Derrick
ლ(ಠ_ಠ )ლ
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,085
- Reaction score
- 5
I have always been a little sceptical about the grand claims that were made about WiMAX by all the early promoters and evangelists of the technology. I have now unfortunately been proved right.
I was selected to participate in the MWeb WiMAX trials that began recently. I submitted my details and everything looked quite promising since I live less the 1 km from my local trial base station. Within a few days of being accepted to the trial I was phoned by someone from MWeb and given my login details.
Then came the first disappointment: It took over a month from the first phonecall to the date that the technician came to install the WiMAX modem. I can accept that it is a trial phase but how are they going to cope with the install demand on the production network when they can’t even compete with Telkom install times on a carefully selected group of less than 100 users.
Install day came and I had been promised a complete installation before 12pm since I had back to back appointments for the whole afternoon. 12:10 came and I had given up on the technicians and was preparing to leave when there was suddenly a knock on the door.
All the components, cables and test equipment are unpacked only to discover that they didn’t have any mounting poles. A couple of phonecalls later and it transpired that the poles are almost an hours drive away with one of he other technicians. Time for some more patience.
When the other technician eventually arrived it was only then possible to do a full signal test and check the viability of the connection. Four metre pole in hand the technician jumped on the roof and pointed the antenna in various directions. Maximum signal strength detected was 3 bars – apparently you need at least 4 bars to open a connection.
Many weeks of waiting and a number of hours of patience with the technicians and all I get is the opportunity to sign the job card and tick the “no coverage” box.
In comparison – my iBurst connection gives a fairly healthy 60-70% signal strength. This using an antenna tied to the top of my roof with string and connecting to a base station more than double the distance away in the same direction.
I desperately hope that WiMAX has more to offer us than this. We need as much competition as possible in the Internet access industry and if the ‘amazing’ WiMAX technology is unable to compete against iBurst then all the WiMAX efforts will be for nought.
I was selected to participate in the MWeb WiMAX trials that began recently. I submitted my details and everything looked quite promising since I live less the 1 km from my local trial base station. Within a few days of being accepted to the trial I was phoned by someone from MWeb and given my login details.
Then came the first disappointment: It took over a month from the first phonecall to the date that the technician came to install the WiMAX modem. I can accept that it is a trial phase but how are they going to cope with the install demand on the production network when they can’t even compete with Telkom install times on a carefully selected group of less than 100 users.
Install day came and I had been promised a complete installation before 12pm since I had back to back appointments for the whole afternoon. 12:10 came and I had given up on the technicians and was preparing to leave when there was suddenly a knock on the door.
All the components, cables and test equipment are unpacked only to discover that they didn’t have any mounting poles. A couple of phonecalls later and it transpired that the poles are almost an hours drive away with one of he other technicians. Time for some more patience.
When the other technician eventually arrived it was only then possible to do a full signal test and check the viability of the connection. Four metre pole in hand the technician jumped on the roof and pointed the antenna in various directions. Maximum signal strength detected was 3 bars – apparently you need at least 4 bars to open a connection.
Many weeks of waiting and a number of hours of patience with the technicians and all I get is the opportunity to sign the job card and tick the “no coverage” box.
In comparison – my iBurst connection gives a fairly healthy 60-70% signal strength. This using an antenna tied to the top of my roof with string and connecting to a base station more than double the distance away in the same direction.
I desperately hope that WiMAX has more to offer us than this. We need as much competition as possible in the Internet access industry and if the ‘amazing’ WiMAX technology is unable to compete against iBurst then all the WiMAX efforts will be for nought.