Lousy Internet Service - part 4

This is just to update my previous entry for the service problem that my family and I were experiencing with Globe’s DSL service.

It’s official – after about five (that I can personally recall) visits from their technical support team who tried to check our signal and the cause for all our service time-outs or inability to connect – specially during the week-ends, the official culprit happens to be their web’s inability to connect constantly with our internet-box (for lack of a more accurate manner of calling it),; be it through wireless means, or through the application of an external antenna to get better feed.

Having discovered that, we tried to see if the service would, at the very least, improve – but apparently, the use of an external antenna did not improve the capturing of any internet signal. As I was watching their technician type out a few DOS commands, and use a speed application - all connected to checking/tracking how strong or how fast the signal was… I noted that there was at least one remote site that was causing the failure.

Now, recalling what I learned about routing technology, I know that if a signal is not able to move one route, it automatically looks for another route – so why did it not happen here? Are we locked in a certain route – and only that route? Is the route that our signal was going to a central repository that could not accommodate us? These were questions I kept mum about, though, as I simply observed how the technician was trying to discover the perplexing problem – and if possible, close the issue.

Unfortunately, after over an hour (maybe even more than two), he had to admit that the problem was indeed related to Globe’s signal – in this case, its inability to receive our packets. Hence we could send, but it was not receiving… but when it sent, we could receive… as evidenced by the speed tests he tried, when the signal was restored (albeit temporarily).

So yesterday, my wife goes to Globe and delivers her request to discontinue Globe’s service to us – based on those findings. And since it wasn’t our fault… a waive of the ‘lock-in period’ – where we would have to use their service for at least a year; as stipulated in our agreement with getting the service, was granted us.

Over-all, it was rather disheartening – especially since I personally saw how Globe’s people were always courteous, accommodating and decisive in helping their subscribers out… a fact borne out of not just my communicating with them, but by observing Barbie’s communications with them by phone as well. I mean, had it not been for the technical issues, I would have been very happy to continue with Globe – who knows, maybe in the future, I will still consider the possibility of having Globe as a service provider for future internet services.

But… with that no longer an option, we now look towards two possibilities – Smart Bro; which is again, another wireless internet service… or maybe consider Sky Internet; which is the internet service provider of Sky Cable – so yes… internet service through cable connection. Since we’re not too convinced with wireless DSL for now, looks like we’re trying the cable option, as I have had at least two confirmations from friends that cable may be more stable than wireless – further corroborated by my brother-in-law, who’s got a relatively high exposure to a lot of computer hardware and set-ups. Of course, if the cable transmission goes down, there goes not just our cable TV viewing, but our internet connection as well. Ah well… then again, maybe not.

Meanwhile, I’m typing this now in my word processor – as opposed to a free form writing directly to the blog site manner… with the hope that when I get a chance to use the internet, be it here – once a new connection is considered, or maybe by way of using an internet kiosk. Either way, I will have this entry ready to be published for this blog, as well as its mirror site.

Why not Smart Bro? Well… to be fair, it is what my in-laws are using in Cavite… and they seem very happy with it’s consistency and speed, but as I said, our experience with Globe’s wireless DSL left us frustrated, and we didn’t want to chance it. After all, it might be connected to the population density of users, and I would guess that Manila has a whole lot more users than Cavite, so success in one site is not an automatic indicator of success in another – possibly more populated area.

When will we be able to experience Sky Internet? Hopefully, within this week.

So once again, here’s hoping that this will be the last of my ‘Lousy Internet’ entries… after all, I don’t want this to be just one more in a series of long rants and raves about the Internet industry – and its inability to offer acceptable quality signal service in particular.

Update on this update(as of February 13, 2009)

It took Sky Internet much longer than the proffered date, and I was getting frustrated with them - after all, they were the ones insisting that I avail of their free trial service.

Over-all, we waited close to two weeks before they finally came. Meanwhile, I was in the middle of negotiations, and my having no internet connections forced me to look for internet cafe - so it was really a great inconvenience. Not a good start, far as I was concerned.

When they finally arrived, I was confused with the need to install another cable line - their explanation was, it had to be separate form the cable TV’s line… okay. Maybe that was the reason the first installation seemed unable to catch some signal… maybe the first newly installed cable had incompatibility issues which they later realized but did not want to announce… lord knows that happens, as I’ve had my share of LAN frustrations before - only to finally track things back to the cable that was, for all intents and purposes - supposedly compatible (weird but true). Still, I was just glad they came - albeit rather late, and even helped by assisting them with menial details like holding the flashlight for better illumination, as they worked with their new cable layout.

Then comes the next frustration - for some reason, the internet was having a limited to no access… and their technician could not make heads or tails about it. It was obviously the first time he’d encountered something like this - and he just could not go around the problem. As it was close to 10pm already, we just agreed to continue this the next day - thinking it was just fatigue keeping us from finding the answer.

Why was this happening? For starters, I suspect it had something to do with either their set-up or my PCs configuration - to test one or the other, we tried the same set-up with Barbie’s laptop… and it did not connect either.

So they left… leaving me with some frustration. Then after I had taken a shower, and dinner… I tried once again… this time, double checking my PC’s security options. I tweaked things a bit… and suddenly found the internet just working!

Hnh… so what was the problem? I’d say the number one problem was the fact that the technician was not familiar with Vista… but Barbie’s laptop was using Win2K, and yet they were unable to make it run there too. Of course, Barbie’s PC had a lot of security too. So was having too much security a problem? After all, the PC or laptop couldn’t very well be without any security whatsoever.

Point was, by the time the technician finally came, I showed them a working PC - we then tried connecting to the PC downstairs - and once again, they could not find the reaosn for its not cooperating… and this PC had just been reformatted - so no security problems here.

Again, they left… unable to help, but secure with the thought that we had one PC working with their connection… and again, I was left pondering the problem. My brother-in-law, Benedict said it might be that their modem had ways of making usre only one connection was running - even if we tried a router connection… but the router connection was only tried when the first PC was already working, and the second was not… so it wasn’t the router.

When Barbie finally arrived from work, I twreaked her laptop - basically undoing whatever the technicians did - and viola…! Her laptop cold access the internet by wireless connection - so scratch router issue.

I would have thought that the cable might be a possible problem, but ther was limited connection - had it been cable-related, there would have been no connection at all. So having been bouyed by the fact that I had solved 2/3 of our connectivity concern, I again searched for ways and means to connect the PC downstairs with our router.

Things might have been simpler if I had access to the router’s website - but I did not… and thought restarting from scratch was always an option, I did not want to change things in that manner until I was sure I tried everything.

Apparently… just like the first PC, there were conflicting messages between the PC and once I streamlined those security instructions, things started going smoothly.

So now… no thanks to the Sky Broadband tech folks, I was finally able to get my home network running. a sI said in my Facebook shout out, I was glad tht somehow, someway, i retained what I knew about LAN design… though like the technicians, I was also having some adjustment period with Microsoft Vista… though I also have to say that its auto repair optiosn got things running faster - soon as I found possible problems.

So far, its been three days since we had this connection, and I’m glad to say that we’ve not had intermittent problems with the cable internet signal… and hopefully, with fingers crossed and all, I hope this will be my last internet frustration article.

Lousy Internet Service part 3

The last thing I thought of before, was to see this write up in three parts - alas, fate dealt a different blow, and I'm forced to share, once again, my frustrations with the Internet service... or to be clearer, non-service might be a better word. that we - as in my family and i, were experiencing.

Last time, I wrote about how frustrated we were with PLDT's DSL service being intermittent... and as the holiday came - non-existent. Well, this made us decide to shift from PLDT to Globe - after all, we were hearing good comments from people we knew about how stable their Globe internet was - so we did just that. We got ourselves a Globe wireless DSL, complete with a phone... and the first few months were heaven.

Service was fast, and consistent. I thought that was it for this article... in fact, I think I wrote part two of this as a form of closure... just to let others know how much better my internet service was those days.

I guess good things don't last... and now I'm writing this in reaction to once again not having any internet service at all during the holidays... zip... nada... nothing. unless you accept the fact that we'd get about 5 minutes worth of service - then two hours of no service... I mean, c'mon... 5 minutes, at the speed i was getting, wasn't even enough to update a Facebook status... let alone, read and answer email from friends. So yeah... I'd say, there was no decent internet service available to our household during December.

To Globe's credit though, their customer service was way better than what we experienced with PLDT - they were kind and responsive... we had people come in to check our hardware (checked out okay), they suggested we had an external antenna connected - just in case it was all these concrete walls in close proximity limiting the search and acquisition of their signal; and their technician came after a few days to do just that.

So here we were, with a hot spanking new external antenna - and we still could not receive consistent internet signals. To make sure, the technician double-checked our modem and PC... no problem there... so that left us with one possible problem... the transmitter.

Now I won't pretend to know the details of how wireless internet connection works exactly, but I have this sneaky feeling that there is a pool of available signals up for grabs - and to ensure that services are not poor, there would - in my opinion, have to be a ceiling to be followed as to how many people should share said signal. Go beyond that and we start feeling degradation of said signal. I mean, that seems to be the way in wired networks - so I think wireless would have the same headaches.

At first, our wonderful internet service was starting show stressful moments during week-ends, meaning there seemed to be difficulty at our getting any connection starting Friday evenings, and that would last until Sunday... which led me to think that the shared pool considered the possibility that not everyone would use the maximum capacity all the time, since most would be in school or at work... great business sense - if you can get away with it. But the service we signed up for was supposed to be unlimited, meaning it should be available 24/7 - which was clearly not the case. Now I don't know if people pretended not to know - which would mean they were trying to get away with the capacity load problem, or worse... were really inept at ensuring service was being given... but whichever the case may be, the end result was lousy internet service.

Like I said - hats off to the customer service pool, all the way to the responsive technicians... but what happens when the problem is more infrastructure? I heard that there was a hardware change - from Nokia transmitters to another brand... Erickson, I think, which might explain part of the reason for the degrading of signal sometime December, but after that had been properly installed and working, shouldn't the service (and signal) be better? I mean, wouldn't that be the idea?

It looks like a classical case of 'Sales' over-selling the available service - either ignorant of... or just ignoring any performance ceiling... and 'technical' getting stuck with the 'overstretched coverage' or 'spread out too thin signal' to meet customers' demands problem in this one... but the bottom line is, we... the paying consumers, get left in the poor service rut, and we don't really care which department is at fault.

Sure... Globe may be willing to talk about rebates or write-offs for services undelivered... but how do you equate the inability to connect to friends and loved ones during these past holidays? Now these may not have been transactions worth millions - but they were lost cherished moments, nonetheless.

Aside from that... it can simply be frustrating when for all your efforts in trying to do some possible repairs to get the system running, all I get from Windows is the diagnostic message: There may be a problem with your Domain Name Server (DNS) configuration. Windows failed to fins a well known host "www.microsoft.com" using the DNS. The server may be down.

As it is, we're thinking of switching to another provider - sure, there's a lock-down on the service, but if one party can't seem to deliver what was the agreed upon service, isn't the other party within their right to dissolve the contract? After all, we were never delinquent with our payments.

The big question though, is... if the two biggest Telecom service providers in the Philippines can't deliver internet service that is both responsive and really available 24/7 - specially during weekends, then who do we turn to?

A friend mentioned cable... and we already do have cable TV, so maybe... just maybe... that would be worth a try. So definitely, I'll have a part four for this... and hopefully... it will be a real closure to this problem.