Spped test?

[Granty]

Hi my gf has just bought a 3 Huawei E160G usb modem stick (mobile broadband) back of box says HSDPA data transfer speed upto 3.6 mbps - the guy in shop said some get upto 8 meg, when I did dome speed tests they came up at between 40 - 52kbps, on sites like MSN the pics take a while to apear, my home spped is 8meg and seems ten times faster than this, the signal bar has 10 bars we are between 1 and 0, although it seems to hold a connection for a couple of hours although has lost connection twice, we were told we are in a high signal area .
What I would like to know is, is it fair to use these speed tests for mobile broadband, i guess it is because they measure download and upload speed, and has anybody got any good or bad exp with these devices

[Granty]

Hi, could anyone thell me that if you have a very low signal doe's this affect the speed the internet runs at, I know this is a newer way to connect to interent but I would appreciate input from anybody that has any ideas