8ta Experience

[8ta Network Optimist]

Hi all, thought I will post this for those who struggle with poor speeds and frequent drop outs , poor VOIP etc on 8ta 3G .

I live in Australia and helped my folks with their pc setup when on holidays recently.Before, skype used to drop out randomly , frequent internet disconnections and sometimes good to very poor voip quality and speeds.

The antenna they did have up was a 9dBi Yagi which I replaced with a 14 if not higher dBi Parabolic grid antenna ( 600mm x 400mm) outside. (2100GHz)
I have used mwconn to align the antenna with sound to make pointing the antenna in the direction which gave the best results . ( This could be achieved also by using MDMA) .

The line quality and stability improved 100% and I can now communicate with voice and video with very clear sound and video quality without any interruptions.


Signal strength improved from -72dBm to - 60 dBm

Speeds are :

Upload 1 - 2.5 Mbps , depends on peak times
Download 5 - 10 Mbps , depends on peak times

Jitter : below 10 and at times 20 - 30

 

[Telkom]

like

 

[sajunky]

This works if problem is signal quality. I see 8ta already aplauded it.
8ta problem is network instability (variable ping times peaking up 1.5 second). You can't really use Skype nor gaming, as delays such long as 1.5s give the same result as lost packets.
Signal quality can add trouble to this, as above is observed with good signal quality.

 

[Glipsie]

Sorry to burst the bubble, but I've been using an antenna since day 1 (11dBi gain). Signal according to MDMA is -59
Sometimes its just a network thing:


(No JHB or Pretoria test because they currently aren't working)




Tonight is a bad night. Skype breaks up constantly to the point where you tether your phone and rather go through a different provider.

I've also had "network engineers" out to my house twice, and had a guy tweaking the tower for a week (while monitoring my connection). The situation gets fixed for a couple of days (maybe a week), then goes back to this.

 

[8ta Network Optimist]

Hi, there are antennas and there are antennas.
Here in rural areas most people will use a high gain parabolic grid antenna as it gives superior results to a yagi especially if the signal bounces off trees etc.
With the 9 - 11dBi Yagi (only medium gain= Coat Hanger)they did have ; the line quality was crap like you describe above and even though the signal strength came down to -62 at times they experienced the same poor quality.
I agree there is more than likely tower congestion due to 8ta not having enough towers up and each cell on a tower can only provide that much power. ( therefore one should also look at the EC/IO value and not just signal strength). It is also not to say that your closest tower will give you the best result in line quality and speed.
You might find a further tower give you slower speed but a stable connection which is worth the trade off.
See Poynting antennas and ask for "the ALL" the biggest bastard antenna they have , if they have a 21 dBi and a size up then take the size up. at least 14dBi or above and preferably a grid antenna.
You also have to make sure that your USB modem is getting enough power , preferable get a powered hub with USB 3.0 if your pc do not have a USB 3.0 port with a big enough power supply to maintain that.
Also check that the power saving for the USB port is not turned on.
ALso make sure you use the default DNS servers.

I guess I could have also sat here on a forum and complain all day to 8ta. They are not going to fix your problem for you and you have to take your destiny into your own hands and fix it yourself or cancel the contract, pay more for less download and change to Vodacom or something else.

Send me a private message and I will happily run you through the fault finding process I did on that 8ta setup.

 

[Telkom]

@sajunky

Nearly every situation is different. We use VOiP and gaming is happening on 8ta.

@8ta Network Optimist (Cool handle btw)

We will have to disagree and say that we have resolved a number of customers issues. PM us any issues and we will go as far as we can to assist.

@Glipsie - we have logged a new query for you as well. We want to get this issue resolved. Your new reference number is 1719476.

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[Dirk44]

This works if problem is signal quality. I see 8ta already aplauded it.
8ta problem is network instability (variable ping times peaking up 1.5 second). You can't really use Skype nor gaming, as delays such long as 1.5s give the same result as lost packets.
Signal quality can add trouble to this, as above is observed with good signal quality.

I totally concur, I successfully used 8ta with 11db external antenna for our voip line for about 6 months but the jitter gradually degraded to the point were it is now unusable for voip, latency varies between 60 and 2000 ms,
got a 3gb cell C special and separate modem for our voip, works great without antennas...

 

[Telkom]

I totally concur, I successfully used 8ta with 11db external antenna for our voip line for about 6 months but the jitter gradually degraded to the point were it is now unusable for voip, latency varies between 60 and 2000 ms,
got a 3gb cell C special and separate modem for our voip, works great without antennas...

Hi Dirk44

This was not reported to us. If you don't report it, then we will not be aware that you have an issue.

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[Glipsie]

@Glipsie - we have logged a new query for you as well. We want to get this issue resolved. Your new reference number is 1719476.

Thanks, I don't really have time to debug this at the moment (hence why I haven't reported anything) but I'm happy for them to monitor my connection again.

 

[sajunky]

I guess I could have also sat here on a forum and complain all day to 8ta. They are not going to fix your problem for you and you have to take your destiny into your own hands and fix it yourself or cancel the contract, pay more for less download and change to Vodacom or something else.

You are lucky at your location. Hope it remains that way. In my location we tried external antennas, there were technicians on the site couple of times. Currently not using any external antennas, as connector on my modem broke up. And I am not getting any worse, network stability seems to be bigger issue than signal quality.
8ta tried to fix it by giving me assigned profile 16Mbps, my modem is capable 21Mbps. It means I won't be able to negotiate higher order modulation (QAM-64). But such tinkering don't work, problem is elsewere.
I don't say service is unacceptable, but I don't do gaming at all and stopped using Skype for this reason.

 

[Glipsie]

Thanks, I don't really have time to debug this at the moment (hence why I haven't reported anything) but I'm happy for them to monitor my connection again.

Case has been closed because I don't have the time to let an engineer in during office hours (Mon-Fri 8-5). I will report again when I have the time.

Just curious, what do people who don't have flexi time (i.e. your normal 8-5) do? Take a day off work so 8ta can run some tests?

 

[Telkom]

Case has been closed because I don't have the time to let an engineer in during office hours (Mon-Fri 8-5). I will report again when I have the time.

Just curious, what do people who don't have flexi time (i.e. your normal 8-5) do? Take a day off work so 8ta can run some tests?

If you had insisted on a technician after hours from the Social Media Team, we would have made a plan for you. Some areas do have technicians who work late. There are also various departments who work late as well.

Contact us and let us know if there is a way we can help if need be.

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[Glipsie]

If you had insisted on a technician after hours from the Social Media Team, we would have made a plan for you. Some areas do have technicians who work late. There are also various departments who work late as well.

Contact us and let us know if there is a way we can help if need be.

Regards,
Social Media Team

Thanks, I will keep this in mind.

 

[8ta Network Optimist]

 

[BLIXEMPIE]

@sajunky

Nearly every situation is different. We use VOiP and gaming is happening on 8ta.

Just LOL. NOTHING is happening op 8ta. Explain to me how one plays any online game with a 350ms+ ping on a line that keeps disconnecting.

 

[8ta Network Optimist]

Just LOL. NOTHING is happening op 8ta. Explain to me how one plays any online game with a 350ms+ ping on a line that keeps disconnecting.

I day trade for a living and I have a fixed ADSL 2 + line for day trading. I will never ever use any wireless internet connection for trading as it is so unreliable. You sound like a serious gamer so I would suggest you spend some money and install a fixed line ADSL or fibre optic connection ( if you do not have already).
I have started this thread to give people some advise what I did to make a poor connection working. I do not see how negative comments would help anyone fix their poor 8ta connections.

 

[BLIXEMPIE]

I do not see how negative comments would help anyone fix their poor 8ta connections.

Stating facts bro. If the facts are negative then that ain't my problem. The 8ta guy said you can game on 8ta's network when you can't.

 

[DTBA]

I am back on 8ta for the moment , getting 70ms ping so playing is fine local and diablo was fine with 300 ms ping oversee

 

[8ta Network Optimist]

 

[Linctagon]

It also seems like 8ta intentionally gives priority to prepaid data users over contract users.

I have done extensive testing with two sims, one the 2gig promo and the other and Internet 5 promo contract sim.

Download speeds on the prepaid sim on average were between 6-8mbps. Never anything below 4. The ping was on average around 35 which is wonderful. Then I put in the Interent 5 promo sim into the exact same stick and the exact same location at the exact same time and the performance is garbage. Never anything higher than 3mbps download and pings are always 80 and higher. Gaming on a line like that is a joke.

Now apparantly these two packages use the exact same coverage, so how is it then that one performs great and the other is useless? I made a thread about this and still got no explenation from the 8ta rep.

All I want is a simple answer. Why does the 2gig sim perform so well and the Internet 5 promo sim so badly? Just give it to me straight. Is it because they put me on a tower further from my home? Is it because 8ta give priority to pre paid data and shafting the contract users? There most be a logical explenation.