BitCo Consumer Review

TBH I wouldn't be bothered if I was plum in the middle of their dark purple coverage but I'm almost on the edge of their faint purple so based on their coverage maps, there is no way I will sign or agree to anything until I see and hear the signal strength and quality and then ponder a day or so and if need be and come here and say to the cleverer people on the forum bitco say my signal is xyz is it good enough...but no, bitco want me to sign my soul away there and then, erm nope and no.

You would think that based on my location which they have, it would also be in their interest to confirm the signal first...anyhow it is not the end of the world, as I am getting good service and answers elsewhere, I just like dealing with companies that have a footprint on the forum, oh well.
 
Murmaider said:
It's an external antenna.

Take it from someone who is the chairman of a large body corporate. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Just go ahead and do it, if the body corporate has an issue with it, tell them to bugger off. if they get sticky, then tell them you will remove it once they provide a suitable alternatively as right now this connectivity increases the value of your property.

I honestly don't know where some of these "god complex" body corporates get off thinking they can decided what a owner can or cannot put on their unit as far as connectivity or TV goes.
Click to expand...

I have to chime in here and agree. Same position as Murmaider - an external antenna is the least of your worries at a complex.
 
Hi Azimuth and Murmaider

We do have a couple of projects on the go where we take in a high capacity radio or fibre link into a complex and install fibre to the units of the complex.

The link we install is 50Mbps or 100Mbps and only one dish about 1/3 the size of a satelite dish is needed. If your complex has 30+ units we could look at whether this is an option.

We need at least 10 orders to make it viable though. Maybe an option for your complex?
 
garthvs said:
Hi Azimuth and Murmaider

We do have a couple of projects on the go where we take in a high capacity radio or fibre link into a complex and install fibre to the units of the complex.

The link we install is 50Mbps or 100Mbps and only one dish about 1/3 the size of a satelite dish is needed. If your complex has 30+ units we could look at whether this is an option.

We need at least 10 orders to make it viable though. Maybe an option for your complex?
Click to expand...

I'm definitely interested since we don't have any Telkom lines in the complex and we originally had 42 of our 69 units apply for telkom lines. What sort of costs are involved for the complex for an installation like this?
 
Hi Murmaider

We cover all the costs of the infrastructure. The only costs for the residents are our standard 2Mb, 5Mb, 10Mb prices.

And we would upgrade all the services so that the upload speeds match the download speeds.

If your complex is interested please let me know and we can do a feasibility study and check the possible fibre routes.
 
I'm still kinda on the fence with this, as I need internet for let say 90% gaming, and the other 10% would be browsing and the odd movie/series download here and there, from what I could gather it sounds like people have a better experience with gaming on this than with adsl, but my common sense kinda tells me adsl would still be better:confused:
 
Wikkels88 said:
I'm still kinda on the fence with this, as I need internet for let say 90% gaming, and the other 10% would be browsing and the odd movie/series download here and there, from what I could gather it sounds like people have a better experience with gaming on this than with adsl, but my common sense kinda tells me adsl would still be better:confused:
Click to expand...

your common sense would be wrong.
I've been playing wow on the eu servers with around 205ms - 220ms consistently since I've had Bitco.
In theory a wired solution should be better, but when that wired solution is 30 years old, degraded and links to a congested exchange, its then not hard to believe that BitCo is better. I got BitCco for the sole purpose of online gaming.


@lived666 you just seem like a really difficult customer who wants to waste their time. Don't ask them to do a site survey if you have no intention of actually purchasing the solution. These people probably have better things to do with their time, like keeping their network awesome.

Hi Murmaider

We cover all the costs of the infrastructure. The only costs for the residents are our standard 2Mb, 5Mb, 10Mb prices.

And we would upgrade all the services so that the upload speeds match the download speeds.

If your complex is interested please let me know and we can do a feasibility study and check the possible fibre routes.
Click to expand...

Great, we have a body corp meeting next week Tuesday, I will table this for discussion.
 
Thanks Murmaider

We prioritise all gaming as business traffic so the latency is as low as possible. When we launched this product we had every gaming console we could find at our offices (the only time staff can play games and get paid) and we believe we now have the best option for gaming. :)

If any home user has any issue with a particular game we will be able to fix it.
 
@Murmaider, Dont be an idiot dude - read my posts. from their own coverage maps I am so borderline, take their weakest signal and then I am on the edge. I would probably jump at the chance if I they guaranteed 100% LOS and signal, which I will never know, because they don't have the resources to do a simple LOS test.

So yeh if you think that requesting a LOS test to make sure I get signal makes me a difficult customer then cool, yeh, I'm ultra difficult.

BTW in order to save them the effort I requested the location of the nearest tower to me so I could climb on my roof and try and see if I could see it and they refused to give that info as well.
 
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lived666 said:
@Murmaider, Dont be an idiot dude - read my posts. from their own coverage maps I am so borderline, take their weakest signal and then I am on the edge. I would probably jump at the chance if I they guaranteed 100% LOS and signal, which I will never know, because they don't have the resources to do a simple LOS test.

So yeh if you think that requesting a LOS test to make sure I get signal makes me a difficult customer then cool, yeh, I'm ultra difficult.

BTW in order to save them the effort I requested the location of the nearest tower to me so I could climb on my roof and try and see if I could see it and they refused to give that info as well.
Click to expand...

We if they come out and do a test and you don't have signal or its too weak then they not going to make you pay for the solution. It's just coming across like you want them to come out and do a tests and even if you have amazing signal you might not want to take the solution.
 
For the heck of it I'm going to request if I have coverage. BitCo just sounds like a future solution. I'll do an MTN FTTH request as well since they already sent me the form.
 
Murmaider said:
your common sense would be wrong.
I've been playing wow on the eu servers with around 205ms - 220ms consistently since I've had Bitco.
In theory a wired solution should be better, but when that wired solution is 30 years old, degraded and links to a congested exchange, its then not hard to believe that BitCo is better. I got BitCco for the sole purpose of online gaming.
Click to expand...

garthvs said:
Thanks Murmaider

We prioritise all gaming as business traffic so the latency is as low as possible. When we launched this product we had every gaming console we could find at our offices (the only time staff can play games and get paid) and we believe we now have the best option for gaming. :)

If any home user has any issue with a particular game we will be able to fix it.
Click to expand...

Great stuff you guys, I'm pretty much sold on this then...
 
I may as well do an Ubiquiti Airview to make this thread interesting. :) I have two different sites I can scan from.
 
Noob question: if one is close to a high-site can one connect with a normal 802.11 WiFi card? Or does these operate at frequency not visible to 802.11 based cards?
 
The CPE will have a special configuration and password protected, I am sure. So no, you can't use a normal WiFi client to connect.
 
Azimuth said:
The CPE will have a special configuration and password protected, I am sure. So no, you can't use a normal WiFi client to connect.
Click to expand...

Though so, thanks. Bit of a bummer that there is no DIY try before you buy option.


Edit: another noob question: would the towers be visible as a SSID to a normal network card?
 
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