits a couple of times on Speedtest.com. It's more than fast enough for my browsing style which is mostly reading.

Yes. i did that as soon as I got it.

The cheapest you can do it on my network which is probably the most 3G-orientated network here works out at 23 dollars a month for a 15GB allowance. This is comparable to a wired network in price but the download speeds can be much faster and the allowances are more or less uncapped on wired. I personally have an expensive PAYG option which is 23 dollars for 3GB a month but that works out about right for me most months data-wise so in reality I won't really gain anything financially enough tying myself to a contract...I don't watch high-drain movies or games.

Just checked your 3G prices and they are very expensive....strange seeing as we view the US as a cheap country generally. Here's 3UK's PAYG (the dearest option) prices against the US's monthly plan (cheapest option) price.

A 15GB monthly plan on 3UK is 23 dollars against 50 dollars for 5GB in the US...wow! That's three times more data for half the price.:0

Have you checked 3G/4G USB Modem Compatibility List for TL-MR3220

i think its may be the router turns the dongle off when you are not using it . it should reconnect automatic when you connect to the internet

the setting is the max idle time , set to 0 should stop it