BitCo Consumer Review

[Senshi]

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

Thanks Garth,

Bronwyn phoned me a while ago, waiting for feedback from her, hopefully it's positive.

 

[CriticalConsumer]

Yip that pole and ladder is a shining beacon of lightning attraction.

The current weather in our area @Morphin01 is very undecided...it was supposed to be a beautiful 27degC sunny day but its overcast with a smattering of rain...

 

[Viashen]

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 :

View attachment 169807

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 :

View attachment 169811

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.

Good Info

At 5MB i get pretty decent quality HD streaming via my Apple TV on my projector

At 2MB however it's like VHS quality divided by 2 on my projector in SD

 

[Senshi]

Okay, got my site report, looks like the "blockage" is a tree on our property, shouldn't be an issue to trim it (ALOT)

Rescheduled for Friday with Senior tech, hopefully this time it's good news.

 

[BitCo]

Okay, got my site report, looks like the "blockage" is a tree on our property, shouldn't be an issue to trim it (ALOT)

Rescheduled for Friday with Senior tech, hopefully this time it's good news.

Hi Senshi,

Great news & Good luck!

Mike

 

[CriticalConsumer]

Hi Guys

Just to let you know that we succesfully completed the upgrade of our JHB core to 10Gbps early this morning.

Garth

Well done - am glad everything went smoothly - upgrades are not an easy thing to do especially with new equipment. Failover planning has to be in place and sometimes a rollback of the change is required.

 

[nightshade21099]

Hi nightshade21099

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

Garth

Hi Garth

I think I will just stick it out the remaining 3 months of the 12 month contract then cancel.

I just enquired about upgrading to 10 Mbps and I was told that the upgrade would extend the contract for another 12 months.

For a soft upgrade that's ridiculous.

 

[Pitbull]

Hi Garth

I think I will just stick it out the remaining 3 months of the 12 month contract then cancel.

I just enquired about upgrading to 10 Mbps and I was told that the upgrade would extend the contract for another 12 months.

For a soft upgrade that's ridiculous.

No that was sorted in this thread. I think the consultant you spoke to didn't know about the change. This also came into effect from enquiries on this forum Garth / Mike just need to confirm but I'm sure that was dealt with before as the upgrade is not on the hardware, you already paid for the installation.

 

[CriticalConsumer]

No that was sorted in this thread. I think the consultant you spoke to didn't know about the change. This also came into effect from enquiries on this forum Garth / Mike just need to confirm but I'm sure that was dealt with before as the upgrade is not on the hardware, you already paid for the installation.

So Pitbull what you are saying is that the contract is not extended for a soft upgrade - is that correct?

As far as the rest of the telecoms industry works, no extension of contract is required for a soft upgrade - however if a change out of equipment is required you are charged for installation once off of new (upgrade equipment) and the new service price (pro-rated from when the upgrade is activated).

Some clarity would be nice @BitCo.

 

[Pitbull]

So Pitbull what you are saying is that the contract is not extended for a soft upgrade - is that correct?

As far as the rest of the telecoms industry works, no extension of contract is required for a soft upgrade - however if a change out of equipment is required you are charged for installation once off of new (upgrade equipment) and the new service price (pro-rated from when the upgrade is activated).

Some clarity would be nice @BitCo.

100% correct

I'll take some time and find it in the thread. There will however be a clawback if you signed for 12 months as an example and downgrade from 5 to 2 as an example. That is if I recall the topic correctly. I seriously think we need a new thread that covers most of these questions. It's mad to try look for something in this HUGE thread

Anyway, hold on.

Edit: The conversation started around here:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...mer-Review?p=12797875&viewfull=1#post12797875

Found it:

Hi Guys

Regarding upgrades... If you upgrade mid contract then your initial contract period remains the same. So if you have 6 months of your contract remaining and you decide to upgrade, you still have only 6 months remaining.

 

[CriticalConsumer]

Yip I think that an Enquiries thread needs to be started. This thread contains everything from a review to "Do I have to cut trees down?"

 

[nightshade21099]

Well if the above is correct then I'm happy to upgrade to 10 Mbps.

I do not like contracts I try to avoid them period.. I've been burnt too many times.

Maybe they should add a FAQ on their website the information there needs some updating.

 

[CriticalConsumer]

Well if the above is correct then I'm happy to upgrade to 10 Mbps.

I do not like contracts I try to avoid them period.. I've been burnt too many times.

Maybe they should add a FAQ on their website the information there needs some updating.

I agree that an FAQ needs to be added and that the site needs a little more information.

 

[Pitbull]

Well if the above is correct then I'm happy to upgrade to 10 Mbps.

I do not like contracts I try to avoid them period.. I've been burnt too many times.

Maybe they should add a FAQ on their website the information there needs some updating.

I'll try do one over the weekend and filter through all of this thread with references to the Official posts on questions and updates. Maybe just a way we can correlate all the info in this 2k post thread

 

[BitCo]

Well if the above is correct then I'm happy to upgrade to 10 Mbps.

I do not like contracts I try to avoid them period.. I've been burnt too many times.

Maybe they should add a FAQ on their website the information there needs some updating.

Hi Nightshade,

Pittbull & Critical Consumer are 100% correct with their statement above, the upgrade will stay within your term contract so if you are 8 months into 12 and you upgrade you will still be on month 8 of 12

Your line speed will be increased and billing will be pro-rate to the day of the upgrade

Mike

 

[BitCo]

Hi Guys,

i am going to start up the other two threads on the Forum for the new FUP update and BitCo news

We are busy activating some new high sites so i will be giving you updates as and when each site goes live

I will also be spending some time in the next few days explaining the new FUP and the planned roll out for all broadband customers

Mike

 

[CriticalConsumer]

Hi Nightshade,

Pittbull & Critical Consumer are 100% correct with their statement above, the upgrade will stay within your term contract so if you are 8 months into 12 and you upgrade you will still be on month 8 of 12

Your line speed will be increased and billing will be pro-rate to the day of the upgrade

Mike

Thanks for clarifying - thought that this would be the case.

 

[CriticalConsumer]

Hi Guys,

i am going to start up the other two threads on the Forum for the new FUP update and BitCo news

We are busy activating some new high sites so i will be giving you updates as and when each site goes live

I will also be spending some time in the next few days explaining the new FUP and the planned roll out for all broadband customers

Mike

Excellent!
Waiting for the update.

 

[koeksGHT]

FUPped

 

[MoRpHiN01]

Weather is looking good, hopefully it holds out until after my installation/survey this afternoon. Holding Thumbs