Anybody know wesolutions

[dieternelles]

I live part of the year in South Africa. The remainder of the year I am in Germany.

Because I am only here for part of the year, I always used to suspend my contract with Helderberg Wireless Solutions before I left for Germany after Easter each year. Now that I am back I have seen that Helderberg Wireless Solutions are owned and run by Kinsey Internet. After waiting for two weeks for a technician to come and make my radio working again I decided to look for other options.

Connecting with my 3G card is starting to get expensive.

I found a note from wesolutions amongst all my mail. Seems they saw my aerial on the roof and it looks like they targeted me so I am thinking of calling them, but before I give them any money I first need to know from others if they are any good.

Does anybody use them or know them?
Are they a reputable company?
Will they also disappear while I'm in Europe next year?

Dieter

 

[warwickw]

Hi Dieter,

We've debated a similar offering by another crowd offering a product which is just not economically viable todo. The view in that thread was basically stay away from them.

It's impossible to offer a good service and experience for the user when selling an uncapped product for those prices. At some point its going to get seriously congested and your experience will be bad.

I'd rather suggest you go with a reputable WISP there are a few that cover the area really well, here is some in no particular order :

Cape Connect
GBay
Wireless Online

These 3 I can recommend they are here to stay, and have good networks.

 

[portcullis]

A while ago we put in a radio link to a guy who lives up near the top of Schapenberg in Somerset West. For two months the guy was happy as Larry, browsing the web, doing his emails and downloading the odd file.

Next thing he calls me and tells me that he's not happy with our service and that we must come and take our radio away. I told him it was his radio and I didn't want it. I then went to see him with printouts of his MRTG graphs to try and establish where the problem lay. He wasn't interested, he just wanted rid of us. It was obvious that somebody had got to him. As we say in Afrikaans "hy's afgevry".

A couple of days later his traffic just stopped. I called him and he told me that I must come and fetch my "rubbish" - a RB411 with a R52 and a 24dBi grid less than three months old, rubbish?

I got my binocs out and looked up at his place and saw that the kit we'd put in had been removed and replaced with other kit and that the man not only had a grid on his roof, but suddenly also had two sectors pointing to the rest of the suburb.

I would not be surprised if wesolutions or one of the other newly establised "all you can eat" wisps saw his aerial and his house high on the hill and went to him with an offer that he simply couldn't refuse - along the lines of "we'll give you free internet if you let us use your roof to repeat from".

We never even considered repeating from his house, but whoever stole him from us must have had a real need for his site.

I'm of the opinion that this is not the best way to build a commercial network.
Firstly the client's shown that he can easily be turned, so what stops the next person from stealing him?
Secondly, if the customer starts hitting the line hard with something like Vuse and if they start shaping his traffic (assuming they know how to do that), he could easily pull the plug on their high site and suddenly all downstream clients and linked high sites will find themselves without internet

Though shalt not steal...

 

[portcullis]

One thing that these guys who build their networks using people's houses need to remember is that those high sites have a zero monetary value when the time comes to sell the network.

I'm talking with two guys who are selling their networks at the moment.

Any tower that doesn't belong to them that their equipment is on gets valued at the replacement value of the equipment only. I'm not interested in taking over a lease on some pole or tower where the landlord can cut my power at any time because he doesn't like my face. I'm also not interested in being on a pole or tower where my competition has to climb past my equipment to get to theirs.

Any high site on somebody's house gets a zero value - for the reasons detailed in the previous post.

My personal favourite is still the shared rooftop. It's one thing being the only WISP that shares a tower with a two way radio company or that shares a roof with a cellular company, but it's a different kettle of fish when the WISP shares a rooftop with a couple of other WISPs. Apart from the obvious security issue, there are also issues with frequencies and antennas being simply too close together. You can have your stuff running nicely, then some other guy comes and erects a pole next to yours and puts a huge antenna on it. Even though you're not on the same frequency, there's still enough interference for your distant clients to experience connectivity problems.

 

[kilos]

Portcullis I have noticed even with WiSP's renting a highsite, power gets cut when the landlord of the highsite needs to do maintenance and RF cables are cut if there is any interference into their own equipment.

Seems like a dog eat dog world for some operators, thats why its truly better as you said if you own the site, tower & power. You are at least in control and not at the mercy of other operators. (I know not always possible)

My favorite that I saw where the new WiSP on the block install his grid right in front of your grid on a rented site.
Seems to be no standards from the Municipalities as to how the equipment should get installed on water towers etc, some sites are terrible with cables running on the ground to a battery box, not tied down.

No conduit
No pride in workmanship
Water in the battery box

 

[portcullis]

Kilos,

Considering how many WISPs are for sale at the moment, I suspect there's a move out there amongst certain people to cobble networks together, get a couple of clients and then contact one of the larger WISPs, offering the network and clients for sale.

This thread never ceases to bring a smile to my face.

There used to be a classic example on the roof of the building next to PnP Gordon's Bay where the WISP had his kit in a black plastic box (the type you buy from Plastics 4 Africa) out in the open, but I think the tik koppe may have made off with some of the stuff as the entire high site's been replaced with what looks like a two way radio antenna.

 

[HeinzM]

Hallo Dieter

Wenn du mehr Informationen ueber Wesolutions haben moechtest, melde dich bei mir. Ich bin unter 082 762 8916 erreichbar.
Gruss
Heinz

 

[techfreek]

Wesolutions are cool...

I know wesolutions. I have been using them here in gordons bay for a will. I have the 512 uncapped line and it is stable. I have no problems with it. There technical department contacted me a while back just to find out if everything is ok and i am still happy. My previous ISP didnt even answer there phones when i needed help. I dont know much about them but i can say that there service and support is great.

Just because a company is new, doesn't mean they cant deliver. What i dont like is the other guys bad mouthing other companies that they dont even know.

 

[shadow_man]

I know wesolutions. I have been using them here in gordons bay for a will. I have the 512 uncapped line and it is stable. I have no problems with it. There technical department contacted me a while back just to find out if everything is ok and i am still happy. My previous ISP didnt even answer there phones when i needed help. I dont know much about them but i can say that there service and support is great.

Just because a company is new, doesn't mean they cant deliver. What i dont like is the other guys bad mouthing other companies that they dont even know.

RAS - If you were so happy with their service why did you google their name? Stop googling your own damn company. Go away, I have no wish to see anymore self advertising.

J

 

[j@w]

Never heard of Wesolutions in my life before but yes, stay away from WISPs that resell uncapped ADSL or make use of Telkom ADSL lines in general for their bandwidth (like almost all WISPS) and use houses for highsites.

I operate a WISP, which we run from Somerset West but cover most of the Peninsula aimed at SOHO/SME but feel free to private message me. 0.5 ~ 30mbps internet connections with same upload speeds aswell & low latency for gaming local & international.

YOUR PREMISES >> HIGHSITE >> HQ >> QUALITY FIBRE INTERNET

and not like conventional wisps below,

YOUR PREMISES >> HIGHSITE >> WISP >> ADSL >> DSLAM - EXCHANGE >> ETC, ETC >> INTERNET.

Secondly, if you have a good contract with a mast operator they cannot just switch off your power and preferably make sure you're the only WISP on the mast. We're talking about Somerset West here, Helderberg College doesn't allow any new masts on the mountain.

 

[portcullis]

I operate a WISP, which we run from Somerset West but cover most of the Peninsula aimed at SOHO/SME but feel free to private message me. 0.5 ~ 30mbps internet connections with same upload speeds aswell & low latency for gaming local & international.

This is indeed how it should be done. I take it then that you have managed to get fibre into your NOC in Somerset West.

Secondly, if you have a good contract with a mast operator they cannot just switch off your power and preferably make sure you're the only WISP on the mast. We're talking about Somerset West here, Helderberg College doesn't allow any new masts on the mountain.

There's always the protea farmer next door

 

[j@w]

All thanks to that MTN installing massive refrigerators & big mast right infront of the farmer's view . No more masts on the mountain. period. Last one went up a few weeks ago. (talking under correction)

But it is probably a good thing, the mountain is getting cluttered.

 

[portcullis]

Is it MTN?

The engineer who was on site all the time told me it was for Multichoice.

The deal there was that the mast right next to it has to come down once that one's completed.

 

[j@w]

ag, you're right its Multichoice, I'm extremely tired, so got a bit mixed up. What I heard was, that they wanted "to upgrade their existing tower a little bit", because as you can see that current one is rusty. So the did an impact study or something. But from what I gather is that they gave everyone the impression that it will be similar to the current one but then they stick on that MASSIVE TOWER that looks like it is surrounded by fort knox & milk manufacturer coolers. And this all on the doorstep of the farmer's house. So there is some battle going on between the farmer & Helderberg College.

 

[portcullis]

That's basically the same as what Lyndon told me. I was also told that the protea farm falls under Stellenbosch / Winelands council, while the college falls under Cape Town Metropole and that the planning permission was applied for in Cape Town and Farmer Man knew nothing until they started digging holes and proceeded to pour 33 tons of concrete for the first footing. I was working on the mountain the day they poured those footings. I looked down to that platform from up where we were and saw a queue of concrete trucks coming up the mountain and realised "hier kom 'n ding".

Farmer Man needs to just be careful about making too many waves. He does after all rent agricultural land from the college and they could give him notice tomorrow and tell him to take his proteas and go plant them somewhere else. Just like they did with the bee guy a couple of years ago and the guys who made the fake rocks / water features.

The question now is, when is somebody at HBC going to insist that the "rusty" tower be removed?

Talking of rusty towers, next time you're up there, have a look at the one right next to the Police compound. One leg has rusted through and has been held in place for more than a year with a splint.

I believe Amoebia and Helderberg Wireless are renting on that one.

There's an even better story about the new small tower on the bottom platform that suddenly appeared on the unused slab of concrete, but I'm not in the mood for being slapped with a libel suit, so I'll keep my mouth shut about that

 

[j@w]

They can start a soapy with all the drama that is going on here in Somerset West when it comes to wireless. It will be a prime time hit! Hehe.

Yeah I heard that MHWS aka Kingsley Internet "could be fatal to climb" hah, but I've never really inspected it close up.

I was higher up, but got a better deal downwards, so I decided to rent there now, got a nice contract with a really awesome company to work with. Not like MOST of the back stabbers up there.

Kingsley Internet is busy popping up Highsites in the Northern Cape now, hence they don't have service here.