I was phoned by Sentech!

passif

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2004
Messages
138
[:0]

Was my first reaction...

And if after this post they haven't figured out who is behind the 'passif' nick, well, then there is no hope. *waves* "I would like to thank the Orcs and Dark Lords at Sentech that made this post possible, and my parents, and..."

Okay, in all seriousness, this is what was put on the table from Sentech's side (and this from a second level Orc, as well as Clinton Smith). I've fired off an email to Clinton confirming this and raising another question.

If I want to cancel my contract, I can do so (it may have something to do with a very, very long ticket - being mailed a speedgraph on a daily basis since the 18th June adds to the bulk I believe). Both Clinton as well as Carl stated this (verbally and in writing). However, they both suggested that I put my contract on hold, as (and this was from Clinton) a task force has been set up. Apparently the IPWireless guys are out here, and they have people from Dimension Data as well.

BTW, apparently the putting on hold thing comes from high up in the Sentech hierarchy, so throw Casper Cassidy's name around if you want to go down this route.

There is also an end date set to this by the Sentech Executive Committee of middle / end August. I have a sneaky suspicion it may be the beginning of August, but leeway is being given. Now, what I asked in my email was what happens if the speed / bandwidth issues are not resolved by the given date?

Once it is fixed, there will be another testing cycle in which I as consumer can decide whether I want to continue with the service at it's current level or not. They will even send people out to come and verify your tests or some such.

And, to add even more to the [:0] moment, that rarest of creatures, rumoured to exist within the walls of Sentech, a 'Winston Smith' is going to contact me either today or Monday to answer my questions with regards to the product. The questions I have listed around it (and which is the decider on contract termination over and above lack of service) are:
<ul><li>How often will I as customer experience the contention ratio (permanently? 23 hours a day, unless we can get noone to stop surfing for pr0n?)</li><li>Acceptable levels of service as per entry 11.4.2 in contract - what are such 'acceptable levels'? I.e. some kind of SLA, since they talk about it in their contract</li><li>The post made a while back by an Orc that one cannot achieve maximum throughput (he had an example of 100k max on a 128k line) and whether that is the official Sentech viewpoint</li><li>What is the 'typical user profile / typical use that Marcel Raath alludes to in the interview? If Sentech was under the impression that a 24/7 connection will be used similarly to ye average dial-up user, well, my word, they did not think that one through.</li></ul>

Anything else one should add to the list, if I get phoned? Local vs International bandwidth?

So there we have it - I must confess, I am in two minds wrt cancelling. On the one hand I can put all this fighting with Sentech behind me, on the other I would actually like to see it work. It is pretyt nifty, having 24/7 connection (except for scheduled outages, unscheduled outages, storms, rain, trees, too many cars driving down the road, the concrete quality...), and when it works the way it should it works great. Pity it currently seems to be 1.5 days out of the month. And I can put it on hold - that is another option. Dunno, what to do, what to do... [?]

---
Sentech and Telkom: The pupil surpassing the master
 

Kai

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Joined
May 7, 2004
Messages
418
when it works, it works great! i had three downloads running on my connection, each at 27k/s before it died!

what bugs me is that now it's August, arf9999 was told it would be end of this month!?

so, who's telling the truth?

this means we're going to be stuck with this k.k for the next month and a half - they better pay me back for the non-connectivity I've had!

<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1"><i><div align="right"><font color="red">i haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on disk somewhere...</font id="red">
tower82.randparkridge.jhb|13% signal|256k package, running at 0.3 - 3k/s :(</div id="right"></i></font id="size1">
 

arf9999

MyBroadband Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2004
Messages
6,791
What they've told you seems similar to what I learned yesterday:

http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3883

I am of the same opinion about waiting...but I want something for all the sh*t I've had to deal with. Refund me for the lack of service, or bump up my bw for the rest of my contract.
I think we really need to get an SLA, before deciding to stay or go.

-A


MW128, Tower 50 (Northpark Plaza), 17% (with a Pringles can)
 

passif

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2004
Messages
138
I have a sneaky suspicion that end of this month is the proper date, but Clinton was adding a bit of fat. Heck, I do it when I quote for development work, I guess they can do it as well. Put your contract on hold Kai - that way it doesn't cost you a thing, you can see where it goes. Mmm, am I trying to talk myself into an option here...

---
Sentech and Telkom: The pupil surpassing the master
 

Kai

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 7, 2004
Messages
418
Suspend my account?! Are you INSANE! How am I going to play games!? [:0]

If I put my contract on hold, I won't have an internet connection...

wait... I don't have an internet connection now...

bollocks...

[:D]

nope. they must just fix it... besides, end of this month is not that far away, so if they do it then, I'm happy.

<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1"><i><div align="right"><font color="red">i haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on disk somewhere...</font id="red">
tower82.randparkridge.jhb|13% signal|256k package, running at 0.3 - 3k/s :(</div id="right"></i></font id="size1">
 

sneaky

Active Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2004
Messages
39
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by passif</i>
<br />[:0]
Apparently the IPWireless guys are out here, and they have people from Dimension Data as well.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

You mean Diminishing Data dont you? All is lost...

________________________
Must think happy thoughts about the antenna!!!
 

TheRoDent

Cool Ideas Rep
Joined
Aug 6, 2003
Messages
6,218
Dimension Data supply Packeteer Inc's products in South Africa, thus I'm guessing that Sentech has finally woken up and decided to buy a bandwidth management product. Also, the close ties with Internet Solutions probably means that IS have finally woken up and decided to save this dying pig by means of intervention, before making their name arse by reselling a crappy product. This can only be good.

IPWireless, I guess are here in "fear" due to the fact that they're pretty keen to prove their technology can work, since Sentech is the single biggest rollout of IPW tech in the world. The fact that their name is mentioned in hArTh's proposed slashdot.org submission could also be a good motivator.

It's funny how we have to wait 75 days, and threaten them with a scandal before they wake up and smell the coffee.


<center><h6> MyWireless <s>Hacks</s> Tweaks & Tech Info || Have you checked the fawking FAQ? <br /> <font color="red">Tired of Sentech's bad service? Want to compare speeds? We at least listen...</font id="red"></h6></center>
 

kaspaas

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Joined
Aug 6, 2003
Messages
3,736
I must say, seems as if Sentech has learnt a lot about client management in the past few weeks. Moving from lawyers letters, to calling unhappy clients and offering a solution that might just keep them happy!

What I've learnt from this whole story (I'm on ADSL not MyWi) is the importance of a decent SLA.

If I were in your position, I would take the offer of putting the contract on hold, but on your conditions:

Proper rebates for the period you did not have service, and a proper SLA against which you can test their improved service. Otherwise, the bad could just return in a few months, and you be the looser again if you don't have an SLA to compare what is delivered.

And the SLA should include an automatic rebate clause for bad service not fixed within 24 hours.

During October my company will consider our options (an annual event). Currently we have ADSL and we are extremely happy with the technical aspects, but not the administrative and cost aspects.

The SLA's of Telkom ("Best effort") and MyWi (Do they something like that at present??) at that stage will override the price difference between ADSL + 2x Prolog and MyWi's 256k product. Provided I have MyWi coverage by then.

Why did I write all of this: I've seen the improvement in support service of Telkom with the roll-out of MyWi. The better MyWi performs, the better the better Telkom's service will become, and I believe the cheaper 24/7 internet connectivity will get in SA.

I know Sentech reads this - please note the change in aggression already in this threat!



South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.
 

gripen

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Aug 14, 2003
Messages
1,693
Things with Telkom would have improved had they had real competition. I do believe they are holding back their actual 10GB cap or 256kbps ADSL type products (now rumours - just my guess) thanks to the current burst of Sentech issues. If Sentech MyWireless worked like it should or could, Im sure there would already have been a backlash product from Telkom. Its Telkom that holds all the cards since they can actually afford to release an uncapped proper 256kbps ADSL service for R500 a month no problem. Its my opinion that that is their secret weapon if ever MyWireless actually takes off.
 

regardtv

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Joined
Sep 1, 2003
Messages
1,537
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Once it is fixed, there will be another testing cycle in which I as consumer can decide whether I want to continue with the service at it's current level or not. They will even send people out to come and verify your tests or some such.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

We neeeeed measurables. Fixed points of download/use that you can use to compare the service objectively.

Sentech need to provide indicators of the level of service they plan to offer in August. Then we can compare to these.

As an side, looks like there's new gear going in here and there. Anyone on Mintek(12) notice the latency changes of late ? It could just be that I've told my linux fw to reconnect every six hours - seems to drop latencies right down (disabling no to confirm changes). http://riggerman.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/smokeping.cgi?target=SouthAfrica

One last thing passif --&gt; drill them as to getting the financial systems sorted out... Currently I "owe" them 360000 and have -31 months left on my contract ;-)

R
 

lewstherin

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2004
Messages
968
Rodent, does the possible introduction of Packeteer = port shaping? Because if so, Sentech will have a riot from those that have signed the contract on no-shaping promises.

Personally I'm all for bandwidth management, but port shaping means bye bye online gaming, downloading and pretty much everything else thats fun to do on the net (besides moan on MyADSL [;)]).

<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">
 

TheRoDent

Cool Ideas Rep
Joined
Aug 6, 2003
Messages
6,218
A packeteer = traffic/port shaping. That's the entire purpose of the device. What I did point out to Raath and <b>overemphasized</b> is that they should look at the "abusive" traffic and consider shaping that kind of traffic, at their INTERNATIONAL points. I made it patently clear that "good" behaviour would be to have local bandwidth UNCONTENDED, and UNSHAPED, since it's a dime a dozen.

Thus, not overly prioritize http, ftp and a select few services, but rather down-prioritize KNOWN abusive traffic. I don't really give a hoot if p2p clients die in the process, if it can sort out the problem. Even if they shape bittorrent down to 2k/s -- it is still a permanent connection, and you can wait for downloads right?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that shaping will happen, and it is in their power to do so, due to the contract (if you read finely). There really is NO other way to manage bandwidth, other than shaping the traffic that is eating up most of your capacity. That's just a fact of life. All ISP's do it (not that that makes it any better). Until such time as p2p becomes less popular, or bandwidth EXTREMELY cheap, shaping is going to be with us.

Whether any of this **** actually went into his thick skull is impossible to say.

<center><h6> MyWireless <s>Hacks</s> Tweaks & Tech Info || Have you checked the fawking FAQ? <br /> <font color="red">Tired of Sentech's bad service? Want to compare speeds? We at least listen...</font id="red"></h6></center>
 
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