BitCo Consumer Review

Word of advice to Bitco, don't do your maintenance on a Friday again, at least if its a weekday it can get fixed the next day, but instead most of your client base was left with poor internet over the weekend because Bitco has no client support over the weekend (Maybe thats gotta change as well)
 
Word of advice to Bitco, don't do your maintenance on a Friday again, at least if its a weekday it can get fixed the next day, but instead most of your client base was left with poor internet over the weekend because Bitco has no client support over the weekend (Maybe thats gotta change as well)

Yeah I'm pretty miffed that I haven't been able to play this weekend and I'm pretty upset with the lack of support in situations like this. What I think is going to be even worse is the whole "Oh, we sorry we didn't even notice our network was very broken this entire weekend, lolz" response on Monday.
 
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This all sounds rather serious.
Quite a few of you have probs and no support over a weekend.
The techs have said they will be at my place this Thursday to check for LOS and possible installation, but after hearing all this,
I am finding it rather difficult to trash my adsl right now...... :-(
 
HI All,
The issue you have been experiencing this weekend is not related to the maintenance done on our network.

The network maintenance done this weekend was to extend the backup power on select high sites in and around Gauteng
This maintenance should have only caused a brief interruption in services and was completed on Saturday.

The issue being experienced is due to a fault on the seacom undersea cable system.
This has been affecting various international routes predominantly to Europe and Asia.
We have a fully redundant route active but each time the services on seacom experience an issue and the service is re-routed it causes a large latency spike and could result in a few seconds with no service to those specific international destinations
Our core team is working with the cable provider to rectify the issue.

At the moment those routes have been forced over the redundant route out of Cape Town, this would result in a slightly higher latency
The team will make some additional routing changes tonight if the fault is cleared so you may experience latency pikes
This fault should have very low impact on general web services such as browsing but due to the nature of online gaming it would be affected by the latency spikes
All local services are unaffected and we hope to have this fault resolved shortly
Apologies for any inconvenience caused, a more detailed explanation will be posted once we receive a formal incident report from the cable provider

Mike
 
Great feedback Mike. Now I think if that could have been communicated earlier it would have gone a long way to stay the tensions here. We all understand that some stuff is totally out of Bitco control.
 
Great feedback Mike. Now I think if that could have been communicated earlier it would have gone a long way to stay the tensions here. We all understand that some stuff is totally out of Bitco control.

Agreed - Bitco needs a noticeboard of sorts where this issue could have been posted and it would have avoided a whole ton of tension.
 
Thanks Mike.

I gave up trying to do anything on Saturday. I can say though CSGO I could play yesterday with no issues. Saturday was the worst for me as I struggled to stream the Rugby and WoW was just a no go at all. Glad it's sorted now.

+1 to the idea of maybe a status noticeboard on the website somewhere for big issues. I never have any issues so I just took it as a big problem somewhere and don't have reason to complain. 99% of the time it's flawless.
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the replies

We are working on a notification system for our residential customers and will most likely be implementing an SMS type of service

Typically we are very active on this thread whereby all the games do follow it but this weekend i was unfortunately away and didn't take my laptop so couldn't access my forum account. :cry:

At the moment services are all running over the backup route out of the WACS under sea cable from Cape Town, everything will be 100% stable with slightly higher latency to Europe based on the additional distance from JHB to CTN

As soon as we receive confirmation from Seacom that the fault is cleared services will re-routed over this cable system again

I will provide an update once we have clarification

Mike
 
This all sounds rather serious.
Quite a few of you have probs and no support over a weekend.
The techs have said they will be at my place this Thursday to check for LOS and possible installation, but after hearing all this,
I am finding it rather difficult to trash my adsl right now...... :-(

Snap, confirmation of LOS and possible installation tomorrow.

BITCO I am getting worried, i got rid of my previous service provider because of **** like this.

99% up time??

There always seems to be a reason why there is a performance issue, granted Seacom Cable Down, that is an understandable reason, a spike here, a failure there, too many incidents of down time lately?

A round of beers to Mike with regards to the feedback and the notice board idea/sms....... Communication and Transparency!
 
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Snap, confirmation of LOS and possible installation tomorrow.

BITCO I am getting worried, i got rid of my previous service provider because of **** like this.

99% up time .........seems more like 60%

I have been with them about a year now. I have had an outage once for about 1 hour and now this international problem over the weekend. How do you get that 60% you're talking about? Just curious.
 
I have been with them about a year now. I have had an outage once for about 1 hour and now this international problem over the weekend. How do you get that 60% you're talking about? Just curious.

60% is a point "rough" figure based on the feedback I have read through the threads, all the little things add up latency issues, spikes, tower down due to hardware failure etc etc.

Keeping in mind the network might be up and running, however, is it performing at its optimal as promised. If you were in my situation with installation and activation of services about to take place you would also be asking the relevant questions, especially as I have been battling with ISP's for the last 4 years.

Pitbull you are an existing customer and I will take your word for it, however 99% in one year is 3.65 days and I can assure you there have been disruptions on there network for longer than 3.65 days, but seeing is believing and because of the shocking service I have received from previous ISP's I am pretty hesitant and cautious about any new service ISP.

Im taking a leap of faith, make me a believer!
 
60% is a point "rough" figure based on the feedback I have read through the threads, all the little things add up latency issues, spikes, tower down due to hardware failure etc etc.

Keeping in mind the network might be up and running, however, is it performing at its optimal as promised. If you were in my situation with installation and activation of services about to take place you would also be asking the relevant questions, especially as I have been battling with ISP's for the last 4 years.


Pitbull you are an existing customer and I will take your word for it, however 99% in one year is 3.65 days and I can assure you there have been disruptions on there network for longer than 3.65 days, but seeing is believing and because of the shocking service I have received from previous ISP's I am pretty hesitant and cautious about any new service ISP.

Im taking a leap of faith, make me a believer!

Ok more than 99% then :p

I have seriously had little to no issues. Granted some people on here have had valid issues of which I know Wikkels and Murmaider being 2. From my understanding those issues are being dealt with. I have had no latency issues, no packet loss issues or even disconnection problems. Every time I had an issues it was a pretty serious one. The last time I was out for about an hour or maybe 2 but that was also due to hardware failure somewhere. And even over the weekend. As frustrating as it was, I could still watch Netflix even though I could forget about streaming the Rugby or playing any type of game.
 
Ok more than 99% then :p

I have seriously had little to no issues. Granted some people on here have had valid issues of which I know Wikkels and Murmaider being 2. From my understanding those issues are being dealt with. I have had no latency issues, no packet loss issues or even disconnection problems. Every time I had an issues it was a pretty serious one. The last time I was out for about an hour or maybe 2 but that was also due to hardware failure somewhere. And even over the weekend. As frustrating as it was, I could still watch Netflix even though I could forget about streaming the Rugby or playing any type of game.

No they're not, Bitco is unable to fix my packetloss issues in CSGO, I actually quit playing the game (Not worth the headache) Thought I'd stick to games like wow and d3... But those were also unplayable most of this weekend:p

Overall my gaming experience with Bitco has been rather disappointing tbh...
 
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Granted there will be issues, after all we are in Africa.

The most important thing is performance, stability and consistency. If Bitco can offer the previously mentioned requirements I will be a very happy customer!

Suggestion : - Bitco should look into a Smartphone app for the purpose of network status, customer data usage, notification of FUP policy on connection and account management etc.
 
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No they're not, Bitco is unable to fix my packetloss issues in CSGO, I actually quit playing the game (Not worth the headache) Thought I'd stick to games like wow and d3... But those were also unplayable most of this weekend:p

I actually got sucked into CS:GO now since Sumi bought it for me to test. Got a few cases yesterday. Now I need to buy keys :o. I'll do that tonight. I have seriously no issues at all with it. The game itself crashes sometimes, but I think that is my PC being a bit dated. Especially during map changes.

I mentioned yourself and Murmaider as I know you guys have problems. Not trying to downplay any problems on the network any might be experiencing that is why I mentioned it. I'm just happy I have no issues. /touch wood :p
 
I actually got sucked into CS:GO now since Sumi bought it for me to test. Got a few cases yesterday. Now I need to buy keys :o. I'll do that tonight. I have seriously no issues at all with it. The game itself crashes sometimes, but I think that is my PC being a bit dated. Especially during map changes.

I mentioned yourself and Murmaider as I know you guys have problems. Not trying to downplay any problems on the network any might be experiencing that is why I mentioned it. I'm just happy I have no issues. /touch wood :p

Hopefully will be joining you on the *happy* side of gaming within the next 2 weeks. Currently sitting with ADSL that spikes to 80% packet loss for a few seconds and drops down again. Telkom sends out 2 different tech's, both of them come to the same solution (that the port on the exchange is stuffed and that they cannot do anything about it since the imax exchange is full and they cannot use the MSAN in the area.)

Just praying that Bitco calls me soon to set up LOS testing etc. as I'm getting to the point where I would like to do some nasty things to Telkom's Head office. >_<
 
I actually got sucked into CS:GO now since Sumi bought it for me to test. Got a few cases yesterday. Now I need to buy keys :o. I'll do that tonight. I have seriously no issues at all with it. The game itself crashes sometimes, but I think that is my PC being a bit dated. Especially during map changes.

I mentioned yourself and Murmaider as I know you guys have problems. Not trying to downplay any problems on the network any might be experiencing that is why I mentioned it. I'm just happy I have no issues. /touch wood :p

The game is crazy fun and addictive!!
 
hi i had a line of sight test done and no subsequent installation the guys mentioned that they needed to speak with a senior about installation, i was just wondering what are the chances of fitting a line or should i be looking for an alternative service provider
 
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