Wireless Online & Uninet .. ..

[Hunted]

Hi there everyone,

About two weeks ago I decided I want to go the wireless route for my internet connection and I felt the need to share my experience/story with you guys and at the same time ask a few questions.

OK, after looking at possible candidates in my area (I live in CPT, Uitzicht, Durbanville) I decided to go contact Wireless online to come do a site survey. I requested this via their contact page. This was done over the recent long weekend we had (1 May Sunday). I however gave them a call on 3 May just after the long weekend was finished and they said they got my request and that they will be doing the site survey the next day (WO moved offices that weekend). I was very impressed with that response time. Ok back to my story... The tech guy came out to my place and got on the roof and took his laptop with him, but just by looking I was told that I would be unable to get signal due to line of sight issues.

I was hoping that they would have some sort of line of sites towards Paarl or Stellenbosch mountains since I have clear view toward them, but as per the techie the line of sight toward the Bottelary and Kanonkop (I think) was obscured by trees and buildings respectively.

Seeing that WO has another customer in my area, it wasn’t good news at all.

Pondering about this for a day or so I thought I'll start looking at other ISP's that might have high sites, towards those mountain ranges I mentioned earlier. So I phoned Uninet. I told them that WO did a survey and couldn't get a signal, but that it seemed that no "electronic test" was done. They told me they don't have a high site towards the mountains, but still suggested to do a survey since anyway to make sure if I'm in luck with them or not.

Monday 9 May the Uninet techie came out for the survey. When I got here he was done already and told me that he could not get any signal from their tower, but did get a signal from WO's “Winks tower” (Bottelary). He told me he got a -75 signal test and with 5 different interfaces. He explained that it's a good signal and that I should be able to use WO’s service. Now, I must state that I don't understand much of the technical stuff, so please feel free to explain if you want.

With this info at hand I immediately phoned WO and told them what happened with Uninet and that I would like them to come do a survey again.

WO was here again today and phoned me to tell me yet again that they can't get a signal.

This is what baffles me; Why would Uninet tell me I should be able to get wireless, but not with them, but with WO, but WO says I will not be able to!

Just for reference: The Uninet guy used a white flat panel box to do his signal test with and used it with a Linux based laptop. I think the WO guy used a grid to do his test with, but he used a windows based laptop.

After this longish post and sort of being confused about this situation, I have a few questions I would like to pose.

1. Is-75 dB signal strength really a good signal?
2. What would "5 different interfaces" mean?
3. Will a Linux OS based system be better then a Windows based OS to get a signal? To my knowledge it shouldn’t, but maybe it can!
4. Do anyone know of a wireless ISP in CPT that does have a high site in those mountains?

If you have any comments please feel free to do so.

Thanks for reading the post

Regards,

[freeek]

LOL!! One thing is good to see that they got their act together in terms of speed. Before you would have to phone them a million times before they come out.

Out of your questions I can only answer number 3 for certain. Linux and windows don't make a difference. Uninet flat panel box is ther standard equipment with the Acess Point inside. So basically they would be logged into the flat panel and it will reveal to them the signal strength / communication quality. For example:

WINX 000B6B3319B3 3 67% 802.11b
ATS 000B6B331CF0 8 69% 802.11b....ATS is in tygervalley .... Im Southern Suburbs

What you should do is phone WO and tell them to call Uninet, give WO the techie's name. WO and Uninet know each other quite well. If they can sort something out for you.

[Hunted]

LOL!! One thing is good to see that they got their act together in terms of speed. Before you would have to phone them a million times before they come out.

Out of your questions I can only answer number 3 for certain. Linux and windows don't make a difference. Uninet flat panel box is ther standard equipment with the Acess Point inside. So basically they would be logged into the flat panel and it will reveal to them the signal strength / communication quality. For example:

WINX 000B6B3319B3 3 67% 802.11b
ATS 000B6B331CF0 8 69% 802.11b....ATS is in tygervalley .... Im Southern Suburbs

What you should do is phone WO and tell them to call Uninet, give WO the techie's name. WO and Uninet know each other quite well. If they can sort something out for you.

Uninet & WO do know each other very well, since they were one company at a stage. Just hope there aint any bad blood between them. I will give them a call on Monday again and ask them to try and work something out.

Apparently there is 2 other peeps around me somewhere that have WO and the techie from Uninet said that it's possible to install a mini AP on one of the other guys to act as a mirror for me to get "line of sight", but I think WO is reluctant to do that. Funny how Uninet is assisting me by suggesting solutions to get an installation done at WO. Uninet apparently do this if they have problems like this.

Oh and Telkom aint an option for me with ADSL since I LOVE to hate them, like most peeps here.

Thanx for your response freeek.

Cheers,

[brick]

Hi!

Don't have personal experience with them, but when I was doing research for my own connection, I came accross them. They seem to have extensive coverage, the most proffesional web page of any WISP i've seen (don't know how much this says anyway), good prices and expensive installation.

I'm in Stellenbosch, so I chose the only WISP in the area I was aware of. It's great how lack of choice simplifies one's life

Cheers
Neilen

[Hunted]

Thnx Brick I will try them too.

Just something I forgot to mention is this: When I first spoke to WO the helpdesk guy he told me that they are going to double up on the bandwidth for their clients. Meaning the current 64kbps will be going to 128kbps and 128kbps to 256kbps, without a change in the monthly ISP fee. That makes them much more of a choice then the other WISP's out there..

If the guy just told me that to get me to do the site survey, I can't say, but I'll take his word for it.

Like you said maybe I don't have a choice to go for netcontacts.biz due to my location.

[Razer0]

Why dont you buy an Access Point for your mate who has an Inet connection, get yourself a WIFI 802.11g/b card with an antenna (or a wifi USB dongle cupped in a small to medium parabolic dish) and leech off his connection??

Offer to pay half for his monthly payments.. or something

[Hunted]

Why dont you buy an Access Point for your mate who has an Inet connection, get yourself a WIFI 802.11g/b card with an antenna (or a wifi USB dongle cupped in a small to medium parabolic dish) and leech off his connection??

Offer to pay half for his monthly payments.. or something

My friend who has got Wireless is on the other side of the Hill 10+km from where I stay. Unfortunately I don't know the peeps here in my area . Might need o make a plan tho. I do have a wireless card tho, got it with my GA-K8NXP-SLI MOBO. It's a Gigabyte GN-WPMG card, so It's 802.g/b compatible.

I am considering installing the gear myself after another test from Uninet on Wednesday. Carl from Uninet has been very helpfull indeed. If they get a good signal again to WO's tower then I'll do it and just ask for an account with them. Hope they will allow it. If all else fails and I struggle I'll get a chainsaw and cut down some big a*s trees on the farm next to me LOL. (Nah Just kidding).

So, lets see what happens.

Cheers

[freeek]

I did that. Basically I bought all my equipment from Scoop(have to buy from Miro now, you need a sanoa) and then got WO after awhile changed to uninet, now on adsl...

Remember WO's home package is only full speed after hours... If they do increase they bandwidth(capacity) that is a good sign. It shows growth of the company.

With the equipment I got now. I pick up about 10 AP's, which includes AP's from
uninet(UCT),WO(ATS,WINX),Wavestream(a whole lot of them) and some other private local ones(the ones im connected to )

SL3054AP3+ 108Mbps 802.11g Wireless Access Point R738.10
HY-15-OMNI 15 dBi Omni Directional Antenna (VP) - 2.4GHz R1,270.50
NP-2401-040 Power over Ethernet Injector (CAT5) - with 47v PSU R260.15
ENCL-IP65 IP65 Weatherproof Enclosure R108.90
AP-38x300 38mm Aluminium Mast - 3m R96.80
some network cable, screws and other things to put up in the area.

With this you will literally pick up everything around you.(I stay about 25k's from ATS and I get 69% signal strength)

[MaD]

Remember WO's home package is only full speed after hours...

Amazingly Uninet's daytime speeds on Home packages are the same as at night. A 256k connection will dance around the 30KB/s rate 90% of the time.. haven't used WO yet but with Uninet, no complaints.. pings to local gaming servers are awesome too, between 10 and 20 to MWeb.

freeek what make is that AP? I bought an X-micro 108mbps AP for around 500 beans, works like a charm.. even the Poynting patch antenna is awesome, its directional but you can be 200m away from it and even if its pointing away from you you get signal.. ot bad for 180 bucks hehe..

[Razer0]

You could always make your own omni for about R50-R70

http://www.amsterdamwireless.net/workshop-15-12/3.html

[Hunted]

I did that. Basically I bought all my equipment from Scoop(have to buy from Miro now, you need a sanoa) and then got WO after awhile changed to uninet, now on adsl...

Remember WO's home package is only full speed after hours... If they do increase they bandwidth(capacity) that is a good sign. It shows growth of the company.

With the equipment I got now. I pick up about 10 AP's, which includes AP's from
uninet(UCT),WO(ATS,WINX),Wavestream(a whole lot of them) and some other private local ones(the ones im connected to )

SL3054AP3+ 108Mbps 802.11g Wireless Access Point R738.10
HY-15-OMNI 15 dBi Omni Directional Antenna (VP) - 2.4GHz R1,270.50
NP-2401-040 Power over Ethernet Injector (CAT5) - with 47v PSU R260.15
ENCL-IP65 IP65 Weatherproof Enclosure R108.90
AP-38x300 38mm Aluminium Mast - 3m R96.80
some network cable, screws and other things to put up in the area.

With this you will literally pick up everything around you.(I stay about 25k's from ATS and I get 69% signal strength)

Hmm this does sound like a good idea... I'm unfortunately not on par with my knowledge on what hardware I would need (so thnx for this) or what is good or not, but I would guess that this setup of R 2474.45 would be much better then what you would get as standard installation from the WISP's?

I am however dissapointed to hear that WO is only "full throttle" after hours When I spoke to them I was let to believe they have no restrictions on the their packages. Damnit man 64k is so slow anyways. I will give them a call again tomorrow.

Maybe I'm lucky after another survey from Uninet and then I can maybe use them. (Not holding my breath though). I'm sure this stormy weather here aint gonna help matters...

And thnx to everyone that posted so far. Giving me very good options so far. Keep them coming...

Cheers

[MR Yoghurt]

F*#!ing Canadians !!!!

[Hunted]

Hi again guys,

Firstly MR Yoghurt, What are you smoking? .. .. ..

Some time has past since I last posted this thread and wanted to share the latest developments.

After the last post I made it took Uninet more then 4 weeks to come around here again to redo their site survey. I was sent a mail by Carl to state that he still didn't have any luck. This was +- 2 weeks back.

During this time I also contacted Netcontacts to come do a survey, but it seemed the support guy never informed his site team to come do a test. After 3-4 weeks past I gave them another call to ask what happened and the guy said someone will phone me to confirm a date and time. True to his word I got a call from them on a Saturday morning to ask if they can do the LOS test.

The two guys came around and spend more than a hour on my roof trying all sorts of antennas to get signal to their tower with limited success. I was really impressed with the effort the techies put in to try and help me out. They kept trying and trying. After all the effort they said they found lots of no and lots of poor and only one fair signals results. This confirmed to me that it's just not meant to be.

Last Thursday I received a call out of the blue from Netcontacts techs to state that they have thought about the problem I have and that they think they could help me if they used a "booster" on the setup. I was really impressed with the determination with these guys to get this to work.

BUT, something like this comes with a price though. I was then given the shock that it would probably cost R 4 500 for all the equipment if they succeed with the tests.

Thinking about it for a week I decided to go for it and asked them to come do the test. I know I'm nuts, but what can one do if Telkom is your other option. So, now I wait for the test to take place, which I hope will be on Friday. I'm not getting my hopes up, but if this fails I will have to make peace with the fact it was not meant to be...

Thanks again for reading my story and if you have any comments on Netcontacts other then the one bad one I have seen on here then please post your comments. The more the better...

Cheers

[Ratwiz]

Hi Hunted

I am with Netcontacts right now and am having a lot of ****. In the 2 months + I have been with them they have still not managed to get my P2P to work. I was told by Carey that he would try help me and I have only been able to use it after 7pm for 4 times only. And that was when he had manually set it up for me. Then a while ago when I was getting really p1ssed off I sent him an sms asking him to help me sort out the mess or I would get ADSL and I got a reply like this:

"Please take your business elsewhere. We will no longer be supporting P2P as the content is illegal."

When I chooned him that not all P2P is illegal he told me not to get smart cos he's a lawyer .

I have phoned tech support numerous times to try get the problem sorted out since Carey won't help me anymore and still it only works if they manually enable it. I have tried on 3 different comps, all different programs like Limewire, KaZaa, Bittorent, all to no avail.

Hunted, I was in the same situation as you before. Also just wanted to bypass Telkom (which is really impossible if you think about it unless you get two-way satellite broadband) and after all this I am thinking of getting ADSL 512k and sharing the connection using a Wireless router to three close neighbours and splitting the cost.

We had to pay R2800 for this equipment and now I sit with a shoddy connection. It has been fairly reliable for browsing and ftp but for games and p2p it isn't good. Then again you would think that my incessant nagging would prompt them to have fixed my P2P at least but they have not .

To end my rant. Hunted, if you are willing to tie yourself up to this company I would strongly advise against it. R4500 is a lot of money and I still have yet to see what I am going to get for my equipment when I sell it back to them at the end of the month (I will fight like all hell to get the full amount back). An ADSL router is like almost a tenth of that price of that wireless equipment and you will be able to use it if the SNO one day comes here . Anyway it's your decision in the end, search the forums here using the keyword "megaserve" to find out more about them.

I hope this has managed to help you,
Good luck

[Daywalker]

Hunted there are companys in CPT that can solve your problems in Durbanville dont give up just yet. And also dont resort to ppl that cant do proper wireless that they have to use "boosters" "amps". Because they are the guys making it impossible for other ppl to get decent signal quality. What ppl dont understand is that an amp boosts noise too and generates tons of noise across the band. Hav a look do a scan and for sure you will pick up ms-** megaserve are killing the air with their 5W amps on a DAMN omni above the quarry in tygerberg. So dont give up hope even contact the two other guys you have called and ask them whether they can bounce you off a nearby clients house or building, still be cheaper and better then a booster.