Moaning Vs Constructive Criticism, another excuse

greedyfly

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I have been having speed issues with MyWireless since I purchased the product. I was aware of the forums but I did not post on the forums as I saw the issues I had were already being complained about by many.

Many people have been saying that people should be more patient and stop bitching and moaning , I feel that that WOULD be a fair point if Sentech played a fair game. The customer-care line are a brilliantly trained bunch of liars who's jobs are basically to provide in-depth answers to questions which they do not understand.

After about 12 days of slow service I decided to give the customer-care line a call (even though I had read the numerous complaints about them on this forum). When I got through and mentioned that I was averaging between 2 - 3.5 Kb/s I was told that Sentech guarantees a minimum speed of 128kbps/30 which is like 4kbps. He then proceeded to explain to me that 4kbps (yes bps not Bps) is just about the same speed as a normal dial-up connection. When I pointed out to him that he was a f**king jerk-off , he admitted his mistake with regard to dial-up but said that seeing as I was getting above the minimum speed there was no problem.

Basically my point is this, if I felt that Sentech were listening to the constructive complaints put forward and that the customer care-line was more than just a bunch of smiley twits who really did help then I would agree that bitching and moaning is a pointless effort , but we .. the Sentech customers are frustrated, we still have received no answer as to WHY our speeds are so slow, when they seriously expect to fix the problem and do they? Is Sentech's position that with the 128K package we are only guaranteed 128K/30 and if we get any less than we have no right to complain or do they intend to try and provide (at least most of the time) a true 128K connection??!!

[}:)] Until we feel more assured that things are going to change , I say - Bitch , Moan , Complain! [8D] Our problems are their problems , maybe phoning the head of whatnot will not solve the problem (I read in some earlier post about some guy being constantly phoned who isn't responsible for fixing problems) but if he feels the pressure than he will most likely push some weight onto those who can fix the problem.

Oh yeah , one more thing .. [8)]

Here's my constructive depiction of my problem :

<b>Your current bandwidth reading is:

31.20kbps

which means you can download at 3.9 KB/sec. from our servers.
28.8 kbps dial-up
31.2 kbps YOU
33.6 kbps dial-up
53.3 kbps dial-up
56 kbps ISDN
128 kbps ISDN
384 kbps DSL </b>768 kbps DSL
1000 kbps DSL
1500 kbps DSL/T1/Cable Modem
[/b]


[}:)]

Alright that's my ranting done
Sorry greedflyza , didn't see your nickname until I'd registered mine
 
Has anybody thought of asking Helldesk for the names of the other 29 users who, for the contention ratio of 128/30 to really come into play, at that stage are maxing out the bandwidth ? I'm almost certain that there's not even 30 users on the whole Menlo Tower, not even mentioning the node that I'm on. If they had a proper webpage indicating active connections per node per tower, all this bullsh*t about contention ratios will disappear. Or where in the bandwidth pipeline does the "ratio indicator" sit ? node, tower, etc., etc.,..sentech ?
 
interesting.. [:)] ok i was about to say something.. but its fine if we have the same nickname except that people are going to get confused. So.. I would appreciate it if you could use another one (you only have the 1 post) but if not thats also cool.

Truth be told, I havent heard the contention ratio excuse out of them for a while but I dont really phone that often anyways.

At this point there cannot be any contention since they should have enough bandwidth in anticipation of the number of subscribers signing up in the next few weeks or months.

Now Im a pretty experienced user and one thing I have noticed (even though its rather small) is that my max speed is not 16.0KB/sec anymore but rather about 15.0-15.5KB/sec. That <i>could</i> be the effect of the CR.
 
I agree with GreedyflyZA that greedyfly should (as an act of kindness) change his handle/nick on the forum to avoid confusion. I cannot force it but it would be kind, don't you think?

[;)]

He who does not understand the value of war at the right time, cannot comprehend the value of life at any time - Anonymous
 
Greedyflyza - the 15.5 max may well be due to the manner if which bandwdith management is handled... It's not really the contention ratio ;-)

In order to effectively control the available bandwidth of a client the max is normally set JUST BELOW the advertised rate... Spiking will then still tend to exceed the rate but the average speed would be just under the advertised rate...

I may be wrong - but most of the bandwidth management systems I've implemented work this way.

R

************************************************************
The views expressed on this site are my own and NOT those of my employer.
 
Those punks at the call centre seem to pull that b vs B thing all the time, on the one day I had slow speed, I asked about contention, and he also gave me the Bull$H1T about 4Kb being faster than a modem!
Seriously, complaining about the contention is by no means a valid argument, by international standards, there contention is decent. The only reason contention is an issue to us is because the call centre sidesteps the net issues.

out of curiosity, is the contention ratio for 128K system, (1 128K pipe):(30 users), and once that pipe is filled, a new pool opens up, or is it more like (1 1024K):(480 users) etc, what I'm trying to get at, do they have many little ponds, or 1 big Pool?

I read on MyADSL last year. that ADSL's contention is 1:200, so we really don't have it that bad with contention.
 
Its more one big pool (or a few big ones) shared amongsts group(s) of users.

Ok my speed was probably 15.5-16.0 at full speed. What Im saying is that in peak performance periods at the moment, the tops of the spikes are just under 16KB/sec whereas previously they were at 16.5KB/sec. Nothing major.
 
Back in January there were a couple of Threads regarding contention ratios. Including a lengthy post by Proasm. My wireless ratios of 14:1 and 20:1 were mentioned as was a comment that no one would buy a product that would only give you 1KB.

How many of us have subsequently bought a product that does not perform. Only Noone should be happy he just wanted rid of Telkom. People read your past posts and weep. Mywireless Sucks Big time.
 
Not actually. You will notice the forums are quiet. That usually means everyone is quite busy downloading. I personally am getting pretty decent service right now. Sure, it did suck big time for a long while but right now its doing ok. Yeah who knows how long it will last.

You are suggesting that the slow speeds are due to CR. This has been proven over and over and over to not be the case. For the last time, you cannot simply say 128kbps divide by 20 or 30. It just does not work that way. Its a bit like saying ok while you are on the phone, since you are sharing the medium, you will hear the faint voices of the other people sharing it with you in the background.

Search the forum properly. CR is explained at length.
 
My speeds suck at 12 - 28 Kbits - and it's been like that since Sunday. Before then I was hitting 108 Kbits to 120 Kbit...aaagh

I think things have been quiet because it takes about 20 s for a Forum page to load and some people have just given up...

-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;-&lt;

When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail.
Abraham Maslow
 
Yeah. all they say is "shared".. shared with who, shared how, what is shared? They could quite easily drop the shared label.

IMO the call centre people are using the CR excuse to make up for lack of information. They probably arent being told why there are problems so they "assume" its CR. I dont know how close they are to the information so I could be wrong.

If it says nowhere what the official contention ratio is then we HAVE to assume 1:1. Lets see what the counter-argument from sentech is.
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by greedyflyza</i>
<br />I personally am getting pretty decent service right now. Sure, it did suck big time for a long while but right now its doing ok. Yeah who knows how long it will last.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Seemingly they just shifted the problem around, because I was getting acceptable speeds for a long time, but for over a week now I've had rubbish speeds.
 
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