BitCo Consumer Review

[Boober44b]

Finally got the call...LoS test/Installation scheduled for the 24th

 

[BitCo]

will have to say im not happy with the bitco support for now as they can not follow one request from a client. all i get is we understand your frustration over the phone or via mail with no proper feedback on the questions asked. hope i get feedback soon form bitco support soon.

Hi Jarrid,

after a quick investigation i find your link is still under soak testing, our support team would be unable to assist you as the link is still with Network Department.

On the ticket it is due for handover today but this would be subject to the team being happy with your link quality and throughput

You can PM me later during the day and i will get you an update if you haven't already received handover

Mike

 

[BitCo]

Ok, nope... not sorted. In all fairness, I was downloading the 5 gig update for GTA V, but I only had full speed for about 30 minutes, after which it dropped to less than half... and after doing a speedtest now, I'm not even getting half a meg.... whats going on here?

This is frustrating to say the least. I was quite pro-BitCo but starting to think that I am paying too much for an "uncapped" system. It's like managing your household power system after installing a solar power system. You have to be careful not to overload the system, else you are poked. With BitCo, you have to be careful how much you use else you get throttled and then you have to wait a while before getting speed again. It is better to get the 10meg package but it is quite expensive and the package adjustments don't seem to be happening any time soon.

I hear that telkom are in our area eventually. I think that I am going to apply for a line again so long. Will pay the penalty for early cancellation to BitCo, but I am think that I need to move back to DSL if I can... until someone brings fibre into our area. Haven't heard anything from BitCo on that either. 12 new complexes, all needing internet... averaging about 50 units per complex.... I guess just like weekend support, they don't need the business.

Sorry, but feeling a bit frustrated right now...

Hi Preacher / TempCodeMonkey

Please can you guys log with support so a team can investigate, we don't have any network alerts this morning from the weekend

i suspect its isolated to the position on the high site you are connected too

Can i ask you to both PM me your names so i can check if you are both connected to the same tower?

Mike

 

[BitCo]

IMO you should not be liable for early cancellation as they are unable to meet their mandate.

HI TempCodeMonkey,

yes you are 100% correct if we cannot meet the link standards promised you will certainly not be held liable for any form of early cancellation fee.

i am confident our network team will resolve it but if not we will discuss in more detail directly

Mike

 

[BitCo]

If only the cancellation of contracts were that simple in SA... speed tonight is 1.3meg.... sigh

Hi Preacher,

With BitCo it is that simple, we have sophisticated tools that show us exactly how a link is preforming, if my technical team confirm they cannot resolve the issue we will De-install your connection without you incurring any form of fees payable.

Give us the opportunity to have a look and make some changes, often these issue crop up in congested area's and a simple configuration change can resolve the issue.

Mike

 

[Goobie]

(posting here as well as there is no activity on the FUP thread)

Mike, if I may ask: How did you decide on a 2Mb throttled speed? Why not a 3Mb speed, or at least 2.5Mb? See, I'm figuring that if the 10Mb package goes to 5Mb, then shouldn't the 5Mb drop to 2.5?

Just wondering...

 

[Pitbull]

(posting here as well as there is no activity on the FUP thread)

Mike, if I may ask: How did you decide on a 2Mb throttled speed? Why not a 3Mb speed, or at least 2.5Mb? See, I'm figuring that if the 10Mb package goes to 5Mb, then shouldn't the 5Mb drop to 2.5?

Just wondering...

It's the available line speeds. So you get chucked down to the next available one. I suppose the line speeds are pre-set. So you will go from 10 to 5 or from 5 to 2. 2 they have removed now from my understanding so no need for 2 to 1. So in essence they could always have offered 1 mbps but just didn't no one wants it.

 

[TempCodeMonkey]

Hi Preacher / TempCodeMonkey

Please can you guys log with support so a team can investigate, we don't have any network alerts this morning from the weekend

i suspect its isolated to the position on the high site you are connected too

Can i ask you to both PM me your names so i can check if you are both connected to the same tower?

Mike

Hi Mike

Logged a ticket with support. I really hope they can sort this out. Every morning the speedtest is fine at 4.8 Mbps , however when I get home at night (when no downloads have run for over 8 hours) it drops horribly. It seems to be that there is not enough bandwidth to service everybody in the west rand. Hope I am wrong about that though.


thanks.

 

[ChrisChris]

So still soaking ... if they stick to the 7 working days soak as specified then I'll only get my net on Friday, right before I go on holiday for a week x.x

 

[FSB333]

Hey guys, anyone doing some gaming on Bitco in weltevredepark? Read some posts about packet loss? Is it worth getting Bitco for gaming?

 

[Tornalca]

That 6 week wait just to get told they can see the tower but can't get any signal from it but will report their findings. The quest for internet starts again.

 

[Goobie]

Having had Bitco for a couple of weeks and I'm really impressed with youtube performance after being throttled to 2Mb. On my ADSL 4Mb connection (which I effectively got 3.2Mb) I could watch youtube fine with the occasional buffering. On Bitco while streaming youtube I don't even notice going from 5Mb to 2Mb, true I don't watch 1080 stuff, but 2Mb on Bitco seems different than 2Mb ADSL. Well that's my perception of it so far.

 

[ChrisChris]

Handed over !

 

[Gezza]

Is there something wrong with seacom? Can hardly stream twitch, on mobile quality.

I want to cry. Internet in SA...

 

[Preacher]

Hey BitCo Representative

I logged a mail with support first thing and as you said, the said everything was normal. Ofcourse they picked up on my 5gig GTA V update but couldn't tell me how the line was Saturday, which was when the problem started.

I was asked to do a speedtest tonight, which I have done 3 times at different times, I got two readings of about 3.5meg and one of 2.5meg. The connection should have been dormant the whole day, and all I did was a bit of streaming for my daughter but the quality wasn't good. That was when I did the second test and got 2.5meg.

I will obviously let you guys do whatever you need to do.

I also mentioned to the support person that I think that you guys need to relook at your FUP as it isn't fair. I think that you guys need to have a look at the FUP of other ISPs because being in the position of having your own T1 network, your FUP shouldn't be as suffocating as what it is. On my uncapped dsl line, my 4meg ran flawlessly. Downloading a bit too much now, didn't mean that I would have to worry about being throttled later. I understood that should I be an abuser and download half a terabyte, that I might be warned and then throttled. With BitCo, its not the case. I download at high speed for an hour or maybe if I am lucky, 2, then I get throttled for 4 or until the leaky bucket has emptied. As far as I am concerned, paying such a premium price as what we do, I don't feel that I am getting what I am paying for because I always have it in the back of my mind to be careful what I do with my expensive internet connection. You cannot look me in the eye and say that this is an uncapped service... because it feels like I keep hitting a ceiling and have to wait to come down a bit before I can enjoy my connection.

If 20 people have 5 meg and are downloading or streaming at 5meg, and the pipeline can handle it, why throttle? It is not like someone downloading at 5meg with 19 other people is causing them grief. Please excuse my ignorance. Its not like my 5meg is rock solid and doesn't flutter. If everyone connected to the BitCo network is connected at their initial speed, and the network is handling it, why throttle. The FUP is there to help the ISP because the viability of an uncapped model depends on people not making full use of it, to offset the people that are high users. And the FUP is so that the ISP can cut them off when they are taking too much. Kinda like a barman cutting you off when you are drunk. I know I am using many examples but this is just how frustrated I am.

I feel like I was told that before me is an all you can eat buffet for R899. But what is happening is that, even though I am hungry from time to time, I am being told by management that I am eating too much at a particular time and that whether I like it or not, that I must slow down. So I am nibbling for fear of being told that I must slow down, but I am still paying R899 for all I can eat. Is this fair?

Please have a look at what other ISPs are doing and try and apply that here. For normal users, let them be. For abusers, throttle them if they don't listen. A fair usage amount would be something like 10gigs a day. I have noticed that mine is about 5gigs a day. If you consider 10 a day fair, then start warning those users. But please let us normal users experience the internet unthrottled... PLEASE.

I think that the problem is not that your network can't handle the bandwidth, I think that you are trying to limit capacity. In that case, introduce capped packages. Or make your offerings truely uncapped.

The 10meg offering is the best, but not from the point of price, but in that, when throttled, 5 meg is fine. But in my honest opinion, the offerings are a bit pricey for what we are getting at the end of the day.

Once again, I am speaking out of frustration. Hopefully, I will be back up and running at 5meg. And hopefully the FUP will be looked at and adjusted... Else I might move. But let's see what happens

Rant over 8)

 

[ruhanstander]

And hopefully the FUP will be looked at and adjusted...

Unlikely... they put a few users on a trial FUP last year some time, and that's where it was left. I queried Mike a little while back via PM as to when the new FUP would kick in, only to be told that it is on hold as they are busy expanding their network... I was even told they would add me to the trail, but nada.

So, they'd rather expand the network and make space for more unhappy clients, instead of fixing or revising their current FUP.

 

[SmokeZN]

for the rest of the guys how long did your soak in testing take. as i feel this a taking long then normal.

Mine Took 1 week. Link was installed on thursday. Handed over the following friday.

 

[Gezza]

Hey BitCo Representative

I logged a mail with support first thing and as you said, the said everything was normal. Ofcourse they picked up on my 5gig GTA V update but couldn't tell me how the line was Saturday, which was when the problem started.

I was asked to do a speedtest tonight, which I have done 3 times at different times, I got two readings of about 3.5meg and one of 2.5meg. The connection should have been dormant the whole day, and all I did was a bit of streaming for my daughter but the quality wasn't good. That was when I did the second test and got 2.5meg.

I will obviously let you guys do whatever you need to do.

I also mentioned to the support person that I think that you guys need to relook at your FUP as it isn't fair. I think that you guys need to have a look at the FUP of other ISPs because being in the position of having your own T1 network, your FUP shouldn't be as suffocating as what it is. On my uncapped dsl line, my 4meg ran flawlessly. Downloading a bit too much now, didn't mean that I would have to worry about being throttled later. I understood that should I be an abuser and download half a terabyte, that I might be warned and then throttled. With BitCo, its not the case. I download at high speed for an hour or maybe if I am lucky, 2, then I get throttled for 4 or until the leaky bucket has emptied. As far as I am concerned, paying such a premium price as what we do, I don't feel that I am getting what I am paying for because I always have it in the back of my mind to be careful what I do with my expensive internet connection. You cannot look me in the eye and say that this is an uncapped service... because it feels like I keep hitting a ceiling and have to wait to come down a bit before I can enjoy my connection.

If 20 people have 5 meg and are downloading or streaming at 5meg, and the pipeline can handle it, why throttle? It is not like someone downloading at 5meg with 19 other people is causing them grief. Please excuse my ignorance. Its not like my 5meg is rock solid and doesn't flutter. If everyone connected to the BitCo network is connected at their initial speed, and the network is handling it, why throttle. The FUP is there to help the ISP because the viability of an uncapped model depends on people not making full use of it, to offset the people that are high users. And the FUP is so that the ISP can cut them off when they are taking too much. Kinda like a barman cutting you off when you are drunk. I know I am using many examples but this is just how frustrated I am.

I feel like I was told that before me is an all you can eat buffet for R899. But what is happening is that, even though I am hungry from time to time, I am being told by management that I am eating too much at a particular time and that whether I like it or not, that I must slow down. So I am nibbling for fear of being told that I must slow down, but I am still paying R899 for all I can eat. Is this fair?

Please have a look at what other ISPs are doing and try and apply that here. For normal users, let them be. For abusers, throttle them if they don't listen. A fair usage amount would be something like 10gigs a day. I have noticed that mine is about 5gigs a day. If you consider 10 a day fair, then start warning those users. But please let us normal users experience the internet unthrottled... PLEASE.

I think that the problem is not that your network can't handle the bandwidth, I think that you are trying to limit capacity. In that case, introduce capped packages. Or make your offerings truely uncapped.

The 10meg offering is the best, but not from the point of price, but in that, when throttled, 5 meg is fine. But in my honest opinion, the offerings are a bit pricey for what we are getting at the end of the day.

Once again, I am speaking out of frustration. Hopefully, I will be back up and running at 5meg. And hopefully the FUP will be looked at and adjusted... Else I might move. But let's see what happens

Rant over 8)

You know, when I signed up there was no FUP yet. R1499 for a 10mb/s. I was happy. Then all of a sudden my torrents stopped working. I found out about the FUP for the first time, on this thread. No email, nothing.

Was I able to go back to 5mb/s? Sure...if you pay us R500 for clicking on a button.

I couldn't even stream some twitch on "mobile" quality last night.

Also, if you're in the honeydew area, expecting massive LOS on gaming. These are thing they do not ever mention.

 

[SmokeZN]

Unlikely... they put a few users on a trial FUP last year some time, and that's where it was left. I queried Mike a little while back via PM as to when the new FUP would kick in, only to be told that it is on hold as they are busy expanding their network... I was even told they would add me to the trail, but nada.

So, they'd rather expand the network and make space for more unhappy clients, instead of fixing or revising their current FUP.

I'd also like the FUP to be adjusted. I'm currently downloading games from steam (Thief = 20gb) and I'm and only doing it at 2mbps. I wouldnt say this is abuse of the network. I wanted 5mbps so I could download and play all the games I've bought legit. Lets say for instance I finally get my PS4 and lets also say that Sony sorts their **** out and finally releases their game streaming thing. I would be stuck downloading a 10gb game at 2mbps when i've paid for a 5mbps line.

I say FUP should only be applied when using protocols that are identified as problems on a network like p2p traffic.

 

[Pitbull]

You know, when I signed up there was no FUP yet. R1499 for a 10mb/s. I was happy. Then all of a sudden my torrents stopped working. I found out about the FUP for the first time, on this thread. No email, nothing.

Was I able to go back to 5mb/s? Sure...if you pay us R500 for clicking on a button.

I couldn't even stream some twitch on "mobile" quality last night.

Also, if you're in the honeydew area, expecting massive LOS on gaming. These are thing they do not ever mention.

Pretty sure you signed up after me. The FUP has been there even prior to me signing up. I'll have to double check.