I've decided it's time to join the revolution in a more active manner. The following is a letter that I am sending out to the major South African IT publications. Heck, I'll even try IOL - although I suspect it has to be shorter for The Star. LG?. Please comment, if there's anything I need to add / remove lemme know.
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Sentech MyWireless: Salvation or Curse
By now most people have heard of the Sentech MyWireless product. At long last here is a viable alternative to Telkom, or at least what appeared to be a viable alternative. I was one of many that followed the Sentech MyWireless roll-out with baited breath, waiting for pricing and performance figures to be made available. Initial reaction was favourable, as long as one is not into online FPS gaming. However, I was not willing to sign up for a two year contract, as a previous experience with regards to such a long contract (Satellite Internet) did not work out well.
In the middle of May I decided to take the plunge and join Sentech as one year contracts were made available, and I decided that for a one year period I am willing to take a chance. I mean, how bad could it possibly get? Little did I know - not only did it get bad, it got worse... I trust that this email will serve as a warning to potential Sentech customers, or at least make those that think about applying for the product, think twice. If you are expecting a similar experience to an ISDN or even an analog dial-up connection, where you get a consistent throughput, you are in for a surprise.
Since the 11th June I have been monitoring my throughput on a daily basis. Speeds as low as 1.5KBps has been measured - this is slower than a 14.4kbps modem. Over a 24 hour period it is rare to see the speed of the 256k connection rise over 8KBPS (64kbps), it tends to average in the 5KBPS / 6KBPS range - and the periods where I have seen the true power of a 256k connection has been once (yes - once) in the past month, for a period of almost one hour - I experienced a maximum speed of 27KBps. By the way, yes, I have raised my speed issues with Sentech support, have a problem ticket open and supply them with the daily graphs since the 18th June.
However, even with slow speeds, if the company has a support infrastructure in place that is helpful, and that notifies one of outages and problems, your customer is generally willing to accept a certain lack of service, as long as there is light at the end of the tunnel. Well, there is no light at the end of this tunnel - Sentech's support department tries to fob one off with a variety of excuses, including the 'fact' that speeds as mentioned above is 'perfectly acceptable' for a product that is being sold as a 'broadband' product. There is nothing acceptable about it, and there is nothing broadband about it. Sentech Support uses the contention ratio to justify the lack of speed - however, when repeatedly asked how often one should experience the effect of the contention ratio is not willing to answer. Based on my tracking, when you use the myWireless connection, you WILL suffer the effects of contention. Another interesting helpdesk comment is that one will never get the bandwidth that you've purchased - in the example given by the Sentech 'helpdesk' operator, on a 128k connection one can expect 8kbps during peak time traffic, and between 10kbps and 100kbps during off-peak traffic. This is blatant misrepresentation of the products that Sentech provides.
And then, in best 'big company' tradition, when websites spring up to complain about the lack of service provided by Sentech, their lawyers are called in to shut the sites down - for those that do not follow ITWeb, the site http://www.mywirelesssucks.co.za had to be closed due to 'trademark infringement'. So, not only am I as customer dealing with a company that appears unsupportive and misleading with regards to the products that they offer, and that tie their customers in with contracts but with very little recourse, they also actively try to squash any complaints and issues. I must confess, this does not give me a warm feeling with regards to supporting a company like Sentech.
My personal opinion is that one should think long and hard before going down the wireless route with Sentech, as you will quite likely face the same problems and issues. I got far more value out of my ISDN 128k connection and Callmore than I do out of the MyWireless 256k connection. Realise that you are signing either a twelve or twenty-four month contract for a sub-par 'broadband' service with a company that uses lawyers to silence complaining customers. It is a pity as Telkom needs a viable alternative, but at this moment Sentech's MyWireless service does not seem to be it. For other comments and experiences on Sentech and it's myWireless product, point your browser at either http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum or http://www.hellopeter.com.
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Sentech and Telkom: The pupil surpassing the master
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Sentech MyWireless: Salvation or Curse
By now most people have heard of the Sentech MyWireless product. At long last here is a viable alternative to Telkom, or at least what appeared to be a viable alternative. I was one of many that followed the Sentech MyWireless roll-out with baited breath, waiting for pricing and performance figures to be made available. Initial reaction was favourable, as long as one is not into online FPS gaming. However, I was not willing to sign up for a two year contract, as a previous experience with regards to such a long contract (Satellite Internet) did not work out well.
In the middle of May I decided to take the plunge and join Sentech as one year contracts were made available, and I decided that for a one year period I am willing to take a chance. I mean, how bad could it possibly get? Little did I know - not only did it get bad, it got worse... I trust that this email will serve as a warning to potential Sentech customers, or at least make those that think about applying for the product, think twice. If you are expecting a similar experience to an ISDN or even an analog dial-up connection, where you get a consistent throughput, you are in for a surprise.
Since the 11th June I have been monitoring my throughput on a daily basis. Speeds as low as 1.5KBps has been measured - this is slower than a 14.4kbps modem. Over a 24 hour period it is rare to see the speed of the 256k connection rise over 8KBPS (64kbps), it tends to average in the 5KBPS / 6KBPS range - and the periods where I have seen the true power of a 256k connection has been once (yes - once) in the past month, for a period of almost one hour - I experienced a maximum speed of 27KBps. By the way, yes, I have raised my speed issues with Sentech support, have a problem ticket open and supply them with the daily graphs since the 18th June.
However, even with slow speeds, if the company has a support infrastructure in place that is helpful, and that notifies one of outages and problems, your customer is generally willing to accept a certain lack of service, as long as there is light at the end of the tunnel. Well, there is no light at the end of this tunnel - Sentech's support department tries to fob one off with a variety of excuses, including the 'fact' that speeds as mentioned above is 'perfectly acceptable' for a product that is being sold as a 'broadband' product. There is nothing acceptable about it, and there is nothing broadband about it. Sentech Support uses the contention ratio to justify the lack of speed - however, when repeatedly asked how often one should experience the effect of the contention ratio is not willing to answer. Based on my tracking, when you use the myWireless connection, you WILL suffer the effects of contention. Another interesting helpdesk comment is that one will never get the bandwidth that you've purchased - in the example given by the Sentech 'helpdesk' operator, on a 128k connection one can expect 8kbps during peak time traffic, and between 10kbps and 100kbps during off-peak traffic. This is blatant misrepresentation of the products that Sentech provides.
And then, in best 'big company' tradition, when websites spring up to complain about the lack of service provided by Sentech, their lawyers are called in to shut the sites down - for those that do not follow ITWeb, the site http://www.mywirelesssucks.co.za had to be closed due to 'trademark infringement'. So, not only am I as customer dealing with a company that appears unsupportive and misleading with regards to the products that they offer, and that tie their customers in with contracts but with very little recourse, they also actively try to squash any complaints and issues. I must confess, this does not give me a warm feeling with regards to supporting a company like Sentech.
My personal opinion is that one should think long and hard before going down the wireless route with Sentech, as you will quite likely face the same problems and issues. I got far more value out of my ISDN 128k connection and Callmore than I do out of the MyWireless 256k connection. Realise that you are signing either a twelve or twenty-four month contract for a sub-par 'broadband' service with a company that uses lawyers to silence complaining customers. It is a pity as Telkom needs a viable alternative, but at this moment Sentech's MyWireless service does not seem to be it. For other comments and experiences on Sentech and it's myWireless product, point your browser at either http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum or http://www.hellopeter.com.
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Sentech and Telkom: The pupil surpassing the master