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Rath

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Got MyWireless today after 4 weeks of waiting. It's a long story that I was really glad to finally have behind me.

So, now I'm sitting here watching a download from games.saix.net (a local server to SA) fluctuate between 3.6k and 12k per second (sometimes I see it spike to 14k for a second). I'm supposed to be on the 256k package.

With my 128k ISDN I was getting close to 16k per second from that server the last time I tried to download something - about 2 weeks ago. However, giving them the benefit of the doubt, I've been trying several other servers. I'm getting even less from international servers.

This is a shared service (partially), but anyone who thinks the above are acceptable speeds doesn't understand the math involved and/or is on medication.

I'm connecting to station 36 with a 12% signal. For anyone else here on tower 36, what's your current experience like?

I'd also appreciate it if someone could tell me if there's a relationship between signal strength and bandwidth. I suppose I can give them the benefit of the doubt once again and admit that it could be a possibility - though I'd expect to have been told this when I applied if it was the case.

About these reports of "optimization" going on. Optimization could end up meaning decreased service levels for the subscriber base. I wonder what is being optimized precisely? Are they trying to optimize their bandwidth consumption, by trimming down bandwidth made available to the subscribers until they complain loudly enough?

Fortunately for me then that Sentech was kind enough to put me through a crash course in how to get vocal about disgusting service the last few weeks. I haven't even broken stride yet.

I'd like to encourage everyone here who is having a similar experience to say something about it in the official channels (call centre's manager, call centre's manager's manager, customer support e-mail, etc). It's the only way.

I'm going to give it the weekend before I make up my mind. I will also be writing up a submission article to SA Computer Magazine on my experience, and a few of my colleagues, thus far. I'd encourage anyone else here who has some level of eloquence to do the same. The last time I checked they did accept externally written articles if it's above a certain standard. Admittedly, I have no illusions that this will help at all in terms of service, but I think other people should know about this before they agree to a contract in these conditions.
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I'd also appreciate it if someone could tell me if there's a relationship between signal strength and bandwidth.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Not unless the signal is so bad that packet loss is eating into your bandwidth.

<hr noshade size="1">mithrandi, i Ainil en-Balandor, a faer Ambar
 
Thank you for the quick reply.

Do you have an idea at what signal strength percentage packet loss may start happening?
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Do you have an idea at what signal strength percentage packet loss may start happening?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Don't know, sorry. Maybe someone else can give some figures.

<hr noshade size="1">mithrandi, i Ainil en-Balandor, a faer Ambar
 
Downloads have been crap since this weekend, escalated last night to the point that i got 300bytes (yes, bytes) per second download speeds internationally, local is okay-ish

and i'm on the 512k package

some sites been so slow that it "cannot be displayed" or the images don't entirely load, just cancels during whatever it does

I didn't transfer the correct amount to my credit card yet, i wonder what they'll say if i told them that i'll pay them what they give me, a bunch of crap....

hell, i could go ADSL, rather fork out the cash there and get decent pings on most servers than sit with this crock of bull crap

optimization my ass, i bet you they're just like ADSL, "no it's uncapped" and then boom, when they get clients, "i think we should throttle our international bandwidth so everyone shares the 24k analogue modem we have here"

[:(!]

Why do you have to "put your two cents in"... but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?
 
Honestly I think its a localised problem. Im connected to 36 (sunnyside) with 4 lights/20% and have had minimal speed problems. Last night for a while it was actually maxing out at the full 16K/sec quite constantly. I only have 128k though.

Rath, to test properly you need a proper meter and also use something with threading such as flashget to make sure that your total throughput is low. Assuming you are connected to Sunnyside tower then (depending on the node) you should have no problems right now.

Bandwidth and signal strength only have an important relationship at the full rate of 3Mbps but even thats not a given. Signal strength is basically a indicator of can you connect yes/no and how long you will stay connected. Ideally I would say you need about 15% for good service so that is it dips to 10 (which it does sometimes do) then you will stay connected. Are you using a cantenna? You can get up to 20% with a proper can if not.. yes, it is true. I use a can to connect and perhaps its the reason for my good connection (im 3km+ way from the tower)

Explain this "crash course" for the rest of us please...

The optimisation is actually *supposed* to be a good thing. They are supoosedly narrowing the tower footprints to prevent situations where the tower can reach a modem but the modem is too far too reply (ie. distance &gt;= 6km) I dont know if they are doing bandwidth optimisation yet.. I think they are concentrating on getting the grids up and running and fixing bugs etc

I'd be willing to contribute to that article. email me if need some user experiences or anything else. Yes, I am a happy subscriber so far but I have had my share of problems with the service and the support centre.
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">to test properly you need a proper meter and also use something with threading such as flashget to make sure that your total throughput is low.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
WTF?

<hr noshade size="1">mithrandi, i Ainil en-Balandor, a faer Ambar
 
Meant for Rath. The point being to make sure its not the remote server. Flashget will establish say 5 connections to a server and will normally max out your downstream better than anything else. It also has accurate reporting of speed. BTW Flashget is a download manager for the uninformed [;)]

I meant also that he (Rath) must (by using flashget) make sure that his TOTAL throughput is low and not only on a single connection.

A decent meter would be Bandwidth Monitor or DUMeter or your Kerio Winroute's Status graphs etc OR start a download, enable and click the Tx/Rx "lights" for the sentech connection. Then, note start time and Rx bytes then note say 10min later and Rx bytes. Take 2nd Rx bytes - first and divide by (10min*60) 600 seconds to get bytes/sec
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">his TOTAL throughput is low and not only on a single connection.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Sorry, I think I misread your post; I thought you meant that using Flashget would reduce his throughput... [:I]

<hr noshade size="1">mithrandi, i Ainil en-Balandor, a faer Ambar
 
I normally get 32kb/s on a single download, love using flashget, get downloads constant @ 64kb/s (sometimes higher)

Why do you have to "put your two cents in"... but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?
 
I had minimal d/l issues last week, since then, it's been fine.

Busy d/l'ing 2 files - 14k speed total and am still surfing at the same time.

I admit that the varied experiences everyone is having is worrying.
I have recommended Sentech to several people, I think I'll keep my mouth shut in future just in case ! :)
 
I say only give these people YOUR experiences. I mean if it works well most of the time then it is a good product. Hopefully the problems will go away or lessen and also hopefully its only isolated cases of people making a loud noise. There are a lot of happy Sentech customers NOT complaining. Keep that in mind.
 
I think Rath may be jumping the gun here a bit and jumping to conclusions too quickly. Giving it only three days before deciding to submit an article to a major computer magazine is just not fair, *especially* considering that we *know* that something is probably 'wrong' at the moment (i.e. downloads were much faster until suddnely very recently, and also that some people's downloads are still fast). To submit a review to a major computer magazine based on an evaluation performed over a short time span when there were *known* technical problems, I would be inclined to say that reeks of bias. To just assume that Sentech has suddenly decided to start capping (re "optimizations") seems to me to really be jumping to conclusions too quickly. It is a new service, there are issues, issues that are being worked on, I would give them the benefit of the doubt at this stage and give them some time to sort out potential technical problems, and give them at least a week or two to decide. I would also keep in mind that MyWireless is vastly cheaper than 128K ISDN if you're online for any significant amount of time (although granted that is mostly Telkom's exorbitant rates). I am one of those "happy customers" who are not complaining. Works very well for me, as I use the Internet a lot (but don't have many large downloads).
 
Ditch:

"... I think Rath may be jumping the gun here a bit and jumping to conclusions too quickly..."

Well, if we've begun with directing our critique onto individuals (amusing how often this seems to happen in forums) then I'd like to take this opportunity to reward you with similar treatment.

I think you are the one jumping the gun by making the assumption that I'd still be willing to go through the trouble of writing a review when there are clear indications (see the well thought posts above yours) that the service may be improving for some people (based on these optimizations I assume, and not other conditions).

Note that I also asked about other people's experiences on the tower I was connecting to. I did this because I was considering the possibility that the performance may be isolated to just me.

Another flaw in your... interesting... logic, is that the article I would write up would be only negative. I did say that the article would be about my experience, but also the experiences of some of my colleages. They don't seem to be having an entirely bad time with it, but please don't let that get in the way of your zealot parade.

Additionally, I was well willing to admit (as I also clearly indicated) that the source of my poor experience may actually be caused by poor signal. If that were the case, it would have completely exonerated the Sentech service in this particular instance, not so?

Fourthly:
"To just assume that Sentech has suddenly decided to start capping"
I didn't assume anything. I did pose a question however. Questioning is a good thing. I realize that the difference may not seem immediately obvious, but I assure you they are there.

In the fifth place:
"...keep in mind that MyWireless is vastly cheaper than 128K ISDN..."
Are you justifying a poor level of service by saying that it's cheap? If not, I'd really like to know what you are saying with the above sentence.

PS: The original post wasn't about value for money, or economic theory from any angle. It was about the quality level of the advertised service.

I'd go on, but today has been interesting enough already.

GreedyFlyZa:
"I'd be willing to contribute to that article. email me if need some user experiences or anything else. Yes, I am a happy subscriber so far but I have had my share of problems with the service and the support centre."

By all means, yes. Thank you. The article (which I am going to now hold off for a while since your reply seems to indicate that there's something else going on here) is definitely not going to be 1 man's perception (as I said in my original post). Honestly, SACM wouldn't really accept something baed on that sample size.

When I was testing speeds yesterday I was streaming a file from 3 different servers simultaneously using GetRight's accelerated download feature.

I don't know what's wrong here if you're connecting to the same tower as I am, and are maxing your D/L speed... that's very worrying.

The "crash course" you ask about started with Sentech taking 3 weeks to tell me that I didn't sign the application twice. This after I had been calling them every second day (actually it was a little more than that) to make sure all was in order, and I had been repeatedly assured that things were progressing smoothly. After I re-faxed my application they then lost my other documentation. This was after my "pre-application" ordeal, with 6 different call centre agents all giving me very different answers to the same questions.

It seems to me that some people have had a great application experience with Sentech, but that certainly wasn't the case with me. I was simply amazed.

"I say only give these people YOUR experiences."
Honestly, I don't see the point in that. I've always thought it was better to give a spectrum of different feedback.

I'm off to test speeds again now. Will give FlashGet a try. Thanks for the mostly helpful posts.
 
LoneGunman:

Couldn't agree more. This is probably the single biggest reason for including feedback from multiple sources - and as you mentioned, this forum is a great place to evaluate feedback and customer experience.

Is anyone else connecting to tower 36?
 
If you get your torrents from a favourite source, mind if I ask where that is? I'm always on the lookout.

They seem to have a fast turnover rate.

Primarily I use torrent reactor.
 
Sorry about that, I didn't realize that there were multiple 36's. That makes some sense of the earlier posts.

I'm in Bedfordview.

Mind if I ask where you got that tower info from? I'm not aware of a site that gives tower names and numbers and their current state of operation - that'd help me a lot in trying to find out what's wrong.

I'm using flashget now and am fluctuating wildly between say 5k and 16k from local servers, international are worse.
 
I'm tempted to make it extract the data from the ProAsm post, instead of using http://rational.co.za/MyWireless/aq...tp://rational.co.za/MyWireless/calculate.html</center>
 
Nic, that's a really great utility you've made there. Thanks a lot.

I get this:
Bedfordview (updated) [36] 1.993 km 22%

It's interesting that 22% is expected but I have only 12. No idea what could be affecting it. Are the expected/actual signal % values generally lower? Also, my 12% is without any extra antennae.
 
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