New dish

[Ceejayjay]

Hi there!

A couple of years ago I signed up with a WISP, paid the setup cost and they've since been providing me with internet access on a month-to-month basis. I've generally been very happy with their service.

Two weeks ago on a Thursday morning, my connection stopped working; I contacted them and they said they could not pick up my air grid on their systems, so the next day they sent a technician out to see what's wrong. He could not find any fault on the air grid, yet could not get my PC online again, so he suggested we try to install a new dish, which was done the next day. This solved the problem, but he said that I would probably have to pay for the new dish; he could not say what was wrong with the air grid, which he then took with him and would contact me later with more details.

A week later I received an invoice for the new dish, R1424. As I was not informed why the air grid had stopped working, I contacted them the next day and was told the following: Apparently some frequencies on the tower that my grid connected to had changed to some new technology, which meant my grid would no longer be capable of providing me with internet.

Does this sound right? Should I not have been notified at least a few months before that they were planning to do this upgrade and that people's air grids would stop working? I would have been able to better prepare for this expense, or even have looked at other options. I was also told that if I was not ok with having the new dish installed, I was welcome to request that they return the old air grid, but then my internet would not work the way I would want it to work (ie, not at all). They said that none of their air grid-using customers had any problem with this upgrade.

So many things about all this just feels wrong. Not sure if all this is common practice? Please if anyone could give me some advice, I'd greatly appreciate it and I might even send you a picture of a middle aged man covered in white powder, posing in front of an inverted circus.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Ceejayjay]

Seems this forum should be rechristened Questions and Problems.

 

[WAslayer]

Seems this forum should be rechristened Questions and Problems.

You may have better luck posting your question in the WIFI and WISP Forum Section..

 

[Geoff.D]

Hi there!

A couple of years ago I signed up with a WISP, paid the setup cost and they've since been providing me with internet access on a month-to-month basis. I've generally been very happy with their service.

Two weeks ago on a Thursday morning, my connection stopped working; I contacted them and they said they could not pick up my air grid on their systems, so the next day they sent a technician out to see what's wrong. He could not find any fault on the air grid, yet could not get my PC online again, so he suggested we try to install a new dish, which was done the next day. This solved the problem, but he said that I would probably have to pay for the new dish; he could not say what was wrong with the air grid, which he then took with him and would contact me later with more details.

A week later I received an invoice for the new dish, R1424. As I was not informed why the air grid had stopped working, I contacted them the next day and was told the following: Apparently some frequencies on the tower that my grid connected to had changed to some new technology, which meant my grid would no longer be capable of providing me with internet.

Does this sound right? Should I not have been notified at least a few months before that they were planning to do this upgrade and that people's air grids would stop working? I would have been able to better prepare for this expense, or even have looked at other options. I was also told that if I was not ok with having the new dish installed, I was welcome to request that they return the old air grid, but then my internet would not work the way I would want it to work (ie, not at all). They said that none of their air grid-using customers had any problem with this upgrade.

So many things about all this just feels wrong. Not sure if all this is common practice? Please if anyone could give me some advice, I'd greatly appreciate it and I might even send you a picture of a middle aged man covered in white powder, posing in front of an inverted circus.

Thanks for reading!

No more LOS? That is the typical problem with these solutions -- they work when initially installed and then after a few years the radio profile changes .....

This is the first thing you should look into before deciding to replace equipment and antenna systems.

 

[furpile]

I had a similar problem when I had a wifi connection. In Gauteng I had a 2,4 GHz setup, which I moved with me to KZN. I installed it and it worked ok, until they switched to 5 GHz. I had to buy a new dish then that worked on 5 GHz, since htey only had 2 or 3 customers left on 2,4 GHz They were willing to lose the account if I didn't upgrade my hardware. Probably a similar situation you are in, but it is poor service that they did not inform you beforehand of the upgrade and the potential effect on your service. If you are close to the tower the old grid still works, it becomes a problem if you are further away.

 

[Kloofvreter]

No more LOS? That is the typical problem with these solutions -- they work when initially installed and then after a few years the radio profile changes .....

This is the first thing you should look into before deciding to replace equipment and antenna systems.

Unlikely that it's LOS issues, then not even the dish would work. My guess is that this dish they are talking about is a PowerBeam, which can probably handle a larger frequency range then the airgrid.

Then, as in Furpile's post, they possibly moved from 2.4 to 5GHZ. You'd be able to determine that by posting the model number of the AirGrid.