BitCo Consumer Review

My 10mb link was installed and activated less than 48 hours later.

http://www.pingtest.net/result/112398192.png
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3974463173

Very happy, now if only I can access my wireless and have access to the router (already e-mailed support).

I'd like to thank Neil from BitCo who did an absolutely amazing install.

Mike, Garth, expect a few more customers from me, please get in touch with me so we can track their progress?
 
jcheek said:
Been looking at this same issue, albeit for different reasons.

It's my understanding that the PoE injector is used to power the radio transceiver on the back of the Ubiquiti parabolic dish. I believe BitCo typically use something like the Ubiquiti 30dBi "RocketDish" with a matching 5GHz Rocket M5 radio, which is rated (see datasheet) to consume 8W at 24VDC as supplied by a "pseudo-PoE" power injector - exactly as eddief1 says.

It seems that on the RocketM5 at least, Ubiquiti have opted for a somewhat non-standard power arrangement at 24VDC - the IEEE 802.11af and 802.11at standards that define Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) provide for a voltage of between 44 and 57VDC at 350mA. (Quite why Ubiquiti did that, I don't know - some of their other Rocket radios do use a standard 48V PoE setup.)
Unfortunately this probably means that one can't use a standard PoE switch (like the Cisco SF302-08P) to power the radio - you'd have to use the separate 24V/1A "PoE" injector that Ubiquiti supplies with the M5 radio instead. This is a 24V/1A unit (see RocketM5 datasheet again), and although it's rated to supply up to 24W (24V @ 1A), the radio will typically consume less than a third of that.

As an aside : The Planet PoE injector that CriticalConsumer detailed is quite a beefy unit that has two PoE device ports and caters for both the original 802.11af PoE standard (max 13W per port) and the newer 802.11at standard (25.5W per port) - hence the hefty 60W maximum power rating (2 x 25W at about 85% efficiency).

So going back to the power "budget" as first outlined by CriticalConsumer :

Device________________________Typical____________Maximum
PoE injector (ie RocketM5 radio)____8.0W_____________24.0W
Cisco SF300-08 switch____________7.2W_____________7.2W
Linksys E900 router______________4.7W_____________7.5W (12V/0.5A adapter @ 80% efficiency)
Total__________________________19.9W____________38.7W

Hence, a 40W (or 80W) power supply will be plenty, but actual power consumption should typically be around half that figure. So providing backup power for a BitCo internet portal is a pretty low-power affair - the PCs that use the portal, not so much .... ;)
Click to expand...

You are correct :-) UBNT uses passive POE on M5's, so they use the unused pairs on the cat5, (Pins 4, 5+; 7, 8-)
They are also voltage critical, so anything over 24VDC will fry them (you can't connect them directly to a 24VDC battery systems, charge voltage goes to 27VDC, you MUST use a DC-DC converter to keep voltage <24VDC)

I have never seen a rocket under full load draw a full 8W, it is normally half that.

Also the 220VAC injector that comes with the rocket m5 has another NB! function...it grounds the rocket m5 to your main's power to protect from ESD using the shielded CAT5 cable to your roof. So if you go all DC you HAVE to make sure you still ground it

If you want to run routers and radio's for long periods, go for a full DC system with appropriate DC-DC converters, you will run 8+ hours with surprisingly small batteries

PS...you also can't connect a Rocket m5 directly to a 12VDC system as under discharge the voltage will drop under 12VDC, which is to low..so you can't get away without using a dc-dc converter.

the above is for rocket m5, other products from UBNT use different POE methods
 
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eddief1 said:
You are correct :-) UBNT uses passive POE on M5's, so they use the unused pairs on the cat5, (Pins 4, 5+; 7, 8-)
They are also voltage critical, so anything over 24VDC will fry them (you can't connect them directly to a 24VDC battery systems, charge voltage goes to 27VDC, you MUST use a DC-DC converter to keep voltage <24VDC)

I have never seen a rocket under full load draw a full 8W, it is normally half that.

Also the 220VAC injector that comes with the rocket m5 has another NB! function...it grounds the rocket m5 to your main's power to protect from ESD using the shielded CAT5 cable to your roof. So if you go all DC you HAVE to make sure you still ground it

If you want to run routers and radio's for long periods, go for a full DC system with appropriate DC-DC converters, you will run 8+ hours with surprisingly small batteries

PS...you also can't connect a Rocket m5 directly to a 12VDC system as under discharge the voltage will drop under 12VDC, which is to low..so you can't get away without using a dc-dc converter.

the above is for rocket m5, other products from UBNT use different POE methods
Click to expand...

Thanks eddief1, that's interesting info.

I wondered whether Ubiquiti had made the Rocketm5 "PoE-compatible" at least, by making it able to handle the normal range of PoE voltages (around 40-60 volts). Your comment about the low tolerance for voltages above 24VDC is interesting.
I'm not sure what would happen if one were to plug a Rocketm5 into a standard PoE switch - hopefully the overcurrent protection on the switch would save the radio, but it's not an exercise I'd want to try on a radio bought with my own money!
In my view, Ubiquiti would be better off completely avoiding the term "PoE" around these radios - this is not "standard" PoE at all and could lead to just this sort of incident.

You're right - Ubiquiti make a lot of noise about cable grounding on this and some of their other products (ToughSwitch, ToughCable etc). From an ESD point of view, grounding is indeed important, however if installed with only that as protection, lightning and induced surge conditions in SA (on the highveld especially) will still tend to eat that setup for breakfast ;-)
 
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jcheek said:
Thanks eddief1, that's interesting info.

I wondered whether Ubiquiti had made the Rocketm5 "PoE-compatible" at least, by making it able to handle the normal range of PoE voltages (around 40-60 volts). Your comment about the low tolerance for voltages above 24VDC is interesting.
I'm not sure what would happen if one were to plug a Rocketm5 into a standard PoE switch - hopefully the overcurrent protection on the switch would save the radio, but it's not an exercise I'd want to try on a radio bought with my own money!
In my view, Ubiquiti would be better off completely avoiding the term "PoE" around these radios - this is not "standard" PoE at all and could lead to just this sort of incident.

You're right - Ubiquiti make a lot of noise about cable grounding on this and some of their other products (ToughSwitch, ToughCable etc). From an ESD point of view, grounding is indeed important, however if installed with only that as protection, lightning and induced surge conditions in SA (on the highveld especially) will still tend to eat that setup it for breakfast ;-)
Click to expand...

These days POE is a headache, but passive POE which UBNT uses on certain products is common...but there is no intelligence built into it...simply voltage applied to unused CAT5 pairs.

I guess you could call 802.11af standard POE, this however is intelligent and plugging say a laptop LAN port into a POE switch works 100%, with no smoke, why, simple because it does not negotiate POE as it knows the device plugged in is not POE capable.

That said plugging a rocket m5 into a 802.11af switch...does...nothing, the switch can't negotiate POE hence the port is treated like a standard LAN port (obviously the rocket does not power up)

If you turn it around and say plug the POE adapter which comes with the rocket into a laptop, smoke!, why because there is constantly 24VDC applied to the pins mentioned above, no intelligence.

UBNT is the worst company regarding voltage tolerances...and yes 24VDC is the upper limit on M series, no if's and but's

Some UBNT products do support 802.11af, like newer rocket m5 titanium, unifi etc.

We should keep this thread clean, start a new thread or PM me if you want more info :-)
 
eddief1 said:
These days POE is a headache, but passive POE which UBNT uses on certain products is common...but there is no intelligence built into it...simply voltage applied to unused CAT5 pairs.

I guess you could call 802.11af standard POE, this however is intelligent and plugging say a laptop LAN port into a POE switch works 100%, with no smoke, why, simple because it does not negotiate POE as it knows the device plugged in is not POE capable.

That said plugging a rocket m5 into a 802.11af switch...does...nothing, the switch can't negotiate POE hence the port is treated like a standard LAN port (obviously the rocket does not power up)

If you turn it around and say plug the POE adapter which comes with the rocket into a laptop, smoke!, why because there is constantly 24VDC applied to the pins mentioned above, no intelligence.

UBNT is the worst company regarding voltage tolerances...and yes 24VDC is the upper limit on M series, no if's and but's

Some UBNT products do support 802.11af, like newer rocket m5 titanium, unifi etc.

We should keep this thread clean, start a new thread or PM me if you want more info :-)
Click to expand...

Start a new thread would be good to combine all the info discussed for this.
 
eddief1 said:
I guess you could call 802.11af standard POE
Click to expand...
I am, yes - 802.3af/at. ;-)

eddief1 said:
We should keep this thread clean, start a new thread or PM me if you want more info :-)
Click to expand...

Yup, time out on this (slightly off-) topic ;-).
I'm thinking about BitCo if/when they get to my part of Pretoria East. Any service that comes into my house on wires is going to have surge protection on it - hence the equipment-related questions from my end!
 
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garthvs said:
Hi larryn

1) You get your own static IP address on your router that you can do port forwarding on. We don't NAT a public IP address down to our clients as some operators do. You would be able to host a server easily.

2) We have some sites with over 40 users on and do not have any issues with speeds on these high sites. When a area becomes very busy we either bring fibre down to our clients or we build a second high site to cover the area.
Click to expand...

Hello,

I see that in this reply to larryn, it is said that port forwarding is easily done.

I have been struggling to setup port forwarding for days now. It is just not working. I have tried pinging the ip and get no reply. I need to setup port forwarding for my cameras and several externally facing web interfaces.

I believe that this is not a router issue as I have tried a different router as well.

Can some please help or give some advice.

Thank you
 
For everyone wondering about power consumption of the Wifi router, switch and PoE

Just Bitco equipment. ~18w and 0.11A

1.PNG

2.PNG

Computer/screens/speaker included

3.PNG

4.PNG
 
So, I've had my BitCo 2mb line for the past 2-3 weeks or so, though I'd share my experiences.

- I cannot praise BitCo enough for their service. In a country where we are so used to being shafted or getting poor service it's a nice change of pace. From the initial correspondence in signing up to the installation, it was all painless and a pleasure.

- The two things I mainly use my line for gaming and downloading (more on the latter below). I've tried CS: GO and Destiny (I play this a lot) and the pings are excellent, I anticipate that other online games will run just as well for me. Loading times (Destiny, etc) have also greatly improved.

- Downloading is a mixed bag for me because the leaky bucket is definitely broken. I assume (I stand to be corrected) that for a 2mb line I should theoretically get around 300kb max download speed? I've never had that speed, be it Torrent, Steam downloads, PSN downloads or downloading updates/driver. The fastest I've seen my line go is around 260-270kb. Also, the speed doesn't go back the fastest after the second throttled hour of the leaky bucket. There are times where the line downloads as little as 100kb for 2-3 hours.

- I know there's been a lot of consternation about streaming and I'm not a heavy streamer but do watch the occasional youtube videos, some quite long. The buffer rate is acceptable for a 2mb line. It struggles a bit with 720 videos and 1080 is impossibru. However, 480 is just fine thought and for a 2mb line I'm not expecting to watch without a small wait for higher quality vids.

- One of the biggest plus points for me is the stability of my net. I haven't experienced a point yet where I've encountered major issues, disconnections or where I haven't been able to access stuff online.

Overall, I'm happy with the service I'm being provided with. As someone who can't have DSL this is a great alternative. I'd definitely think about upgrading to 5mb or 10mb (wife permitting :P) in the future but only if I know for sure the downloads will run closer to the speed it actually should be running at.

Keep up the good work BitCo guys and please don't become like Eskom etc.
 
rajiv said:
So, I've had my BitCo 2mb line for the past 2-3 weeks or so, though I'd share my experiences.

- I cannot praise BitCo enough for their service. In a country where we are so used to being shafted or getting poor service it's a nice change of pace. From the initial correspondence in signing up to the installation, it was all painless and a pleasure.

- The two things I mainly use my line for gaming and downloading (more on the latter below). I've tried CS: GO and Destiny (I play this a lot) and the pings are excellent, I anticipate that other online games will run just as well for me. Loading times (Destiny, etc) have also greatly improved.

- Downloading is a mixed bag for me because the leaky bucket is definitely broken. I assume (I stand to be corrected) that for a 2mb line I should theoretically get around 300kb max download speed? I've never had that speed, be it Torrent, Steam downloads, PSN downloads or downloading updates/driver. The fastest I've seen my line go is around 260-270kb. Also, the speed doesn't go back the fastest after the second throttled hour of the leaky bucket. There are times where the line downloads as little as 100kb for 2-3 hours.

- I know there's been a lot of consternation about streaming and I'm not a heavy streamer but do watch the occasional youtube videos, some quite long. The buffer rate is acceptable for a 2mb line. It struggles a bit with 720 videos and 1080 is impossibru. However, 480 is just fine thought and for a 2mb line I'm not expecting to watch without a small wait for higher quality vids.

- One of the biggest plus points for me is the stability of my net. I haven't experienced a point yet where I've encountered major issues, disconnections or where I haven't been able to access stuff online.

Overall, I'm happy with the service I'm being provided with. As someone who can't have DSL this is a great alternative. I'd definitely think about upgrading to 5mb or 10mb (wife permitting :P) in the future but only if I know for sure the downloads will run closer to the speed it actually should be running at.

Keep up the good work BitCo guys and please don't become like Eskom etc.
Click to expand...

Welcome to proper internet and the BitCo family ;)

Hope you enjoy the experience.
For your 2 Mbps you are getting the appropriate download speeds. When you are downloading in business hours (torrents) you may notice that you are limited to 25 kB/s which approximately 250 kbps.

Please take note of the kB and kb:
kB = kiloBytes
kb = kilobits

If your other regular (and torrents not FUP'ed) downloads are running at 270kB/s then your link is running at 2160 kbps.
 
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Hi Guys
Quick question, I had a series of power failures at my house, now the internet connection is unavailable. Is there a way for me to force a refresh on the link. I have logged a support ticket, but nothing is going to happen until monday morning... I need internet, any help will be appreciated.

Before you ask "Have you tried turning it off and on?", the answer is yes.
Thanks
 
Ahhhh, thanks man. So, it's about right.

Need to convince my wife to let me get a 4mb or 10mb :P

CriticalConsumer said:
Welcome to proper internet and the BitCo family ;)

Hope you enjoy the experience.
For your 2 Mbps you are getting the appropriate download speeds. When you are downloading in business hours (torrents) you may notice that you are limited to 25 kB/s which approximately 250 kbps.

Please take note of the kB and kb:
kB = kiloBytes
kb = kilobits

If your other regular (and torrents not FUP'ed) downloads are running at 270kB/s then your link is running at 2160 kbps.
Click to expand...
 
MoRpHiN01 said:
Hi Guys
Quick question, I had a series of power failures at my house, now the internet connection is unavailable. Is there a way for me to force a refresh on the link. I have logged a support ticket, but nothing is going to happen until monday morning... I need internet, any help will be appreciated.

Before you ask "Have you tried turning it off and on?", the answer is yes.
Thanks
Click to expand...

You need to hard boot your router. Yes I know it means switching the power off and back on again after about 5 minutes. It will give the systems time to release and refresh your IP address.
 
Just out of interest, does uploading count towards the FUP? Uploading 5GB worth of videos from the weekends outings today so just curious.
 
Anyone picking up slow streaming this morning ?

Speed tests showing full line speed but everything buffering (you tube, Hulu , Netflix ) wierd ??
 
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