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Glimpse

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I am in the process of evaluating the Iburst system as I would like to use it both personally and for a few clients. I howver have soem questions and concerns and would appriciate if someone could help me address these.

1) According to the iBurst documentation they state that there is 1mb to the unit and a max of 20Mb to the Base stations. what if there are 100 people connecting to a base station. are they only putting in one base station per area or do the areas have a numbe rof different Base stations. If so where can I find out about the number of base stations per area.

2) I have heard that there are some serious DNS issues with the Iburst system , can someone confirm or deny this.

3) A friend of mine is using this system and he has mentioned that he is not always assigned an IP address , can anyone verify this and if so how is WBS rectifying this issue.

4) Is it possible to get static addresses for Iburst Units if it is used for small companies? if it is would there be an additional cost.

5) with the 1MB link what percentage is local and what persentage is international that a person should expect to recieve.

6) Can anyone inform me on the stability of the system

Any help would be appriciated.

Regards,
glimpse
 
The Answers

1) Iburst can connect to more than one tower, so if your UTD can see more than one tower, it can switch to another tower if the connections become congested. It can also split traffic between towers.
If you look at http://www.iburst.co.za/rollout.php and select the area you live in, you will see the towers highlighted in blue text. Some are difficult to see but they are there.

2) Depends on how you are connecting your pc's to the iburst service. If you put the DNS settings for UUNET in manually under windows/linux you shouldn't have any problems.

3)Right, well without an IP address you couldn't connect to the Internet. So I don't see how that is possible. I have never experienced that problem.

4) Technically it's possible to get static IP, but they aren't offering it yet.

5)There aren't any percentages. You can get the full 1mb on International when the network is quiet / working.

6) In the last couple weeks it has been quite stable for me, but it's still a beta service currently and it has problems now and then.

If I have made any mistakes in answering these questions, please correct me oh great MYADSL people! :p
 
1) The 20meg is spread accross 3 or 4 channels if im not mistaken, it's 20meg per channel, and 1 tower has multiple channels. You're looking at 0 degrees, 260 degrees and 320 degrees. I might be totally wrong on this. Think it's called arrays? ic? Rodent? Comment?

2) I have experienced absolutelty no DNS issues, there was a time that UUNET's international link failed a couple of times though, but none of it was on WBS's side. They did however have authentication (RAS) problems, which seem to be sorted now.

3) Your friend is probably talking about the "partially connected" icon he receives with no ip address and a yellow exclamation mark. This is because he's using the ethernet connection (PPPOE). Happens on Windows XP, he connects to the internet fine (and probably doesn't have the "show icon in toolbar" option on his connection, but it shows he is partially connected with no IP address. This is because DHCP is setup on the ethernet adapter he is using. It should dissapear if he specifies an internal address (like if you go to a lan for instance without DHCP). This has nothing to do with the internet connection itself. If he can browse and download, you can be sure that he has an ip address.

4) They will be offering something like this, an alternative workaround, is to register @ dyndns.org, register your client a website which you can setup a subdomain on, and point the subdomain (for instance www.mysite.com, www being the subdomain part, or home.mydomain.com) to the dyndns.org address you received. All this for under R150 per year (you only pay for your domain renewal)

5) You can usually, off of single threaded downloads, expect 90-100% off local, and about 25-40% off of international. Using multithreaded downloads for international will max out the connection. This is however dependant on signal strenght, the webserver you're downloading from, and the congestion (time of day) on the internet.

6) It's been good thusfar, took them a couple of months to sort out some issues, but I feel positive they'll be near 100% at the end of their pre-launch phase.
 
Glimpse said:
3) A friend of mine is using this system and he has mentioned that he is not always assigned an IP address , can anyone verify this and if so how is WBS rectifying this issue.
Click to expand...
The only way not to be assigned an IP address is not to be connected.
 
I stand to be corrected

Noone, does users who use Windows XP SP2 experince the problem whereby it will say "limited or no connectivity"?
 
native said:
Noone, does users who use Windows XP SP2 experince the problem whereby it will say "limited or no connectivity"?
Click to expand...

Yes, but limited or no connectivity doesn't mean there is something wrong with the connection. Because you're Windows thinks you will always use some kind of router before your connection to the internet broadband-wise, by default, because it's DHCP, it TRIES to get an assigned internal IP address from the router or domain controller. Because you're directly connected to the modem via ethernet cable, you don't have a DHCP server issueing you with the internal IP address.

If it really bothers you that much, like I've mentioned, just assign an internal IP address (192.168.0.1) to the PC and the message will go away.

Internet and your ethernet (network) is not related, although you use it to connect directly with the modem to use the internet.

Crazy I know, but ignore it, you can turn on your internet connection thingy that looks like the network thingy on by right-click properties on your connection thingy with the thing at the place :D
 
noone said:
1) The 20meg is spread accross 3 or 4 channels if im not mistaken, it's 20meg per channel, and 1 tower has multiple channels. You're looking at 0 degrees, 260 degrees and 320 degrees. I might be totally wrong on this. Think it's called arrays?

Could be wrong on this too, but according to my info they are only using one 5MHz channel in the 1.8GHz band (assuming we're talking about the same thing here). If you look at the info in some of the Arraycom docs:
"A fully capable and commercially viable iBurst system can operate in as little as 5 MHz of unpaired spectrum with a total of 20 Mbps of net usable throughput per cell in that amount of spectrum (in the omni configuration, with up to 80 Mbps in a sectorized cell)"
So you might have 80Mbps available to a group of users all within range of 4 base stations? Methinks that network performance will improve drastically as soon as the base station density increases (or they add another channel, but I don't know if they have bought the frequency license for that). Same as in the old days of the first cellphone networks, if anyone can remember....

My 2c worth
Click to expand...
 
they basically plan to regulate it by having users connected to more than one tower at once and with the cap, certain users have already felt the congestion so we have to wait and see if when all the new users that will join after the launch are on our towers will network peformance decrease. Also it should be noted, that we make up the bulk of power users, most people coming in the future are browse/email/chat/game type users
 
NTC said:
"A fully capable and commercially viable iBurst system can operate in as little as 5 MHz of unpaired spectrum with a total of 20 Mbps of net usable throughput per cell in that amount of spectrum (in the omni configuration, with up to 80 Mbps in a sectorized cell)"
Click to expand...

Cell = Basestation

Spectrum = the 5Mhz the cell operates at (this is how you distinct between several cells and that one doesn't "out broudcasts" the other and you can actually switch basestations (cells)

Spectrum = What I was talking about, they have 4 spectrums @ 20 Mpbs each (sectorized) which gives the basestation/cell a throughput of 80Mbps

NTC said:
So you might have 80Mbps available to a group of users all within range of 4 base stations?
Click to expand...

Nope, 80 Mpbs of capacity per cell for all users, however, it is possible a certain sector on a cell may be congested because it covers more users than the other sectors.

This could explain the deteriation of the Bryanston Basestation ic reported.
 
I am also using the bryanstone tower, and it seems to be getting slower,

I got an antenna and pointed it at forways area, and speeds seem to have imporoved.
 
slimothy said:
they basically plan to regulate it by having users connected to more than one tower at once and with the cap, certain users have already felt the congestion so we have to wait and see if when all the new users that will join after the launch are on our towers will network peformance decrease. Also it should be noted, that we make up the bulk of power users, most people coming in the future are browse/email/chat/game type users
Click to expand...

Having 1 user connect to 1 or more towers is not possible. It is possible switching towers, if said tower is congested too much and you're able to connect to another one. It is how normal cellphones work, the switch dynamically between towers (which means the !sshole infront of you can chat on his cellphone while driving) while switching you to a different tower if the closest tower to you is too congested to take your call (like on new years eve when it's blocked with smses etc)

Where did you get the idea you can split 1 connection between 4 towers or more?
 
well, personally I won't trust what sihen has to say because he probably does not know how the towers themselves work. Not that I know exactly how they work, only, I've had plenty experience (and so have others) with previous wireless providers out there
 
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