Some tests. blah

Ok, I agree with Karnaugh. These tests have absolutely no relavence to Sentech AT ALL. They belong in the ADSL forums. Continue the posting there.
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by chopsky</i>
<br />Ok, I agree with Karnaugh. These tests have absolutely no relavence to Sentech AT ALL. They belong in the ADSL forums. Continue the posting there.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> Ok... but how do we evaluate the Sentech option if we can't compare it to ADSL. There's a *very* direct link, i.m.o. I'm an ADSL user contemplating moving to Sentech, so it's obvious that we should compare. What am I missing?
 
No but it seems to be more like people are comparing their ADSL pings to each other like a cock mesuring contest, the international pings are pretty much going to be the same wherever by design of the network. 1 ADSL traceroute was enough, lets leave it at that now. Its gone compleately off topic imho

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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Karnaugh</i>
<br />No but it seems to be more like people are comparing their ADSL pings to each other like a cock mesuring contest, the international pings are pretty much going to be the same wherever by design of the network. 1 ADSL traceroute was enough, lets leave it at that now. Its gone compleately off topic imho

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<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Karnaugh... international latency is mine and many others' daily bread and butter - I am a participant in quite a few international simulation leagues. I have specially needed to install an ISDN line with low latency over and above ADSL to be able to participate. For the first time in more than 18 months with ADSL, we are getting sub 200ms pings to Europe. That happens in the same week that Sentech starts their testing... co-incidence? Anyone who knows anything about international latency - will tell you that sub-200ms to Europe has been pretty much impossible until this week. In the context of you posting your first unofficial mywireless tests, using an internartional traceroute - I showed what ADSL international latency currently looks like. It has nothing to with a *** measuring context, and everything to do with showing that *perhaps* Telkom is responding to mywireless's go-live.
 
against my better judgement I'll try to explain again.

This topic is tests of Sentech's MyWireless service, not a comparison or anything else. Your ADSL tests can go in the ADSL forum.

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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Karnaugh</i>
<br />against my better judgement I'll try to explain again.

This topic is tests of Sentech's MyWireless service, not a comparison or anything else. Your ADSL tests can go in the ADSL forum.

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Ok, not wanting to use up valuable forum space over how to best manage the forums :) - so this will be my last contribution to this topic. But I think it's fair to say that 99% of people here will be comparing any Sentech tests, to their own experience with ADSL.

So the next time a Sentech test is posted, let's say download speed, or local latency, or peer to peer experiences - what we should do is run our own private ADSL tests, and then either post our results in the ADSL section, or keep it to ourselves. I'm not quite sure how that adds value to the Sentech tests (a bit like testing one brand of Wine but refusing to compare it to any other).

Personally - my need (and I'm sure many others) is to see how Sentech shapes up in relation to their ADSL experience. That will determine how we make a product choice. And while this forum is not associated with any one product, or provider, I would hope that independent user comparisons would be welcomed.

That said... my apolgies if I have misunderstood your topic. From now I guess we should keep the tests completely seperate and make users navigate between the two sections to do their own comparisons.
 
Apparently there are some changes to MyWireless.

1) There will not be a static IP, and there will not be the option of one "at the moment"
2) You will be limited to the speed of the package you buy.

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Hi, first time poster but been reading for a while.

Firstly I agree that there should be comparisons between ADSL and MyWireless as for the most part they are competing for the same market segment i.e. those requiring a 24/7 "broadband" connection. Perhaps once Sentech have officially launched, a new forum section could be created specifically for comparison between these two products (or any others that may arise).

On the topic of international latency, the Sentech product cannot compete as they are using satellite. It's physically impossible (as stated in other topics) for satellite to compete with terrestrial cable. Unless at some point Sentech decide to move entirely to terrestrial cable (SAT-3) you can't expect pings better than 600+ms, thus for those wishing to connect to international game servers MyWireless is probably not an option. Local latency is a different issue as I believe they are using terrestrial links so hopefully local latency will be comparable with ADSL and ISDN.

Karnaugh:

1. It is unfortunate that Sentech have decided against issuing a static IP as I'm sure a lot of people (myself included) would like to access their home computer remotely without the need of a dynamic IP web service. Even if you had to pay a little extra a month I believe it should still be an option.

2. I can understand Sentech's decision in this regard as it's easier to manage bandwidth and QOS when you have definite metrics to work with. Also people would not pay for the 512k package if they knew their 128k package could burst beyond 512k anyway. Rather Sentech put this in place now than pull a Telkom and adjust it after being released [;)]
 
this topic makes me want to go on a binge drinking weekend... who is with? [xx(]
 
Yes well we spoke with the dude I assume is heading up the testing or something at Sentech last night, we discussed it at length and basicly the response to "can we have a static IP" will be "no" and there are no plans to offer it in the package but "our suggestion has been noted"

They made some comments about insufficent IP space, but with a 24/7 service 90% of the people will be using an IP all the time anyway, so not to alocate at least a B block to the service anyway (static or dynamic) would be cripiling to its success at this stage.

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Exactly my point! (in my head at least)

If the IP's are dynamic, which means they don't expect you to be online 99.97% of the time (they claim to have 99.97% uptime), which means you probably will get disconnected every 24hours like telkom, which means that a 3 gig cap is somewhere in the future as well.... wireless.... but wif a cap.... aka telkom wifout wires yo

And like you said, if they expected everyone to be online ALL their claimed uptime, it will mean that everyone is going to be issued at least ONE dynamic IP, might as well make it static ffs!
 
I don't think Sentech will implement a cap anytime soon as they have already factored high utilisation into the price i.e. you're paying 50% more for the 512k package than you would for ADSL. It would also create legal havoc for them given that people will be signing a 24 month contract based on the service description given at this point in time. I'm sure Sentech have noted the amount of heat Telkom has received for changing the specification of the agreed service and being new to the industry it would be financial suicide to follow suit.

On the static IP issue I really hope that someone at Sentech can fill us in on why they've decided to go the dynamic IP route since most people will be constantly connected. Perhaps, like Telkom, they don't want MyWireless to compete with their VSTAR products (where you do get issued a block of static IPs)? Still I think it isn't too much to ask for one measly static IP [;)]
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Perdition</i>
<br />I don't think Sentech will implement a cap anytime soon as they have already factored high utilisation into the price i.e. you're paying 50% more for the 512k package than you would for ADSL. It would also create legal havoc for them given that people will be signing a 24 month contract based on the service description given at this point in time. I'm sure Sentech have noted the amount of heat Telkom has received for changing the specification of the agreed service and being new to the industry it would be financial suicide to follow suit.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

What heat have Telkom taken ? A few people have bitched and moaned. Big deal. What difference has it made - in the bigger picture. Have the things that we've been whining about been rectified? No. There has been smokescreen after smokescreen and at the end of the day, after all our ranting and moaning - "telkom are illegal", "telkom misadvertised", "telkom are milking us dry", there has been no clear breach of contract. Unless Sentech stipulate - in the contract - that a cap will not be implemented you dont really have a leg to stand on, and even then it'll be rather shakey. Always read the fine print. 24 months x R1400 (or whatever it costs) is a lot of $$$.

AHehAHEAHEhHHe
Celery
 
My point was that Sentech cannot afford the kind of bad publicity that Telkom have received. I agree that in the bigger picture it hasn't affected their bottom line at all given that ADSL users account for such a small percentage of their total revenue. Sentech on the other hand have invested a huge amount in making their venture a success, plus a large part of their target market is the current ADSL user base. Why would ADSL users move over to another service if they are just going to be stuffed around again?

I also agree that one should read the fine print. I hope for both the sake of Sentech and their future clients that it does not state they can do whatever the hell they please without repercussion. There are enough jaded ADSL users that the fine print will be scrutinised very closely and I hope Sentech is well aware of this.
 
i will be highly pissed off if there is fine print that says they're able in any way to change the package, u know where it says (shareD) they coood work that into saying u r not sharing fairly thus we are lowering. just read first ppl cause i can just see ppl crying. i donno if this is speculation but at the moment i think its safe to say the closer u r literally to the tower the better lancey ull get (ie ull get a lower ping if u closer) u might beable to get a good signal but that means stuff all to do with ur latency. latency to international servers have pleased many people. I have spoken to a few people who play online at battle.net and i told them a vague figure and they were plessed emensly by it.
I hope that there will be a way in which users will beable to see how close they are to a tower. maybe there will be a map up with distinct locations cause i know cs people will complain if they over 10km from their tower.
evaluate to yourself why you want this product. It can't meet everyones needs. ive heard theres no static ip's atm as its still not on ipv6 or something but there'll be business packages in late march.
the 24/7 is awesome, today it rained and i had no problems. the download speeds are typical towards your package, and as far as i can see there isnt specific port shaping like adsl with kazaa etc...
pings, yes everyone is DYING TO find out. from what ive heard from all the techies ive spoken to and stuff, the tower is the only issue with ur ping, if u within the given radius u should get a ping &lt;5ms, as you go out your ping should range between 5 and 80ms, the people far away getting signal will NOT get a pinger higher than 150. as i was told (remember this is just to the tower, ie first hop).

All what i have said is speculation, nothing is fixed, everything is possible to change, this service has over a month left of testing and tweeking and yes everything can change, until u see your contract in your face things will change, things will stay, and hopefully from all your research into how good this product is going to be for you, you should be able to make a good decission into whether or not you should get this product. just remember R1449x 24 = almost R35 000.
 
as far as i know here are where some of the towers are:
Sandton (not active yet)
Randburg
Cresta
Brixton
Honeydew
Roodepoort

those are the 1's i can remember off hand by the launch there should be a lot more towers so don't worry if u don't fit into that spectrum
 
Thanks for the update Staind. I'm sure they will have some form of "fair use/abuse" clause in the contract, which most broadband providers around the world have. Hopefully they only consider it abuse if you max your line for months on end. Besides even on the 128k package you could pull 40GB a month and most people would run out of things to download after a month or two.

If they were running IPv6 I would expect to have a static IP. Even running IPv4 I don't buy the argument of address shortage as if all their users were to be connected 24/7 they would need enough IP's to accommodate them anyway. Now that there is mention of business packages in the future I think they've decided if people want a static IP badly enough they will upgrade to the business package... very sly.
 
There are 63 towers in gauteng and this is only with launch I think, there's a tower on radio kop, close to some pub thingy, I forget the name. I spoke with someone at Sentech who lives in Weltenvreden park (same are as me, I'm just on top of the hill) and he told me he gets 4 signals which is = to 100% signal strenght just about.

I wonder what they'd charge if I want to upgrade my package, I was thinking of getting the 512k one but to test I reckon the 128k is enough? Although... I'm a speed freak...ARGH! the decisions!!!

LOTR3 rocked ;)
 
I'm also in Weltevreden so glad to hear that it's covered [:)] There are a couple of pubs near Radiokop, there's Shamrock and a Keg.

noone, at this point the 256k package looks to be the best deal for the price unless you really need to pull 160 gigs a month! [:0]
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Besides even on the 128k package you could pull 40GB a month and most people would run out of things to download after a month or two.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

You'd be very suprised.

<b>November</b> : 26.4633 GB downloaded, 37.8888 GB uploaded, 64.3522 GB used
<b>October</b> : 23.8873 GB downloaded, 19.6491 GB uploaded, 43.5364 GB used

And that is mild usage.
 
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