BitCo Consumer Review

Hello Ave

We would consider someone downloading torrents all day and night while away at work as abusing the link, but we have many home users who download at night just fine. A lot of the users we have signed up so far also seem to use Netflix without any problems.

Garth
 
garthvs said:
Hello Ave

We would consider someone downloading torrents all day and night while away at work as abusing the link, but we have many home users who download at night just fine. A lot of the users we have signed up so far also seem to use Netflix without any problems.

Garth
Click to expand...

But i don't download much. Its mostly Netflix and Hulu+. Are those considered downloading ? Is it possible to differentiate between streaming services and torrents ?
 
Hi NightCrawler

While we don't officially support services like Netflix, we have had feedback from several home users that say the quality is much better than on DSL. The 5Mb service has no problem with constant video streaming.

We purchase our international capacity directly from global carriers and not via any another ISP's. We also have multiple redundant circuits on the west and east coasts of Africa so no service degredation in the event of Seacom failures etc.
 
Ahh: that explains it, the streaming quality doesn't decrease even when the speed drops
 
My 1st Review

My installation was completed yesterday. The guys arrived at about 11:00 and were done by 13:00.
They were very professional and very knowledgeable about their product and wireless technology in general.
When I got the go ahead that I can use the internet, my first impression was WHAT! this is good. This is very good. I opt in for the 5 meg package. YouTube was streaming like a son of a b!tch. HD quality without buffering. Webpages opend instantly. My voip calls were excellent. I've never experienced this type of internet quality at home before. I did a 2 gig download and just before it finished my speed dropped to about a 2 mbps. (As Gartvs explained why this happens in a previous post) My upload speed was not affected. It was about an hour later that my speed bounced back to normal. I'm not a huge downloader so this should not really bother me. Even when my speed dropped, website were still opening faster than what a 4 meg adsl line does. Latency is excellent on the network. Speedtest.net shows I have a average latency to the local servers of about 10ms. Just before I went to bed I started two continues pings (one to 8.8.8.8 and one to my ip on their side "default gateway") This morning the first thing that I checked was the results and I was blown away. Out of 18234 pings only 16 pings were lost. This is amazing as I'm about 4 kilometers away from the tower. My VPN networks do not drop which was always the case with my previous internet provider.
All in all I am very impressed with these guys. I will recommend them to anyone and everyone. As I understand this is new product for them and they are fine tuning this product. This just means this network will only get better and better.

Thank you Bitco for sorting out my internet worries.
 
One thing we haven't mentioned, Garthvs you can correct me if i am wrong : the setup costs: ZAR 1800.00
 
We have 3 price options for our Home Internet:

Monthly Fees:
2Mbps R 699 p/m
5Mbps R 899 p/m
10Mbps R 1499 p/m

Installation Fees:
Monthly contract: R 4300
12 Month contract: R 800
24 Month contract: R 0

These prices all include VAT.
 
Awesome feedback guys. I'd love to compare this to my home LTE due to mobile data costs still being too expensive.
 
Garth and Bitco,

I have been struggling to have reliable internet since it's dawn in 1995 when I had my first 1400k modem.

I've had crap with ADSL, 3G on 8ta, Mtn and Vodacom and it seemed internet connectivity will be my curse forever. As I am in the IT industry I rely on my public connection to work else I have to drive.

THANK YOU GUYS!!!! For once I can say I am happy with me webz connection and I just love love love it. I have 5mbs in Rustenburg and let me tell you I have put your product to the test as well as your technical service when I had issues playing on the PSN network.

Again - GREAT product at a great price on a great infrastructure.

Happiness is awesome

:-)

Just one thing though - why did I not get a free wifi router? (I got the 5mbs home base connection)
 
So my one friend is busy getting BitCo (they're busy with the installation).
He said he heard great things about BitCo so is trying them out. I live in an area which does not have any copper and cellular / wireless signal is quite poor.

Took a look at the BitCo coverage and I am in the middle of the last ring of signal coverage.
So if I am able to get a 5Mbit connection with such coverage I would be really happy.


Although there are a few things I am a bit concerned about. What happens if you move premises?
Would I need to pay for an installation fee again (I plan on taking a 12 month contract if I do sign up with BitCo).
What if my new premises does not have any coverage? Do I still have to continue paying off the contract with BitCo despite the fact that they are not able to provide me with the service?


My friend and I play quite a lot of League of Legends, as does my sister. So we would both need our ping to the EU LoL server to be consistent and rather low - I have seem people mention other games but nobody mentioned LoL?
Also my sister loves to stream a lot of anime, the quality is often quite low though so if she streams anime all day would that classify as "downloading" and end up with the line being shaped? I am guessing it will work out to around 100MB for 25minutes or so per episode.

On the same topic, a 5Mbit line is capable of around 500Kbit/s, if I were to limit my downloads to say 300Kbit/s and download during the day while I am at work. Would I end up being shaped or not by the time I got home? With that I would be downloading at around 60% of the line speed and not the "close to capacity" as stated in the FUP?
 
Hi PsyCLown

I can't comment on the performance of League of Legends but we have many gamers using our network and the initial problems we had seem to have been ironed out. Most of the gamers have commented on how good the latency is once it was corrected. If anyone has any gaming issues we will be able to sort them out fairly easily.

We are on 5 international cable systems so the latency we have to Europe is 192ms.

We can in no way force you to pay the rest of the contract in full as all consumers are protected against this. We would work out a fair cancellation fee that would be related to our expenses such as labour, equipment wear and tear etc.

Regarding the streaming: If you downloaded all day long you would still be slowed down when you got home that evening. If you then stopped for about an hour or so you would be able to download at full speed again.
 
Here are a few ping tests

Random IP address in London:

PING 92.242.128.133 (92.242.128.133) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=1 ttl=57 time=192 ms
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=2 ttl=57 time=192 ms
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=3 ttl=57 time=192 ms
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=4 ttl=57 time=192 ms
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=5 ttl=57 time=191 ms
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=6 ttl=57 time=191 ms
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=7 ttl=57 time=191 ms
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=8 ttl=57 time=192 ms
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=9 ttl=57 time=192 ms
64 bytes from 92.242.128.133: icmp_seq=10 ttl=57 time=192 ms

Random IP address in New York:

PING 72.229.28.185 (72.229.28.185) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=1 ttl=57 time=271 ms
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=2 ttl=57 time=271 ms
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=3 ttl=57 time=271 ms
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=4 ttl=57 time=271 ms
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=5 ttl=57 time=270 ms
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=6 ttl=57 time=271 ms
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=7 ttl=57 time=274 ms
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=8 ttl=57 time=270 ms
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=9 ttl=57 time=273 ms
64 bytes from 72.229.28.185: icmp_seq=10 ttl=57 time=271 ms

MWeb IP in Cape Town:

PING www.mweb.co.za (196.2.63.110) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=1 ttl=122 time=22.2 ms
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=2 ttl=122 time=22.8 ms
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=3 ttl=122 time=22.2 ms
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=4 ttl=122 time=22.5 ms
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=5 ttl=122 time=23.0 ms
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=6 ttl=122 time=21.8 ms
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=7 ttl=122 time=22.3 ms
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=8 ttl=122 time=21.9 ms
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=9 ttl=122 time=21.9 ms
64 bytes from 196.2.63.110: icmp_seq=10 ttl=122 time=21.9 ms
 
Hi Garthvs.

I have read through all the post and you have been so helpful as alot of the questions I have have been answered.

I do have a few more questions though.
I live in Douglasdale in a complex and when I was enquiring about DSTV they told me that I cannot put up my own dish I have to use the dish that is provided for by the body corporate as there is a single dish for each block. Will this be a problem because I am still not clear on what the dish you guys use looks like. We are unable to get telkom and i am in serious need of Internet.

Has anyone in Douglasdale been able to get bitco? Specific to The Pinnacle in Milford?

Any info would be great thanks
 
Hi Wesvanv

Coverage in Douglasdale has been a problem for us. The area is in a bit of a dip and no one in the northern suburbs is willing to have a tower in the area. I know the cellular operators also battle because of this. We do have some fibre nearby but it is still prohibitively expensive for residential use.

If there is enough demand in your complex we may be able to bring in a single high capacity (100Mb) radio link and fibre up the complex. We would need at least 15 units willing to sign up.

Here is an image similar to what we would need to install. It is a 30cm dish:

https://d10k7k7mywg42z.cloudfront.net/assets/504f8e08dabe9d113b001c9b/bob_close_antenna_sm.jpg
 
Question to the BitCo rep, if I take out a 24 month contract on the 2mb option, is it possible to upgrade to the 5mb or 10mb option a couple of month later or can this only be done after the 24 month contract has expired?
 
Wikkels88 said:
Question to the BitCo rep, if I take out a 24 month contract on the 2mb option, is it possible to upgrade to the 5mb or 10mb option a couple of month later or can this only be done after the 24 month contract has expired?
Click to expand...

I think you can, I don't see why they would say no to more money to be honest..
 
Wonder how much data per month would be considered abuse on a 5MB
 
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