Letters To the Editor

Strange, I don't see too many complaints in MyWireless Complaints forum:

http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=24
 
Thats my point .....

If we colate all the problems up within a single forum and ensure that the info is all correct , then we have something to fight with...... if not, then this will be laughed of by any editor , and the integrity of the complaints will be classified as 1% yet again

There is info all over the place on the forum and only if you look for it do you find it... they are not gonna go to that amount of effort...

If we get it in one place , and then get the rodent to link it to the sentechsucks.co.za url , then anyone viewing that page will have the most up to date info....

Just a thought ..... lets win the war not just the 1% , Saturday then Monday Battle
 
So, shouldn't we use that forum rather?

Any newcommers, or media looking for research on the subject would find the information they are looking for in one specific area much more easily. I was going to say that you should post the above links to the forum, but I see you have already drawn your guns.
 
Well guys, the true indicator of service is the popularity of the forums. It is a well known fact that when things are working, the traffic in the forum dies down significantly. This seems to be the case right at the moment. So.. I dont think you will get very far with the complaints right now.

Perhaps what we need is a basic list of individuals (not necessarily by firstname but maybe forum nicknames) who have experienced poor service or slow speeds for at least 1 day out of the last 10 or 20 or whatever. This should be posted in the GENERAL forum category since nobody reads the others.

Then we can say, but hey we have a list of 100 people - then Sentech's comeback will have to include their user count (protected information) so that they can verify their little 1% story.

Its not about how it works right now but rather the fact that we have ALL experienced some kind of degraded service over the last months.. I mean its not like we can choose to sort of pay less than the R22 on some days here and there.
 
Excellent ---- atleast everyone can see whats been said now


As i am new it has helped plenty in understanding what has been happening

Thanks
 
We should also be aware of our spelling... nothing stuffs credibility up more then badd spelingk.

<font color="navy"><font size="1"><b>Where others have progress, we have Telkom.</b>
Hellkom website - http://telkomsucks.0catch.com</font id="size1"></font id="navy">
 
From LoneGunman's complaints forum, it appears like a lone crusade of LG. Perhaps RPM could setup his landing page poll as follows:

Are you satisfied with your broadband service?

a) Satisfied with Sentech's MyWireless service
b) Not satisfied with Sentech's MyWireless service
c) Satisfied with Telkom's ADSL service
d) Not satisfied with Telkom's ADSL service
e) Not currently using a broadband service

It give us an overall idea on how widespread the speed issue is, and whether Sentech's 1% claim can be substantiated.
 
Ok, I am a newbie and I debunk threads with my trolling, but I will take all the gentle prods in my stride. However, I would still be interested in the results of such a poll, wouldn't you? It would certainly help you in your crusade, no?
 
Sorry LG, I didn't realise you had edited your previous response, whilst I was composing mine.

Nice to see that you at least agree with it. I am sure RPM can prevent multi-tapping by recording registered user info of the tappers.
 
My Speeds are also Horrible still [xx(]

Alf, Orc...do you have MyWireless?

The Complaints Forum is very new, so complaints will continue in the general section for a time to come...

Local Ping :
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Resolving host 'www.sentech.co.za'
Pinging [66.18.65.115] x 10 with 32 bytes of data

Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=318 ms
Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=356 ms
Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=217 ms
Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=220 ms
Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=1038 ms
Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=1227 ms
Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=279 ms
Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=729 ms
Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=200 ms
Reply from 66.18.65.115 : bytes=32 : time=346 ms
Min=200 : Max=1227 : Ave=493 ms : Packetloss = 0%
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

International Ping :
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Resolving host 'www.darkagesofcamelot.com'
Pinging [208.38.59.181] x 10 with 32 bytes of data

Reply from 208.38.59.181 : bytes=32 : time=1061 ms
Reply from 208.38.59.181 : bytes=32 : time=572 ms
Reply from 208.38.59.181 : bytes=32 : time=541 ms
Reply from 208.38.59.181 : bytes=32 : time=657 ms
Reply from 208.38.59.181 : bytes=32 : time=519 ms
Reply from 208.38.59.181 : bytes=32 : time=817 ms
Reply from 208.38.59.181 : bytes=32 : time=658 ms
Reply from 208.38.59.181 : bytes=32 : time=598 ms
Reply from 208.38.59.181 : Timed out
Reply from 208.38.59.181 : Timed out
Min=519 : Max=1061 : Ave=677 ms : Packetloss = 20%
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I have to say, I am soooo happy with the R850 I spend per month for this service...


35% Signal
[36]Scummyside
 
Kemosabi

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have MyWireless 128k, connecting to Horizon View tower.

I may be an Orc, but I do not work for Sentech, nor Sentech Helpdesk; nor Telkom; NoWire, FastComm, etc.

Local ping (www.is.co.za):
Ping statistics for 196.35.72.14:
Packets: Sent = 100, Received = 100, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 75ms, Maximum = 511ms, Average = 117ms

International ping (www.apple.com):
Ping statistics for 17.112.152.32:
Packets: Sent = 100, Received = 99, Lost = 1 (1% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 377ms, Maximum = 633ms, Average = 420ms

I don't know what my signal is (using PPPoE), but I get three lights. I am neither satisfied with the service, nor dissatisfied. However, I do get what I expect of the service, consistently achieving download speeds over 15kbytes/s. I wish my pings were much better though.
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by alf</i>
<br />From LoneGunman's complaints forum, it appears like a lone crusade of LG. Perhaps RPM could setup his landing page poll as follows:

Are you satisfied with your broadband service?

a) Satisfied with Sentech's MyWireless service
b) Not satisfied with Sentech's MyWireless service
c) Satisfied with Telkom's ADSL service
d) Not satisfied with Telkom's ADSL service
e) Not currently using a broadband service

It give us an overall idea on how widespread the speed issue is, and whether Sentech's 1% claim can be substantiated.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The above idea is useless if you want to determine if the 1% claims are accurate, because asking people to subjectively rate their satisfaction with the service is completely different to actually analysing what speeds people are getting. These are two completely different things that are being measured. If you want to determine the overall satisfaction with the Sentech service, by all means do the above survey, but it has no bearing on whether or not people are reasonably getting the speeds they are paying for, and quite frankly the suggestion sounds a lot like something that someone from Sentech might suggest in order to cloud the issue. Although it seems intuitive that there would be a strong correlation between the two it isn't necessarily so. Firstly, many users don't download very much (like myself), and may be satisfied with the service even if they consistently get less than half the BW they should be. Other users may be satisfied because "even though it isn't great" they may literally have no other options (e.g. many areas still don't have ADSL and the cost of anything with call charges from Telkom is insane). Many others may just have very low expectations (often thanks again to Telkom). Others may not be paying for it (e.g. parents paying for it) so might not care much if it isn't that great. Still many others (probably most IMO) are just not technically literate enough to understand what they should be getting or how to measure if they're not. Many others may just be very easy-going people, or just don't like to make a fuss. (On the flip side, people may also be undeservedly dissatisfied for other reasons. Some may just be inherently grumpy customers. Some may have technical problems on their side that they are unable to fix. Some may have viruses/trojans/malware chewing up their bandwidth but are not smart enough to realise it, so they just blame Sentech for the slow speeds (this is certainly not the case with LG or TheRodent). Some may have unrealistically high expectations. Others on filesharing networks complain every time they get a slow download speed, even though that is often slow for other reasons.)

Marketing departments understand this 'disconnect' between actual service provided and perceived service provided, and (ab)use it as much as possible to their own advantage (which is why it seems like you're shilling here - apologies if you're not, but it definitely sounds like it, especially when combined with your other FUD-ish comments: "if it's so bad why is the complaints section empty" (exactly what the call center might say), then calling the complaints a "lone crusade" from LG, and then claims that you ALWAYS get *over* 15KB/sec consistently on 128, which is unlikely unless you're including TCP/IP overhead (packet headers), have very strong signal (with 3 dots you don't, I have four dots and currently get best speeds of 12-13KB/sec in the middle of the night) and virtually no packet loss, I've been here since speeds were good and at it's best I used to be able to expect a consistent 14.5KB/sec).

No, if you want to analyse whether the 1% claims are accurate, then you don't go asking vague fuzzy unrelated questions about "overall satisfaction", you <b>MEASURE THE SPEED</b>. (Bandwidth and latency). Anything else is nonsense. It may have it's own problems too in some cases, but it's going to give you a FAR more accurate picture about whether or not people are generally getting what has been advertised.

Even if users may feel overall that they satisfied with the service, this does NOT provide an excuse to not provide them with the bandwidth they are paying for. That is akin to ripping off customers who either don't know better or are willing to put up with poor service for whatever other reason(s).
 
Ditch, I agree I may have been naïve to expect a strong correlation with the satisfaction of service and the actual delivery of an advertised product.

However, I had assumed, most possibly incorrectly, there would be some correlation, based on the cost of a product such as MyWireless versus the consumers that would opt for a normal dialup internet connection, costs varying from 5 to 10 times more. Also, considering the cost of broadband in South Africa versus other countries, broadband hurts us much more in our pocket than elsewhere in many ways. Hence, the users here would tend to be knowledgeable, technically, or otherwise, about their expectations of the product, and these users would only be satisfied once they actually receive the value of the product they are paying for, with factors such as bandwidth, etc. I would think the profile of a MyWireless user would be more technically literate, than the general dialup user, whether they use the service for gaming, whether it is paid for by their parents, or the business professional who uses internet access for needs other than the general email and browsing.

I suggested such a poll seeing that all the stats submitted by everyone was scattered all over the forum, and no conclusions cold be drawn from them. Perhaps the poll could be worded differently?

My comments about the empty MyWireless Complaints was merely an attempt to bring to LG’s attention, and other forum members that it was underutilised, specially now that more visitors would be coming through to these forums as a result of recent media attention due to TheRodents efforts in highlighting the problem.

I applaud LG for his persistent efforts, but my comments thereafter (LG’s forum, lone crusade, etc) were tongue-in-cheek after LG’s snide remarks about my posts. Apologies to LG if I irritated him further than he deserved.

Don’t take take me wrong – I am not entirely happy about the MW service. I feel Sentech has been slow with the rollout of the towers, and I felt I had to unnecessarily spend excessively to get my access - dish antenna, cabling, access point, to the point where I could work effectively with MyWireless. Latency in the product is painful for the purposes I need MyWireless for, VNC, terminal services – I achieve more with my ISDN. My third gripe is the 2 year contract – specially after looking at the impressive results WBS are achieving with the pilot tests on their iBurst offering, both with bandwidth and latency.

On the other hand, I cannot accuse Sentech of not delivering based on the above issues. For me, they have delivered on what I signed for – I might have been amongst the fortunate few? I do achieve the download speeds I mentioned on multi-threaded downloads (due to the nature of TCP, I disagree with measuring bandwidth on a single threaded download). Occasionally, I will sustain downloads up to 21kbytes/s (local and international), although I also experience slow 3-7 kbytes/s on some sites consistently, presumably due to their connection.

I also agree with you on the state on consumerism in South Africa, and the apathy towards it. I am most probably guilty of this – I let others handle the fights on my behalf.

However, I also do feel for Sentech. Like Sentech, I am involved with companies, which were also under constant public scrutiny (no, not Sentech, not Telkom) despite our best efforts, mainly, I feel, due to misunderstanding and lack of communication to the public. I would try to be more objective and fair in my attacks against such companies though. Currently, it appears that anyone mentioning their MyWireless experience to be positive, their posts are shot down in this forum and accused of being associated with Sentech or being a Sentech Helpdesk agent.

It appears Sentech’s public relations and communications could be improved. This probably stems from their lack of experience with the public, prior to their MyWireless involvement.
 
fire:~# wget http://tucows.is.co.za/files4/DCPlusPlus-0.241.exe
--12:53:27-- http://tucows.is.co.za/files4/DCPlusPlus-0.241.exe
=&gt; `DCPlusPlus-0.241.exe.1'
Resolving tucows.is.co.za... done.
Connecting to tucows.is.co.za[196.4.160.77]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 2,044,011 [application/octet-stream]

100%[=========================================&gt;] 2,044,011 8.38K/s ETA 00:00

12:57:27 (8.38 KB/s) - `DCPlusPlus-0.241.exe.1' saved [2044011/2044011]

That's half the speed I'd expect from a local site on a 128K package. It is, however a step up from the 4kb/s I used to get over the last month.

I'm on 126, Brixton as LoneGunMan is, and I've got an open ticket still.
The service is now SLIGHTLY better than a 56k modem

<center><h6> MyWireless <s>Hacks</s> Tweaks & Tech Info || Have you checked the fawking FAQ? <br /> <font color="red">Tired of bad Service? Want to compare speeds? We at least listen...</font id="red"></h6></center>
 
To the same IS tucows site, I'm getting between 11-12kB/s
and sometimes as high as 14. This as of a few minutes ago.
(On average I'm also finding that weekday daytime speeds
are always way slower than at night!)


<font color="blue">Bay of Plenty: </font id="blue"><font size="1"><font color="black"> Signal 46% - SNL 17 - ber 71%
</font id="size1"></font id="black">
 
C:\test&gt;wget http://tucows.is.co.za/files4/DCPlusPlus-0.241.exe
--16:14:15-- http://tucows.is.co.za/files4/DCPlusPlus-0.241.exe
=&gt; `DCPlusPlus-0.241.exe'
Resolving tucows.is.co.za... done.
Connecting to tucows.is.co.za[196.4.160.77]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 2,044,011 [application/octet-stream]

100%[====================================&gt;] 2,044,011 10.07K/s ETA 00:00

16:17:34 (10.07 KB/s) - `DCPlusPlus-0.241.exe' saved [2044011/2044011]

Average 10.07KB/s, and speed was consistently between 9 and 11 KB/sec during the download. Don't know exact signal strength but I four LEDs lit, am on tower 22 (La Montagne) Pta, and download was at 16h17. I don't think 10KB/sec is bad, but I used to always get 14+ in the early days of the service, so clearly something about Sentech's network has just not scaled to more users (whether deliberately for profit or accidentally). Should also keep in mind that this file must surely be in the proxy at this point, so we're most likely downloading straight from Sentech's proxy, this should surely be fast. Latency: my ping times to www.sentech.co.za also used to pretty much consistently be around 100ms in the beginning, now they tend to fluctuate far more widely, with average of over 250 ms. My 'gut feel' says these problems aren't due to contention ratios. Why should ping suffer so badly if they had enough bandwidth but were 'merely' applying contention ratios? More likely the bandwidth is 'under strain' somewhere, or they have enough BW but there is some other problem in the whole setup.
 
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