This must be wrong

G

GreatBigMouth

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Right, I'm getting 80 - 90% signal strength with my UTD, yet UT Tracestar says my average strength is only -97? This is interesting, as I'm downloading at 80+kB/s.
 
Surprisingly, the load was only 1. It's impossible that it can only be -97db, since I'm now getting 94% signal strength.
 
Its not that impossible, thats why those lights arent the best thing around. The lights on your modem come straight from the "signal strength" reported by that app, and its not very trust worthy.

Your load of 1 is whats getting you your speeds..
 
It's probably a combination of all those factors and would explain why you were only getting 80kB/s
 
I think the Iburst app gives 100% signal strength at about -90db or lower which it is not very useful for optimising your signal strength. Considering that a signal strength of -72db is 8 times stronger than -90db, the Iburst app is a very blunt tool indeed. utTraceStar gives much more useful signal definition.
 
GreatBigMouth said:
So basically it's the load that increases and decreases speed, and not the signal strength?
Click to expand...

I wouldnt say its only the load at all, your signal will play a big role especially if your signal is very bad. But once you have a good signal or even without it, a high tower load has the power to slow your connection speeds considerably.

But the normal idea is that only signal matters, and some people call 5 lights full signal as if it cant get better, thus they complain about a crappy service even with "full signal". The y ignore loda or real signal.

-90Db is a pretty shocking value for 100% signal to be reported though... I'd say putting 100% at around 70Db would give a much better range for people to work with and guage their connection accuratley... iBurst should really adjust this is a firmware update. But of course that will make their service look worse because lights would start dropping all over the place.
 
You can't even go by the iBurst coverage map since I get full speed yet I'm in the "Fair Indoor" 525kbps mid green area according to the map.
 
MrH said:
You can't even go by the iBurst coverage map since I get full speed yet I'm in the "Fair Indoor" 525kbps mid green area according to the map.
Click to expand...

Yes, I know. I'm zoned for Fair Indoor as well, yet I average at around 700kb/s - 800kb/s.

What do people mean when they say "5 lights" on the modem? My modem only has one flashing light, which changes color when it's getting a bad signal. I assume you have an older modem?
 
Yes, the older modems had a row of 5 lights, I was wondering where that was on the new one from looking at the pictures.

So now you just get a green or orange or red light.. Well the lights were even worse than the signal reporting.

And OMFG! Mr.H is only in fair-indoor and has a better connection that anyone (except maby that michael guy..) without using a antenna. Prety damn bad maps.. but i guess your height helps too, it gives you direct LOS. Nice to know that the maps are often over conservative.
 
I think that Iburst makes those coverage maps inaccurate on purpose to cover their asses if you in fact don't get the speed the coverage map says you will.

PS: The signal strength meter MUST be better on the new modems, since I have 94% signal and 992kb/s. When I have 70% signal, I get about 700kb/s and when I have 50% signal, it's at 500kb/s.

It seems to be following a little pattern.....
 
Actually on the old map I was in the dark green area and was surprised to see that on the new map that area had shrunk and now I am in the midgreen area.

Maybe it would be better if they either fix those maps or remove them from the website as it gives totally wrong impression as to who is in a good area and who is not.
Whoever made those maps does not seem to know what he/she was doing.

So for any posible new customers I suggest that they forget looking at the map and rather just get a signal strength test done before deciding whether to get iBurst or not.
 
True, but a map does help a lot to give some indication, I mean without them people wouldn't even know if their area is vaguely covered. And they are slightly "accurate" to the extent of showing you where signal will be a lot worse probably due to some obstruction.

But rather don't use it for trying to guess your signal, of course if you can see that you are in dark green it will pretty much always be good.
 
Think about it. The coverage you get is usually better than what the map says, so basically it's not misleading new customers. I was really surprised when I first hooked up my modem and got 800kb/s, because I expected only around 400 - 500.
 
Oh yes. This one isn't misleading, but it's surely pathetic! One of their ads stated that they offer "The most affordable landline to landline and DSL connection in South Africa."

THEY ARE THE ONLY DSL LINE PROVIDER!!! (And that goes for landline too)
 
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