Storms interfere with IBust service

[Gimli_]

I have spoken to a customer liason person at IBurst and she told me... wait for it.. 'These heavy storms interfere with our network. This is a new technology and now people will do intensive research to determine how to solve the problem' Does this mean that every time there is a storm we are going to sit with a useless network? Is the technology prone to failure because of adverse weather conditions?

What do you guys think, have you had the same response or is this the newest, bestest story to cover up all the issues?

 

[Kei]

Of course it is prone to bad weather- just like many forms of Telkom equipment are and the GSM networks are also accordingly affected, unless, there is optical fiber connectivity

 

[Gatecrasher]

I've never had an Iburst connectivity problem during a storm - in fact it often seems to improve (probably because a lot of users switch their computers off, freeing up the network)

I assume there would be a problem if a base station lost power during a storm, or was damaged by high winds or hail. But the technology is not the problem.

 

[Kei]

I have never had any iBurst connectivity problems in storms either and yes it does improve... I concur. Lotsa people disconnect and unplug their comps when the weather comes up..

The technology is entirely not the problem... some sites I think are being connected via old forms of connectivity i.e. copper lines and are thus prone to bad weather. The basestation I am on, also happens to house a TV transmitter so it's got optical fiber and the weather doesn't affect that.

Remember, Telkom is providing the links between the basestations and the central control station I presume to be in Auckland Park...

 

[kingrob]

It's not just storms that interfere with iBurst, it's WBS management and staff as well...

 

[P0tenc]

I have noticed iburst towers wonderboom and sunnyside both go down with heavy weather......and at the same time DSTV as well.

It's up again after a few mins though.

 

[Unchained]

I've found that high winds cause connection probs on Wonderboom tower. I've also raised this issue with WBS recently. The symptoms are similar to my recent probs of not being able to connect from Linux / IPCop, although I do connect for a minute or two occasionally. When the wind subsides, everything's fine again.

 

[Glipsie]

Sounds more like an excuse to me. I remember downloading torrents at 120K in January this year during a VERY bad thunderstorm (lightning struck the tree across the road, which is why I remember ).

 

[Gimli_]

I have also experienced no problem during connection in rain. That is if there is a radio network. The reason I phoned them is because the radio network went down for about two hours (Centurion and Sunnyside). The reason was bad weather. My question is surly they should have the necessary backup power and services to ensure top level of service? In the past week we have experienced one full day without service and 2 hours downtime at 3 different occasions. That is not on.

Apparantly the CSIR tower is the main connection of service to the Pretoria network and the problem originates there?

 

[Luke7777]

Apparantly the CSIR tower is the main connection of service to the Pretoria network and the problem originates there?

Strange, seeing that the CSIR-Menlo tower was the last one to go live ?

 

[Unchained]

On numbering I would say that Sunnypark is the hub, on positioning I would expect Wonderboom to be the hub, especially considering the transmission infrastructure that exists on the hill. But then I've had signal from Sunnypark when Wonderboom was down...

BTW, in my previous post I specifically referred to strong(ish) winds, not rain. Rain has had no detrimental effect for me thus far.

 

[Gimli_]

I am just repeating what they told me, for all I know I have been speaking to a dof-ou and he does not know what he was talking about. Anyway the reason that they gave to be was that the radio network went down as a result of weather, now at that time we did not have rain, wind or anything in Pretoria.

Anyway... pffff

 

[regardtv]

Remember, Telkom is providing the links between the basestations and the central control station I presume to be in Auckland Park...

Not accurate at all ... have a look at the Randpark Ridge tower ..they are running their own wireless links as backhauls ... this has been confirmed a few times in the past.

They are currently self-provisioning... seems their license allows for this.

I don't accept the "weather" excuse ... and nothing official has been posted on their notification site ! ... damn them

 

[8321]

Can we all please try to get, and publish, names of individuals making authoritative statements on behalf of WBS. I am as guilty as anyone. Of course it blows your anonymity.

 

[alchamy]

Just want to add my "The weather does not effect my connection" comment to the thread, never had a weather related problem before, besides when the GPS module on the tower got struck by lightning last November.

 

[regardtv]

If you have ongoing problems please report them here:

http://myadsl.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=32587

Thanks

 

[Kei]

Not accurate at all ... have a look at the Randpark Ridge tower ..they are running their own wireless links as backhauls ... this has been confirmed a few times in the past.

In many cases, i.e. where I live they are indeed using a Telkom link... I can prove it because I spoke to Telkom about it! Roodekrans is running on a fiber onto SDH which then comes out at WBS.

Of course there are the cases where they're using radio links to backhaul.. I didn't say the weren't using these at all.

 

[regardtv]

Interesting that their own RF staff disagree ... oh well.

 

[Crash]

I've found that during a storm, your download speeds are largely unaffected, but upload speeds are pretty bad.

 

[Unchained]

I've watched my signal in Pretoria (Wonderboom) for the last 3 days (variation of utTraceStar) and the longer term average over the 3 days was -90. I specifically noted today, with the rainy weather, that the day average improved to -87, actually going up to -86 for the last while, although I seem to pick up more "ghost" towers (more in both number and occurence).

We fortunately didn't have wind, which normally messes around with the Wonderboom tower.

UTD, no external antenna, not sweet spot optimised.