No longer in coverage? What can I do?

[Neranos]

Hello all,

I have been an iBurst customer for almost two years now. When I first got iBurst, the reseller checked that our home was in coverage and they assured me it was. This was also evident in the connection speeds I experienced, which were decent enough.

For the course of the last few months however, my iBurst's performance has degraded drastically. I've checked the coverage map on iBurst's website and I am definitely NOT in the coverage zone and haven't been for quite a while now. At first I thought it was just a tower that went down or something, but now I'm starting to get frustrated.

Thankfully in July my two year contract is expiring and with the service as poor as it is at the moment I'm not considering renewing it at all.

Speedtest.net results:

As you can see the server is less than 50 miles away and my speed is slower than 99% of the country...

 

[viceroy]

So what area are you in?

I've experienced the same thing since December.

I used to get 700kbps to 1mbps conistantly in the Broadacres area without any form of external aerial, but for the past 4 months, I barely get 300kbps if I'm lucky and thats after I installed a directional aerial.

iBurst is cancelled...bring on ADSL and Whoosh!

 

[r00igev@@r]

So what area are you in?
I've experienced the same thing since December.
I used to get 700kbps to 1mbps conistantly in the Broadacres area without any form of external aerial, but for the past 4 months, I barely get 300kbps if I'm lucky and thats after I installed a directional aerial.

Sorry, the BTS in Craigavon was moved. There are still BTS's at Life, Dainfern and Kyasands.

 

[r00igev@@r]

For the course of the last few months however, my iBurst's performance has degraded drastically. I've checked the coverage map on iBurst's website and I am definitely NOT in the coverage zone and haven't been for quite a while now. At first I thought it was just a tower that went down or something, but now I'm starting to get frustrated.

Please provide your suburb.

 

[eltherza]

Yeah, I've been having trouble since about then too. Here are some suggestions:

1. Check the other side of your house (or another tower location).
I used to connect 100% and little to no error rate. iBurst, for latency and consistency was better than 3G at the time. It was about the time of the craighavon tower been turned off that it went pear shaped. Luckly for me, I moved my aeral to the other side and the signal, although suffering from "high" (<5%) errors, was better.

2. Get an omni
Omnis will help you get good signal strength if you place it high enough. I've got one in a "little to no" coverage area and surprisingly it's more consistent. If you ask REALLY nicely, I'm sure someone might lend you one for a day or two. The setback is that it'll push you back about R300, something to consider.

3. Fixing
About 2 weeks ago I had the same very poor performance from the towers for about 3 days [until r00igev@@r somehow fixed it], maybe there is an issue.

4. Look for better signal
I've got the usb modem, and the signal strength (IB logo in the corner) is a great way to test your signal - but it only updates on throughput so where is what you can do.
Start
Run
type "cmd"
in the blackish window that opens type "ping speedtest.iburst.co.za -n 1000"
this will cause very VERY small usage every second or so (no really, dont worry about usage at all). You can then move your modem around to find the best place for signal strength. Once you find a good place, prestik does magical wonders.
Oh, and when you find that sweet spot you can just close the blackish window

5. Look for less errors
There is something else to consider while looking for good signal strength. You need to be aware of error rates, the IB icon thing will show it, but very rarely with ping. You'll have to download something (I personally load a youtube video). You want your error rate as low as possible. Rather go for a lesser signal strength to get below 2% error.

Here is my handy guide to errors rates!

> 25% : You are foobared. Browsing will not load pages sometimes, this is very bad.

> 10% : Browsing will be ok, some images might not load. Skype video/voice and low latency applications (VPN as well) will struggle and be unpleasant/not work.

> 2 % : Browsing should be fine. Skype video will struggle, you may get away with low latency applications provided they don't use too much throughput, can't really game

< 2 % : This is pretty normal, you might get gaming down and skype video will be at a low resolution, but otherwise unnoticeable

< 0.5%: This is where you want to be, this will be iburst is at it's best for everything you need.

6. Try diagonal
Funny story, one day in frustration of the error rates, I discovered that turning my aerial horizontal actually provided BETTER signal. I started to play with not having my aerial upright, and strangely enough having my aerial at about 60 degree (to horizontal) got me from 70% signal strength to a 90-94% signal strength and halved the error rate. I don't know why it works, but it's worth a try.

Other than those few options, there is little to be done in a no coverage area. If you are thinking of not using iburst in the future, I'd suggest you try moving your modem around untill you get as low error rate as you can.

 

[Neranos]

I live in Amandasig, r00igev@@r.

I have Windows 7, so I don't have a version of the dashboard that works, I normally just go with the little light on my modem itself, thanks for the suggestions eltherza, I have attemped some of them, though not all of them. Perhaps I should get me an omni... :/ Unsure if the changes will be worth it though.

Ping results:

Packets: Sent = 49, Received = 48, Lost = 1 (2% Loss) Approximate round trip times in ms:
Minimum = 68ms
Maximum = 1821ms
Average = 308ms

It did waver quite a lot e.g: 68ms, 279ms, 98ms, 1114ms, 251ms, 1769ms...

 

[eltherza]

I ran a test later, remember that it's a raining miserable day today when I did it, and I got the following results

Packets: Sent = 6396, Received = 6341, Lost = 55 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 43, Maximum = 3692, Average = 202

Do you have a USB modem?

 

[Neranos]

Well your average is pretty good, compared to mine at least.

I have the Desktop Modem (UTD), it's supposed to have the best reception, having difficulty over here though, I've tried various MTU settings as well, on 1392 now though.

 

[Venomous]

Sorry, the BTS in Craigavon was moved. There are still BTS's at Life, Dainfern and Kyasands.

Would it not have been kind to inform people when your company has moved something that negaticely impacts people?

IMO your company is responsible for his sudden to no performance = you breaking your side of the contract thus rendering the contract nul & void.

He is still where he was, you(ibust) moved...

 

[eltherza]

I have the usb modem, the drivers come with a very simple [but really nice] window for it.

I had a weird thing also happen about 2 days ago, where iburst would be fine for like 5min, then for about 10seconds or so it would be useless. Then went on for a part of the day, eventually I found that it was my cellphone interfering with the signal. Make sure nothing that can cause interference is nearby, also be careful of walls - signal can bounce off it back to your modem causing slow down.

 

[eltherza]

Would it not have been kind to inform people when your company has moved something that negaticely impacts people?

IMO your company is responsible for his sudden to no performance = you breaking your side of the contract thus rendering the contract nul & void.

He is still where he was, you(ibust) moved...

Clearly you dont know the story behind this, the craighavon community forced iburst to take down the tower. If you want to blame anyone blame the "people" you are referring too.

 

[Neranos]

Well, at the moment my modem is indoors where there's lots of walls to bounce off of, but outside I get no signal at all, but I haven't checked high up. I don't have a long Ethernet cable yet, will have to buy one. If I get an omni I'll mount it on the roof and hope for the best though.

 

[eltherza]

Well, at the moment my modem is indoors where there's lots of walls to bounce off of, but outside I get no signal at all, but I haven't checked high up. I don't have a long Ethernet cable yet, will have to buy one. If I get an omni I'll mount it on the roof and hope for the best though.

r00igev@@r lent me an omni to test with, perhaps pm him and see if you can get the same to test.

PS. If you do test/get it and looking to mount it on the roof, go very early morning - the roof can get blistering hot quickly.

 

[Neranos]

That sounds pretty decent. I will contact him and even if I don't get anyone to lend me one, I might as well buy one otherwise I might never know what a difference it could have made, right?

Oh and thanks for the tip, that's something I probably wouldn't even have considered!

 

[r00igev@@r]

I live in Amandasig

I have checked and there was an issue today with the BTS at Cable Hill which is the one you would connect to, failing which the next one is at Soshanguve (which would be impressive in itself just connecting at that distance at any speed!)

Please retest - the BTS is SEE from your location. Apologies for any inconvenience.

 

[Neranos]

Hmm

Packets: Sent = 61 Received = 61 Lost = 0 (0% Loss)
MS: Minimum = 67ms Maximum = 2583ms Average =520ms

Bear in mind I did move it around quite a bit to get a good spot, after I found one I tried again:

Packets: Sent = 46 Received = 46 Lost = 0 (0% Loss)
MS: Minimum = 89ms Maximum = 2096ms Average =369ms

I think I'm going to buy me one of those antenna's real soon...

 

[Venomous]

Clearly you dont know the story behind this, the craighavon community forced iburst to take down the tower. If you want to blame anyone blame the "people" you are referring too.

Quite frankly, the reason for their move is their business as to the reason why. They should have contacted their clients that now have no signal & provided them with the equipment to boost their now non-exsistant service or made another plan. It's called customer service.

Ooooooooops, I forgot - this is SA. Companies don't offer the foreign concept of customer service...

 

[eltherza]

Quite frankly, the reason for their move is their business as to the reason why.

So first you say they must tell the community, and now it's iburst's own business :wtf: The "people" were informed of the move, community letters went out - news paper articles about it and even about 5 myBB articles were written. And as you can quite clearly see r00igev@@r is trying to help (at 10pm on a sunday night).


Be a little more reasonable with you "customer service" demands. But now you're just trolling, aren't you?

 

[Neranos]

Have you changed something since yesterday? I received these results this morning which as a clear improvement from yesterday:

Or is it just the time at which I took the test that caused this difference?

 

[r00igev@@r]

Have you changed something since yesterday? I received these results this morning which as a clear improvement from yesterday:

Or is it just the time at which I took the test that caused this difference?

Please refer to #15 above:

I have checked and there was an issue today with the BTS at Cable Hill which is the one you would connect to, failing which the next one is at Soshanguve (which would be impressive in itself just connecting at that distance at any speed!)

Please retest - the BTS is SEE from your location. Apologies for any inconvenience.

PS: And an omni is a good idea and investment. You can obtain one from any reseller or the shop at 3012A William Nicol Drive, Braynston.