BitCo Consumer Review

Hi ruhanstander

One of our sites has been running on battery since 21:30 last night and the batteries are finally depleted.

As soon as power is restored we will be back up and running 100% again.

Thanks Eskom.

Garth
 
Hi
I have my application in for BitCo 5Mbps service, I just want to know if there are any towers in the LazerPark (Honeydew) area over looking Eagle Canyon.
Thanks
 
MoRpHiN01 said:
Hi
I have my application in for BitCo 5Mbps service, I just want to know if there are any towers in the LazerPark (Honeydew) area over looking Eagle Canyon.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Hi Morphin01,

We have a large tower overlooking the Honeydew and Lazer Park area

Eagle Canyon does have lots of trees but if you can see over the tree line you should have clear LOS to the tower

Mike
 
So seeing as load shedding looks like it will be a permanent fixture for the time being, how big a UPS would I need to power my internet connection for around 3 hours? So it will be the Linksys router, the 3Com switch and the dish.
 
Sweet, thanks for the info. My site survey is tomorrow. From my study I see the entire ridge of Lazer Park with 3 towers with clear LOS. I was just wondering if it was one of those.
Thanks
 
So far my experience with Bitco has been pretty terrible.

Had a phone call about 2 weeks ago, asking if a site visit can be scheduled for Friday the 21st at 12, I confirmed the appointment and all was on track.

On Thursday the 20th I called Richard De Jongh (The Sales Person dealing with my query) and asked him if they could reschedule the appointment to 2PM for Friday so I can be at home for the install, he said he would make the changes and get back to me.

Nobody ever got back to me confirming the schedule change.

Fast forward to Friday, 12pm came, no technician, 2pm came, no technician.

At 2:30 I phone BitCo to find out WTF is going on, only to have a voicemail left on my phone as I'm waiting to speak to Richard.

Bronwyn (the scheduling lady) left me a voice message, saying the installer is on his way, but running a bit late cause of traffic.

So I rush home to make the appointment, only to be called by family at the house, telling me the installer had already left, saying there was "blockage" and that I would get a report in 2 days time.

The said installer was not even on site for 5 minutes total and refused to wait another 5 minutes so I could talk to him to understand what the issue was.

So now, no BitCo, no 10mb service, and still no report.

Not a very happy customer at this point, and as I said to Bronwyn over the phone, quite a few of my colleagues at work are considering the service, including the company I work for (Fibre services etc), but now I'm rather hesitant to recommend the services based on my experience.
 
MoRpHiN01 said:
Hi
I have my application in for BitCo 5Mbps service, I just want to know if there are any towers in the LazerPark (Honeydew) area over looking Eagle Canyon.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Hi Morphin01:

I am on Die Ou Pad behind Eagle Canyon next door to Lazer Park and have service. Lets hope that you ar enot a in the valley portion...
 
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I just may be in the valley, have the river running on the bottom of my property, but have an unobstructed view of the ridge and that crappy golf course. I really, really, really want to give SpermCount to boot and not have to deal with them EVER again.
 
So far my dealings with BitCo have been nothing but spectacular. You phone, you are greeting in a super friendly manner, place your order and then get the relevant communications. When you phone in again, you are greeted like an old friend and there is no need to give them the same info over and over again (followed by the hash tag)

I just phoned to confirm the installation tomorrow and was told that I beat them to the punch as they were about to confirm the installation themselves.

We will see what tomorrow brings, hopefully a sunny clear day, with electricity and a perfect installation with perfect LOS.

Holding Thumbs
 
MoRpHiN01 said:
So far my dealings with BitCo have been nothing but spectacular. You phone, you are greeting in a super friendly manner, place your order and then get the relevant communications. When you phone in again, you are greeted like an old friend and there is no need to give them the same info over and over again (followed by the hash tag)

I just phoned to confirm the installation tomorrow and was told that I beat them to the punch as they were about to confirm the installation themselves.

We will see what tomorrow brings, hopefully a sunny clear day, with electricity and a perfect installation with perfect LOS.

Holding Thumbs
Click to expand...

@Morphin01: Weather is not looking good @ this stage for tomorrow - better get your raindance on and ask for no rain :)
 
Senshi said:
So far my experience with Bitco has been pretty terrible.

Had a phone call about 2 weeks ago, asking if a site visit can be scheduled for Friday the 21st at 12, I confirmed the appointment and all was on track.

On Thursday the 20th I called Richard De Jongh (The Sales Person dealing with my query) and asked him if they could reschedule the appointment to 2PM for Friday so I can be at home for the install, he said he would make the changes and get back to me.

Nobody ever got back to me confirming the schedule change.

Fast forward to Friday, 12pm came, no technician, 2pm came, no technician.

At 2:30 I phone BitCo to find out WTF is going on, only to have a voicemail left on my phone as I'm waiting to speak to Richard.

Bronwyn (the scheduling lady) left me a voice message, saying the installer is on his way, but running a bit late cause of traffic.

So I rush home to make the appointment, only to be called by family at the house, telling me the installer had already left, saying there was "blockage" and that I would get a report in 2 days time.

The said installer was not even on site for 5 minutes total and refused to wait another 5 minutes so I could talk to him to understand what the issue was.

So now, no BitCo, no 10mb service, and still no report.

Not a very happy customer at this point, and as I said to Bronwyn over the phone, quite a few of my colleagues at work are considering the service, including the company I work for (Fibre services etc), but now I'm rather hesitant to recommend the services based on my experience.
Click to expand...

I am terribly sorry about this Senshi. The teams are running flat out to try and completed all installations before the end of the year and the weather has also been causing havoc with our scheduling.

Please send me your full name if you have not been helped yet.

Garth
 
By way of background interest (slightly O/T), some technical info on the requirements and bandwidth demands for streaming video.

This is a summary of the official statements from Netflix on downlink speed requirements and data usage :

Netflix bandwidth statements.JPG

By way of a real-world, SA-relative illustration : the graph below shows downlink bandwidth usage on my own connection (not BitCo - yet!), over a period of about 10 minutes while watching a Netflix movie in "semi-HD" - this would be at 720p resolution, I believe :

Netflix movie bandwidth usage.jpg

With Netflix in particular it can be hard to know what quality you're actually getting, because they use an adaptive transmission scheme (Silverlight) : the more bandwidth you have, the better the quality you see.

The graph above was measured on an internet connection with well over 10Mbps downlink capability. You can see that even with a 720p movie, an average of nearly 3.3Mbps (with peaks of up to 8Mbps) can be demanded, if the bandwidth is available.

For those interested in more technical details, this article gives quite a nice overview of typical bandwidth requirements for streaming, using the contemporary H.264 video codec and with specific reference to online streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.
 
My Experience So Far

I first got on Bitco in the beginning of the year I ordered a 5mbps home connection and it was great but now since the FUP has been changed its more like a 2mbps burstable to 5mbps.

I barely get 5mbps most of the time maybe the first 5 minutes of a download.

It seems like the FUP kicks in no matter what i'm doing...

I have my own QoS/CoS on a PFSense box which limits all P2P and unknown traffic to 15% of the 5mbps capacity so really the only traffic which would max out the line is standard protocols such as HTTP etc.. if you ask me the FUP shouldn't kick in unless you are running at 80% of the line capacity for more than 60 minutes and only for non-standard protocols such as torrents.

It looks like I'm going to have to upgrade to a 10mbps to actually get 5mbps and at the price of R1499 ADSL is a better option but unfortunately the DSLAM in my area is congested so looks like i'm stuck until Telkom sort out their infrastructure.
 
CriticalConsumer said:
@Morphin01: Weather is not looking good @ this stage for tomorrow - better get your raindance on and ask for no rain :)
Click to expand...


NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
may the weather gods please shine down on me tomorrow and delay the rain until in the evening. Just need the time for the installation.
 
nightshade21099 said:
I first got on Bitco in the beginning of the year I ordered a 5mbps home connection and it was great but now since the FUP has been changed its more like a 2mbps burstable to 5mbps.

I barely get 5mbps most of the time maybe the first 5 minutes of a download.

It seems like the FUP kicks in no matter what i'm doing...

I have my own QoS/CoS on a PFSense box which limits all P2P and unknown traffic to 15% of the 5mbps capacity so really the only traffic which would max out the line is standard protocols such as HTTP etc.. if you ask me the FUP shouldn't kick in unless you are running at 80% of the line capacity for more than 60 minutes and only for non-standard protocols such as torrents.

It looks like I'm going to have to upgrade to a 10mbps to actually get 5mbps and at the price of R1499 ADSL is a better option but unfortunately the DSLAM in my area is congested so looks like i'm stuck until Telkom sort out their infrastructure.
Click to expand...

Hi nightshade21099

Please can you send me your full name so we can investigate.

Garth
 
Very true, my roof is the highest point on the property, none of the trees are anywhere near the height of the house. It would be scary to be up on the roof when you hear the lightning sirens go off on the golf course. Personally, I would not use the ladder to get down :D
 
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