Fibre over wireless - Good specs - Poor performance.......

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peyperj

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Hi guys, I switched to wireless internet, which is fibre over wireless.

I get download speeds between 8 - 15Mbps and upload between 3 - 8Mbps.

When I download a 75Mb magazine on Zinio it takes 13 seconds to download 1% (0.75Mb)

My speed test shows good results, but cannot live stream Tv on Kodi.

YouTube streaming on 1080 is however fine though.

If you open Facebook, Tapatalk app etc, it will take while to refresh.

Also the wireless on our devices drops out all the time, but just drop and on again.....

Anyone having the same issues?
 
Fiber over wireless is just marketing bullsh4t. You get fiber, you get wireless and you get carrier grade wireless. Carrier grade wireless can be the same quality or better than fiber, but unless you payed R100K+ for your wireless install its not carrier grade.

To me it sounds like you have a normal Mikrotik/Ubnt equipment connected to a wireless provider who has insufficient international capacity but is connected to NapAfrica.

Who are you with?
 
Wireless can be good, but the limiting factor is that these guys are using the ISM bands, sharing that spectrum with every tom, d and harry in the area...my experience, wireless in rural is good, but in urban area's it sucks, simply too much interference from AC home routers and other wireless providers, these wireless providers simply jump around the spectrum praying to find free spectrum and in the process taking out neighboring providers in doing so as they often land up on a channels already being used :-(

In your case as mentioned above, your provider either has insufficient international capacity or you suffering from interference or both!

I ran a wireless network for about 4 years, as time went by and interference increased it became almost impossible to build a stable network no matter what equipment one used, I changed jobs as that is how frustrating it got. Point to Point carrier class is a different animal (expensive) but works great.
 
@ Nuke, I pay R499 ex Vat for a 5Meg line , but they said it's a bonus if I get better speeds , but my speed will never drop below 5Meg.

They are a local area based IT company, Sonstraal Heights, Durbanville.
 
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Nuke said:
Fiber over wireless is just marketing bullsh4t. You get fiber, you get wireless and you get carrier grade wireless. Carrier grade wireless can be the same quality or better than fiber, but unless you payed R100K+ for your wireless install its not carrier grade.

To me it sounds like you have a normal Mikrotik/Ubnt equipment connected to a wireless provider who has insufficient international capacity but is connected to NapAfrica.

Who are you with?
Click to expand...

Agree. Ultimately, wireless can never compete with fibre, wireless technologies are all constrained by the bandwidth available . No one knows what the bandwidth limits are for fibre, yet. Fibre technologies are developing so fast that whatever we think is the limit now is almost certainly wrong. So this marketing ploy is just that a ploy and completely devoid of all truth.

Even " carrier class wireless" is limited by bandwidth, and can dubiously be "better than fibre" in very limited circumstances. Both technologies are limited by what you are prepared to spend in terms of equipment.

Wi Fi is a "shared bandwidth technology" hence the data rates possible are dependent on how many persons are simultaneously trying to use the available bandwidth whereas fibre technologies are less likely to "shared", but if they are the pool of bandwidth available in the shared pool is orders larger than that possible in the ISM bands.

As you say, the crunch comes at the node and the connections to the national and international networks -- If insufficient capacity is available. It also depends on the interconnects the company has arranged, locally and internationally.


peyperj said:
@ Nuke, I pay R499 ex Vat for a 5Meg line , but they said it's a bonus if I get better speeds , but my speed will never drop below 5Meg.

They are a local area based IT company, Sonstraal Heights, Durbanville.
Click to expand...

Well they can only make a claim like that IF they deliberately limit the number of simultaneous connections possible and keep their subscriber numbers below the worst case peak. AND, they ensure that at peak traffic time sufficient network capacity is available to serve all their customer needs. And this becomes a matter of money, it COSTS, to be able to provide the network capacity local and international to guarantee data rates, and hence throughputs.

One really has to have a problem with the availability of ADSL in your area to score from alternative wireless solutions.
 
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The reason I say "better than fiber" in only in certain cases. Speed not being one of them.
1. Quicker, easier and often cheaper to install. - Trenching fiber is a PITA
2. Reliability - Can't be dug up by a TLB. Though running multiple fiber paths is an option
3. Latency - For cases like trading the markets when micro seconds count.

I'm doing a lot of ISM stuff myself. If you adhere to certain conditions it is quite doable, even on ptmp systems.

An Uncapped Unshared Unshaped service costs around R2500-R4000 per Mbps to deliver to a client. If you pay less, you are going to loose one or more of the U's. Even more so if you want to add an R (reliable)
 
Nuke said:
The reason I say "better than fiber" in only in certain cases. Speed not being one of them.
1. Quicker, easier and often cheaper to install. - Trenching fiber is a PITA
2. Reliability - Can't be dug up by a TLB. Though running multiple fiber paths is an option
3. Latency - For cases like trading the markets when micro seconds count.

I'm doing a lot of ISM stuff myself. If you adhere to certain conditions it is quite doable, even on ptmp systems.

An Uncapped Unshared Unshaped service costs around R2500-R4000 per Mbps to deliver to a client. If you pay less, you are going to loose one or more of the U's. Even more so if you want to add an R (reliable)
Click to expand...

In regards to 2: I would put fiber as being more reliable than wireless. Bad weather can destroy your wireless signal and you would have more dropped packets than fiber.
In regards to 3: Fiber latency is lower than wireless.
 
On higher frequencies yes. Lower ones not at all. On longer links on 7Ghz you often see better signal quality during a storm. The cooler temperatures negate the effect of temperature fading. I have a 48km 7ghz link with a theoretical signal of -48. I have seen it there on cold winter mornings. On a hot day it will rise to -60. In a rainstorm is will often drop to -51.

Depends on the equipment. If the wireless equipment does any packet processing it will be higher, even if it only has a switch chip. On the other hand if it only acts like a wire(think HXI equipment) it will be lower. A direct radio path is quicker than light traveling down a bend fiber.
http://www.bankingtech.com/174882/london-stock-exchange-prepares-millimetre-wave-trading-link/
 
Nuke said:
Fiber over wireless is just marketing bullsh4t. You get fiber, you get wireless and you get carrier grade wireless. Carrier grade wireless can be the same quality or better than fiber, but unless you payed R100K+ for your wireless install its not carrier grade.

To me it sounds like you have a normal Mikrotik/Ubnt equipment connected to a wireless provider who has insufficient international capacity but is connected to NapAfrica.
Click to expand...

+1
 
Nuke said:
On higher frequencies yes. Lower ones not at all. On longer links on 7Ghz you often see better signal quality during a storm. The cooler temperatures negate the effect of temperature fading. I have a 48km 7ghz link with a theoretical signal of -48. I have seen it there on cold winter mornings. On a hot day it will rise to -60. In a rainstorm is will often drop to -51.

Depends on the equipment. If the wireless equipment does any packet processing it will be higher, even if it only has a switch chip. On the other hand if it only acts like a wire(think HXI equipment) it will be lower. A direct radio path is quicker than light traveling down a bend fiber.
http://www.bankingtech.com/174882/london-stock-exchange-prepares-millimetre-wave-trading-link/
Click to expand...

How are you able to use 7GHZ? Is it licensed spectrum?
 
Yup its licensed. It takes forever to get it from ICASA, but well worth it in the end. Though I have quite a bit of experience with 17Ghz as well. 17Ghz on the other hand is not so great in a rainstorm.
 
Nuke said:
Yup its licensed. It takes forever to get it from ICASA, but well worth it in the end. Though I have quite a bit of experience with 17Ghz as well. 17Ghz on the other hand is not so great in a rainstorm.
Click to expand...

Nice to see people doing it properly!!! Makes a change from the average wisp
 
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